With the rumours this week that Disney are planning a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, to add to the already successful franchise, surely it is time to look at the industry and ask the question has the business of the sequel gone too far?Other projects that are rumoured to be on the cards, for Disney alone, include a third outing for National Treasure and a second Cars, which was arguably the weakest of the Pixar/Disney collaborations.Plus movies like Batman, Hulk, Indiana Jones and The Mummy, which will all be fighting it out to be top of the box office this summer, are all, at least, on their second picture except The Mummy which is on it’s third and a fourth for Indy.It follows the same pattern as last summer where Transformers, which will no doubt go on to be a franchise of its own, was the only original blockbuster as Pirates, Spidey, Shrek and Bourne all wrapped up their respective trilogies.So I suppose my question is this is the big business for sequels damaging and clogging up the movie industry?A second or third movie to a successful debut is, without a doubt, a great way for studios to make the big bucks exploiting the general public to buy into a franchise two or three times over, and yes I have done it myself.
Takes Pirates of the Caribbean for example Curse of the Black Pearl was a top of the range action adventure movie that created one of the biggest cinema icons, in Captain Jack Sparrow, of the last decade.
It succeeded where so many other pirate movies had failed that Disney pressed forward to produce two more films: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.
While both movies are in the top five biggest grossing films of all time, Dead Man’s Chest took just over $1billion at the global box office at three and At World’s End at five grossing just over $958 million, they failed to match Curse of the Black Pearl’s critical response.
There’s a famous saying that the first is always the best. But why is this why can’t the quality of the first movie be replicated in those to follow?
Did Disney’s haste to cash in on this unexpected success have a detrimental effect on the quality if these two movies?
And Pirates is not alone George Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy, Shrek the Third, Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter and have all suffered from critical negativity despite most of them appearing in the top twenty biggest grossing films of all time.
Compare this to the recent Academy Awards Best Picture category which contained: There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno and Michael Clayton . Together they had one of the lowest box office grosses for this awards category in twenty years.
Despite this they are all high quality, original one off movies that achieved critical acclaim.
However the low gross of these movies did lead to some saying that the Oscars has become distanced from what has been successful at the box office and that nominations should follow, to a certain degree, public popularity.
But did we really want to see Spiderman 3 or Shrek the Third win a Best Picture Oscar? I don’t think so!
It is fair to say that the blockbusters are there as a form of entertainment, and while the Oscar nominees may have the backing of the critics they were all a bit dark and depressing.
And while I don’t actually have a problem with the idea of sequels it’s some of the second rate filmmaking that is being released in order to make money and exploit cinema goers that I have a major problem with.
I do genuinely hope that a fourth Pirates movie is on the cards as Sparrow is a great film character and Curse of the Black Pearl was such a fabulous movie.
It is rumoured that the film, if made, would be looking at a 2011 release so that gives Disney plenty of time to get together a great script and make up for mistakes made in the past with this franchise.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw