Twitch-O-Meter: Sequel-ize It!

Posted by Collin Armstrong at 7:22am.

Posted in Twitch-O-Meter .

Many a storied film has seen its legacy tarnished by inferior follow-ups. More often than not these subsequent entries are little more than desperate cash-ins designed to milk the baser elements of what made the original such a success, with no real aim toward creating an experience unique unto themselves. It doesn’t take much thought to generate a long list of such titles - Godfather III, Speed 2, the post-Keaton / pre-Bale Batman offerings, the entire Jaws lineage, The Sting 2, the morose Matrix follow-ups….

Of course there are some decent - perhaps even superior - second, third, even fourth and on entries in series, a few of which were discussed in a previous Twitch-O-Meter right here. But what about those films that hinted at a continuation, or at least seemed ripe for expansion to audiences but never – for whatever reason (nine times out of ten that would be financial) – returned to the big or even small screen? Some films actually deserve a sequel or two…

Big Trouble in Little China - two weeks in a row of giving props to Carpenter’s homage to Tsui Hark and King Hu’s candy-colored HK fantasy flicks might give the impression we here at Twitch are a little partial to such hair-brained mash-ups and, well, we kind of are. Regardless, the further adventures of Jack Burton (in the ol’ Pork Chop Express) would almost certainly be welcomed across all of fandom. The original’s “gotcha!” ending can be read as nothing more than another in a long line of goofs on Kurt Russel’s slow-witted anti-hero Burton, but it left the door wide open for another chapter of mis-adventures. Big Trouble’s poor performance at the box office and Carpenter’s subsequent (and consistent) financial failings have almost surely sealed any chance of the film being resurrected.

Serenity - it’s probably asking too much for a sequel to Joss Whedon’s miracle baby of a film (spun from Fox’s under-performing, cult cowboys-in-space skein”Firefly”) but damn it – I want more! Never a huge fan of the series, I was so taken with its big-screen adaptation I’ve since re-visited it and have begun to appreciate its bizarre charms. It took such a massive groundswell of fan support to launch Serenity in the first place, seeing as how it didn’t set the box office on fire, yet another follow-up seems unlikely. Were Whedon and Co. willing to scale back and produce something designed for the DTV market, who knows? At least Fox seems willing to listen to its fans (see also “Futurama” and “Family Guy”).

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins - perhaps cursed by its titular hubris, this adventure ended before it even started. The chemistry between Fred Ward as a wiseacre super spy and Joel Gray as his finicky Korean(!) trainer was a small wonder, and the film itself was a pulpy romp through all variety of nefarious corporate schemes and double-crosses. Seemingly a natural for a franchise, with a slew of source material in the form of Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy’s “Destroyer” series of novels, Remo just didn’t click with mass auds. It’s too bad, but perhaps for the best – Ward morphed into such an ace character player in the years that followed it’s hard to think that a number of much-beloved, odd-ball titles (like Tremors) would’ve been the same without him.

Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction - “The Vega Brothers” – one of motor-mouthed Taratino’s many bandied-about, non-starting projects would’ve taken a look at the lives of Michael Madsen and John Travolta’s vicious siblings before and after the events of Dogs and Fiction, respectively. From the way Tarantino talked about the project, it always sounded like a gas – something along the lines of the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn with a lot more funk. Alas, while Quentin’s still got the wild-card goods (you read it - Deathproof rocked your mother), Madsen has seen whatever star wattage he possessed dim to DTV-levels and Travolta seems content to toil in saccharine studio fare. As recently as this year the auteur has discussed “The Vega Brothers” (under the title “Double V Vega”), but even he admits there’s little chance of it seeing daylight.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - such a strange, strange film. Also a complete blast from start to finish. It’s no wonder why a picture focused on a rock star / brain surgeon / superhero fighting monsters (all named “John”) from another dimension for galactic supremacy epitomizes the word “cult” and would never, no matter how deserving, be continued in the fashion it deserves. Director W.D. Richter had his hands in a number of iconoclastic film enterprises (including, as a writer, the stellar ’78 reworking of Body Snatchers and the afore-mentioned Big Trouble). The film’s gonzo, go-for-broke attitude and once-in-lifetime cast (Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Clancy Brown, Vincent Schiavelli, Dan Hedaya, Jamie Lee Curtis...) marked it as something special, though despite an announcement of a follow-up film in the end credit roll (“Buckaroo Banzai Vs. The World Crime League”) nothing ever came to pass.

Of course there are other deserving non-franchises out there – and maybe you think the above should be left alone for the good of society. Any suggestions? Rebuttals? Warm-hearted messages of love and happiness in keeping with the season? Fire away!

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Reader Comments

Ard Vijn 11/20/2007 @ 8:05am

Good subject, Mack!

