Are Hollywood Sequels Finally Beginning to Bite The Dust?

When John Garilyn was but 7, his grandfather would retort whenever he asked him how a baby got into a woman’s belly.

God just put them there. What? Were you expecting something different? You keep asking me the same question, do you expect a different answer every time you ask?

They lived in a little town, about 3 miles up a meandering road atop a mountain. The road wound into a hairpin turn some 2 miles up – a terrible hazard – and, about once a month cars would fly off into the Valley below. It was awful. The town council got together and they looked into the cost of regrading the road – put in signs, and install a guard rail – in other words, make it safe.

But, well, it was really expensive. In fact, it was so expensive that they decided they just couldn’t afford it.

But the cars kept flying off the road and people were getting hurt. Obviously, they weren’t heartless, they didn’t like the accidents, and they wanted to do something about it. So, they solved the problem of the dangerous road in what they believed was a less expensive way.

They put an ambulance in the valley.

It’s a story I like to tell because it shows how hard people work to avoid solving the real problem and how we keep doing the same thing hoping we’d get a different result.

When Matt Damon was asked to come back for a Bourne 4, he honestly could not hide his feelings;

What is the movie going to be about? I’m tired of saying, “I can’t remember”. I have said it in three movies, what else is there to not remember? What are they calling it – Bourne Redundancy?

Even Shia LaBeouf, star of this weekend’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

We screwed up but we’ll do better. The second movie we were making on the fly and it was too convoluted. This movie is very different , more story line, clearer thought.

A similar spin came, albeit privately, from executives close to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and X-Men: First Class – sequels whose 3rd installments were seen by many as the cinematic equivalents of the ambulance in the Valley. The previous films were over-freighted and confusing, they said, but now we’re back to the franchise’s roots.

The good thing however is that critics and film goers seem to be noting almost reflexively when describing a new sequel that it may not exactly be an Oscar winner, but at least hope that it’ll be better than the previous film. The obvious problem with all this, of course, is that it sets the bar kind of low.

You may argue that these movies make lots of money and ask why people go to see them anyways. But that’s like saying I’m not going to eat ice-cream because the only Ice-Cream Truck in Town sells the same stuff year after year. Years ago when fans bemoaned a sequel, that stopped a franchise in its tracks. And that was often true even when the film took in more money than its predecessor, e.g., Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade in 1989.

Nowadays, for the never-ending sequel, a badly received follow-up isn’t a franchiser-killer – it’s just another step on a path to redemption – just one more ambulance in the Valley.

To succeed, Hollywood has to change things. Until it does, nothing else will work. It’s like pizza–if you want to sell pizza, sooner or later you’re going to have to make a good pizza, with tomato sauce, and crust. You can have fast delivery, add pretty napkins, reduce prices, and even pamper your employees, but if you don’t do that basic pizza stuff, you can forget the whole thing.

The way Hollywood is going, if they don’t change direction soon – put in signs, and install a guard rail – they will end up exactly where they are going – down the Valley.

Like John’s grandfather had cautioned when he kept bugging him for a different answer; you just can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Or can you?