Top Ten… Movies That Should've Had Sequels!
Sequels are a funny thing. Ocassionally a home run’ll get hit and something like The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II will come along and blow everyone’s mind, but for every Wrath of Khan there’s a King Kong Lives, a Beneath the Planet of the Apes or Rocky V. More often than not, watching a sequel you find yourself thinking “why was this made?” but once in a while a film ends and you think “god damn, I wish I could find out what happened next.” With that in mind, let’s look at the top ten movies that should’ve had sequels. Onward!
10. The Monster Squad
Any kid who grew up loving monster movies saw and loved this movie. A group of kids teaming up with Frankenstein’s Monster and Van Helsing to take out Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Yes, please. A sequel, of course, could’ve brought the Count back with a bunch of new monsters for round two, but sadly our monster kid prayers were never answered.
9. Enter the Dragon
Bruce Lee could’ve been the Asian James Bond had Enter the Dragon been sequelled and made into a series. Unfortunatley, the little issue of Bruce’s death got in the way and what could have been an awesome film series was never to be. Enter the Dragon plays a lot like a Bond movie – the villain even has a Persian Cat – and it’s easy to imagine a series of four or five movies starring Lee being sent to take down various chop socky badguys.
8. The Rocketeer
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The Rocketeer is a great characte and a great comic but a pretty forgetable movie made the character pretty much unknown amongst casual movie fans these days. Given the chance to develop with another movie or two, the Rocketeer could easily be as well known today as Indiana Jones or James Bond. A series about a guy with a jetpack vs all manner of nefearious Nazis and Commies – sounds good to me.
7. Cloverfield
I still hold out hope for a Cloverfield sequel. The way I see it is we either continue the story or we see the first movie from another angle, be it another group of people with a camera or in a more traditional monster movie style, but either way, I want to see more. The cool thing with Cloverfield was that we, as monster movie fans, know the granite jawed generals ad bespectacled scientists were hard at work somewhere, but we never saw them. A sequel (or, more acurately, an “equal”) told in a more conventional manner would be cool to see.
6. Dracula
The 1979 version starring the great Frank Langella here, I for one would love to see the continuation of the story. The film strongly hints that Dracula perhaps survives the film but, sadly, Langella wasn’t interested – he had played Dracula for years on Broadway before appearing in the movie and he felt it was time to move on. A shame, but not an insurmountble obstacle since Langella was suceeded in the role on stage by none other than Jeremy Brett. Jeremy Brett as Dracula in an unashamedly lavish and romantic sequel to an unashamedly lavish and romantic original? If only.
5. The Shadow
Like Dracula, the ending of The Shadow strongly hints at a sequel, but alas it was never to be. The Shadow is one of my favorite comic book characters so it’s perhaps selfishness on my part to wish there had been at least one sequel, but still, it would’ve been great to see Alec Baldwin back as the living shadow. With a history dating back to 1930, story ideas were hardly thin on the ground, but the film wasn’t the runaway sucess the studio hoped it would be, so any and all sequels were nixed. A real shame – and maybe they could’ve even fixed the makeup and made it less goofy.
4. Conan the Destroyer
To be fair, a new Conan movie is coming out next year, but Oliver Stone and John Millius’ original plan of doing a Conan movie every two years or so and making it an ongoing series a-la 007 sadly never came to fruition. The idea was to bring the Governator back and use a new Robert Howard inspired plot each time, but the failure of Conan the Destroyer to set the box office on fire killed that idea deader than one of Conan’s enemies. There was talk of a new Conan movie with Triple H a while ago, but nothing came of it and, best of all, there were rumours of a movie starring Arnie as King Conan flew around but, sadly, it never happened.
3. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever doesn’t count. What I would loved to have seen is a continuation of the story laid out in OHMSS, starring George Lazenby, and showing Bond trying to deal with the death of Tracy, messing up a mission and being fired by M and then setting out, License to Kill-style, to find and kill Blofeld. Bond in DAF doesn’t seem to give a toss that Blofeld killed his wife, trading barbs with the guy like they’re old sparring partners.
2. Army of Darkness
Regardless of wether we’re talking about the original S-Mart ending or the “I slept too long” ending, Army of Darkness is wide open for a sequel. Ash in the present day wiping out Deadites? Yes, please. Ash in post-apocolyptic England wiping out Deadites? Yes, please. Either way, I’m a happy guy. Or not, as the case may be, since a sequel was never made. With a budget of $11 million and a domestic gross of $11.5 million it’s no surprise that a sequel was never forthcoming, but a guy can dream, right? The real question, of course, is wether it would be called Evil Dead 3 or Army of Darkness 2…
1. Return of the Jedi
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the prequel trilogy, but I can’t help but wish Lucas would lure Harrison Ford back into the old waistcoat and convince Mark Hamill to wield a lightsaber three more times and give us episodes VII, VIII and IX. Timothy Zahn already wrote a sequel trilogy, so the stories are there, and it’s not as through Lucas doesn’t have the money, so what’s the hold up? I sat through Indiana Jones 4, so the way I see it is Lucas and Ford *owe* me at least one more Star Wars movie. But please, no Ewoks or Gungans this time, I’m begging you.
Admittedly, if sequels to these movies had been made, there’s every chance they would’ve sucked, but still, it’s fun to imagine what might have been. In any case, gimmie your thoughts below. Something about comics next, I promise. No, really! End transmission.
Comment from James Tyler
Time May 12, 2010 at 1:48 pm
The Rocketeer was… well, I can’t remember and I don’t mind. The Shadow was just… it was a good character, but the flm was lacking something and felt way too cartoony. Usually I like that, but the film left me feeling a bit uncaring towards it.
I keep hearing rumours about Cloverfield, but it usually takes Hollywood that long to decide on something, then even longer to fiddle with it – that it’s probably better left alone. Besides, it could end up being too repetitive/derivative of the original, or much like the Matrix, the sequel could have it fall from good movie to bargain bucket in HMV.
If you do a list of films that should never have had sequels, Matrix is way up there. And Cube.
Although it’s far removed from Dracula – despite havg him as a character (well, a version) – the disappointing Blade Trinity could have had a sequel that could have picked the franchise up again. I can’t remember which cut it was, but one of them left with the feeling that Blade had turned bad. And that could have made a more interesting twist.
…that and finding a way to resurrect Whistler.