With all of the talk about movies being converted to 3-D to cash in on the Avatar craze, a trend in movies is being overlooked by many. Filmmakers have started taking movies they hope will become a series and leaving the first installment open ended to lead right into an immediate sequel. This has been done with GI Joe, Sherlock Holmes, and The Losers.
That doesn’t sound like a good business plan to me. What if the film tanks at the box office? People who did go to see it get cheated because there is no follow up and the story is never finished. Golden Compass anyone? There was a reason most film series’ followed the original Star Wars blueprint of stand alone first film followed by two interrelated sequels, it work. Lord of the Rings doesn’t count as that was really one long story cut into three parts and everybody knew that going in.
I know that these are bad economic times and the studios are trying to maximize profits with ready made material to appeal to a large demographic, but what they fail to grasp is that people aren’t going to go to movies if they know they aren’t going to get the full story for their $10. Studios should really be following the Batman franchise set up, the first one had Ras Al Ghul defeated but there is a new criminal in town leaving playing cards at his crime scenes, implying The Joker will be the villain in the followup, and then in the next film Batman defeats The Joker but has to go on the run as a outlaw. You get a complete story each time and a teaser to make you want to come back to see what happens next.
And here’s the thing. This actually works to build up anticipation for a sequel. Just look at Iron Man.