Last week I mentioned “Tron”, and that movie would have made a great franchise (or at the very least a television series).
Peter K. 11/20/2007 @ 9:44am

Do you guys realize that a script was written for Buckaroo Banzai and the World Crime League and Jack Burton was a character Buckaroo enlists along the way? I can’t remember the source, it might of been on the new DVD or one of those Banzai Institute sites.
Collin Armstrong 11/20/2007 @ 10:05am

Ooh, TRON is a good one, Ard!

- COLLIN

The Banzai / Burton team up is threatening my sanity…
Kurt Halfyard 11/20/2007 @ 11:29am

I think Doubleviking mentions that Banzai/Burton thingy in their retrospective review (Real Me Love...) of Buckaroo
Swarez 11/20/2007 @ 11:35am

I find that Death proof comment offensive.

I have wished and wished for a Big Trouble sequel ever since I saw it (it is my all time favorite Carpenter film) but I guess that will never happen now.

The same goes for Buckaroo Banzai.

I guess Remo Williams films could do something today if one would throw some Jason Bourne flair in to them.
Arch Stanton 11/20/2007 @ 2:02pm

Absolutely agree with BIG TROUBLE, SERENITY and BANZI. Would also love to see sequels ( as long as they’re good ) to KISS KISS BANG BANG and GROSSE POINT BLANK . Sequels to STREETS OF FIRE and ZERO EFFECT would be cool but those would never happen.
Geert Jan 11/20/2007 @ 3:06pm

Say what you want about the Matrix sequels, but if they hadn’t been made, The Matrix would’ve definitely been on this list.
Andrew Cunningham 11/20/2007 @ 4:16pm

Wright/Pegg/Frost were talking about their idea to do a really good sequel to a really bad movie.
I vote Super Mario Bros.
DJensen 11/20/2007 @ 11:09pm

I’m at a loss to contribute much of a list. I scanned through my movie ratings on Facebook and it turns out a good portion of them have already been sequelized, are sequels, part of full-blown trilogies, or the sequels sucked. But here:

THE FIFTH ELEMENT - It’s a big, fun movie, with sets and costumes and action sequences and editing that puts most films in the same category to shame.

A bit of an odd choice for this site, but I have to add:
BARAKA - Are they even *filming* Samsara yet? Wasn’t it supposed to be released a year ago?

I’d like to see some stylistic sequels of these, without any direct ties to the original characters or plots:
BRICK
PRIMER
CRANK
Rhythm-X 11/21/2007 @ 1:34am

CRANK is getting a sequel - Jason Statham will be returning. It is an actual sequel according to the directors. Should be interesting. Google has more, in the name of avoiding CRANK spoilers.

THE STORMRIDERS never got the sequel it should have had, due mostly to bad luck and misguided business dealings. Andy Lau was going to produce it, then his company folded. Andrew Lau,director of the original, couldn’t seem to quite get it off the ground - plus he got sidetracked by the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy, INITIAL D, and a bunch of crap I won’t bother mentioning. One of the Pang brothers seems to think he’ll actually be able to get a new STORMRIDERS movie going. I’ll believe it when I see it.

LORD OF THE RINGS (Ralph Bakshi) - I’d liked to have seen Bakshi get to finish his take on the material. I like the film, rotoscoping and all.

ZOOLANDER - Ben Stiller dipped his toes into an almost Stephen Chow-esque sort of nonsensical comedy (GAS FIGHT!) and came out with a film that never fails to make me laugh a whole lot. Pity it opened two weeks after 9/11, just enough time to digitally remove the World Trade Center from the film. The sequel possibilities are endless and they must involve Billy Zane extensively. This found its audience on cable and video, so while it’s unlikely, stranger things have happened than a ZOOLANDER sequel.
Swarez 11/21/2007 @ 2:42am

ZOOLANDER: International male model of mystery! I like it.
Collin Armstrong 11/21/2007 @ 9:03am

I’d watch a ZOOLANDER sequel. That movie always amuses me.
Rhythm-X 11/21/2007 @ 10:31am

Speaking of Stephen Chow - FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE would have made for one hell of a franchise, for obvious reasons. I’d love to see him revisit 007 now that he can get the budget to take it to another level visually. It’d never make it past the legal department, though - the Bond people guard their trademarks zealously. Chow got away with it before because he was under the radar of English-speakers. That’s no longer the case - unless he had their explicit permission it’d probably never happen.
Chris 11/21/2007 @ 11:09am

I just watched Galazy Quest again last night. I think that one actually has great sequel potential.
Chris 11/21/2007 @ 11:10am

Galaxy. I was a bit galazy with my once-over there.
Caterpillar 11/21/2007 @ 10:08pm

A whole franchise of MASTER AND COMMANDER films would’ve been very awesome.
Ard Vijn 11/22/2007 @ 7:50am

All of a sudden I understand why COLLIN was in Caps in his reply. Sorry Mack, I mean Collin…