When a movie makes enough money at the box office and garners a big enough fan base, the financiers are eager to produce a sequel. However, it takes a lot of factors for a sequel to come together – the actors’ availability, getting the script right, the alignment of the stars etc. – so sequels sometimes arrive years later than their predecessors.
Sometimes, these belated sequels are worth the wait. More often than not, they’re a bitter disappointment that tarnishes the reputation of the original. But there is the occasional gem that recaptures the magic of its predecessor while remaining fresh enough to justify the existence of a follow-up. So, here are 5 belated sequels that we’re glad we finally got to see, and 5 we wish never happened.
Glad It Got Made: Blade Runner 2049
Ridley Scott’s existential neo-noir Blade Runner is one of cinema’s great untouchable masterpieces (although it keeps getting touched by Scott himself as he recuts it every couple of years), but if anyone could helm a satisfying sequel 35 years after the original hit theaters, it was the visionary Denis Villeneuve.
Villeneuve expertly recaptured the spirit of the original, while just like its predecessor, but it’s an undeniably beautiful movie.
Wish It Never Happened: Zoolander 2
Ben Stiller already got all the comedic mileage he could out of the Derek Zoolander character in 2001’s Zoolander, a cult classic that blends the fashion industry with an espionage plot. So, naturally, 2016’s Zoolander 2 was a disappointment.
Every joke was either a rehash of a joke from the original or an agonizing attempt to be “current,” like killing off Justin Bieber or including a selfie stick. The first movie had an actual plot, but the sequel just had a loosely connected string of tired gags.
Glad It Got Made: Aliens
Seven years after the original Alien movie hit theaters, James Cameron wrote and directed its sequel, a sci-fi horror masterpiece, impeccably crafted by Ridley Scott, and Cameron knew he was never going to match Scott’s masterclass in suspense.
So, he switched genres and made an action thriller about Ripley ing a band of Colonial Marines as they take on swarms of the xenomorph that attacked the crew of the Nostromo.
Wish It Never Happened: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
In 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Indiana Jones trilogy reached a perfect conclusion, with Indy giving up the quest for the Holy Grail and realizing what’s really important in life, before riding off into the sunset with his father and his two closest friends.
But then, 19 years later, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas delivered the CGI-ridden monstrosity that is the breakneck action-adventure set pieces, the plot involving extra-terrestrials was ridiculous.
Glad It Got Made: Rambo
The third Rambo movie, Rambo III, was Rambo, such a breath of fresh air when it arrived a whopping 20 years later.
In Rambo, the grizzled Vietnam veteran’s peaceful life as a snake catcher in Thailand is disrupted when some activists ask him to take them into Burma, where he singlehandedly takes on the State Peace and Development Council with nothing but his hunting knife and an M2 Browning machine gun.
Wish It Never Happened: Bad Santa 2
The original Bad Santa is one of the funniest dark comedies to come from a mainstream Hollywood studio, but its delayed sequel was so bad that it shouldn’t have been made.
While the original movie has smart jokes that land and takes the time to build an earnest relationship between its characters, Bad Santa 2 is just offensive for the sake of being offensive. It’s twice as vulgar as the original with a fraction of the charm.
Glad It Got Made: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
When he helmed a sequel to his neo-noir sci-fi thriller The Terminator, James Cameron shook up the formula in a way that every subsequent Terminator sequel’s director has tried and failed to do.
Whereas the original told the story of a human time traveler protecting the mother of the Resistance’s leader from a relentless T-800, T2 told the story of a T-800 protecting the 10-year-old Resistance leader himself from an even more advanced Terminator model.
Wish It Never Happened: Jurassic World
Steven Spielberg’s original 1993 Jurassic Park movie is a masterpiece of blockbuster cinema, exemplifying just how much can be done with big-budget, effects-driven movies. However, the movie Jurassic World was supposed to turn things around, but it ended up being the worst of the bunch (until its own successor, Fallen Kingdom, sunk to new lows).
The fact that someone is played by Chris Pratt doesn’t make them a character. The fact that dinosaurs are involved doesn’t make a scene exciting. Jurassic World’s lazy, uninspired approach represents all the worst things about franchise reboots.
Glad It Got Made: Mad Max: Fury Road
With its breathtaking practical stunt work, masterful visual storytelling, a long stint in development hell.
Arriving exactly three decades after its predecessor – the disappointing, ‘80s-centric Beyond Thunderdome – Fury Road emerged as one of the greatest action movies ever made.
Wish It Never Happened: Dumb And Dumber To
The original Dumb and Dumber is a comedy classic. Not all of its jokes have aged gracefully, but for the most part, it’s a laugh riot from beginning to end. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels were well-matched leads with incredible on-screen chemistry who were perfectly suited to their roles as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne.
Unfortunately, when the two reunited for the sequel, Dumb and Dumber To, 20 years later, it was painful to watch. The Farrelly brothers had two decades to finetune the script, and yet, every gag is either crass, labored, exhausted, obvious, creepy, or needlessly bigoted.
