hollywood sequels part I (successful)

so hollywood loves its fucking sequels. everybody knows it. they come out all the time. although this summer seems to be more about the remake than the sequel (house of wax, the longest yard, mr. & mrs. smith, the honeymooners, bewitched, herbie: fully loaded, war of the worlds, charlie and the chocolate factory, the bad news bears, the dukes of hazzard, the pink panther, and on and on and on and on). my message is this. sequels, spinoffs, whatever, don't work. they rarely are good movies and more importantly to hollywood at least, they don't make money. doing a little research i saw that of the 29 sequels released in the past year and a half, only 5 made more money than the original. only 5. and one of those is the chronicles of riddick which shouldn't really count because when the sequel costs 5 times as much as the original but can only scrounge up a few extra million in gross, that's hardly what they call a success.

these are the sequels that actually grew an audience from the first one, which is what they all should do.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse made 18% more than Resident Evil
The Chronicles of Riddick made 27% more than Pitch Black
The Bourne Supremacy made 35% more than The Bourne Identity
Meet the Fockers made 45% more than Meet the Parents
Shrek 2 made 49% more than Shrek

these sequels made sense because each one of those original films made buckets in dvd and vhs rentals. this is the key to judging a growing fan base. dvd sales can be attributed to the same bunch of people that saw the movie in the theater. but if you're movie has legs on the rental chart, chances are you are making new fans that didn't see it in the theater, but will head out for the sequel.

now, before we get to part II, which is the flip side of the coin and contains references to many depressing movies, let me say this. i am not against the sequel. two of my favorite films from last year were harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban and before sunset (neither of which made more than their predecessor). a great sequel can improve the original and make the characters seem like real people you know. i just think hollywood needs to be a little more selective with what it greenlights. as this will attest to. . . . . .