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Sequelibrium

Written by Lex Walker

Wednesday, 02 July 2008

First Edition: "Why Do They Hurt Us So?"

Walking the fine line between Capitalism, Continuation and Common Sense.

Welcome to the first installment of Sequelibrium, where we bring you a list of announced or rumored sequels and give you our two cents on their existence. This week we’re covering announced sequels that we can’t believe any studio in the world would consider green lighting. Not because they’re necessarily doomed to fail, but because the franchise said all it needed to with the first outing.

Mrs. Doubtfire 2 (Rumored)

Unlike the last entry in this list, Mrs. Doubtfire actually had something going for it. Great cast, funny concept and a comedy superstar before he went creepy old man. Or at least publicly. But the reason for despising studios for considering this venture is obvious: there’s nowhere to go with this. Mrs. Doubtfire was a good one time feature and should be left that way. But no. In the halls of Hollywood Hell, the spirit of Doubtfire has been summoned by some pagan Exec with dreams of breathing new demonic life into the exhumed corpse of the prosthetic faced shemale. Please, just don’t.

Austin Powers 4 (2009)

Austin Powers is hilarious. Myers tore up the screens and our guts with laughter by lampooning all the classic spy films to date with an unflinchingly sexual twist. The Spy Who Shagged Me took the clever gags of the first Austin Powers and forced them to run an extra 10 miles on fumes. We couldn’t stand Goldmember. It was bad. If Austin Powers 2 exhausted the jokes of the first, then Goldmember dragged their dehydrated, fatigued bodies out to the back and made them do push ups. What a bastard. Unless Austin Powers 4 finds some fresh material that isn’t comprised entirely of midget, poop and fat jokes they should probably just scrap the project altogether.

The Grudge 3 (2009)

Nothing spells inevitable sequel like a horror flick that has a successful first go. For The Grudge the temptation was even sweeter: the material was already developed by the Asian films which had paved the way for the original. Again, nothing spells sequel like little effort and big pay off. The Grudge 2 did okay considering it could’ve been filmed by your average college student in a small town. But the Grudge 3: who cares? The first at least had Sarah Michelle Gellar in the shower. I mean hot damn! That pulled in the 14 to 35 male demographic right there. Maybe even a few of the more perverted 40 something bachelors as well. Horror concepts can only be stretched so far without breaking. In the case of The Grudge…it broke after the first try.

S. Darko (2009)

Considering the merit of the other films on this list, I almost feel like I’m doing the Darko legacy a disservice by even associating it with them. But alas, Donnie Darko was a great cult classic stand alone film. Part of its beauty was that it didn’t bother explaining itself, it just sped along and ended on its own terms. Hey, it’s popular with college kids now! Doesn’t that mean a sequel will virtually soak up money at the box office? No it doesn’t. For one, this story isn’t even about the sister we cared about (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal). It’s about the sister who went to the dance finals…who we never really saw the entire film. Why should we care? What’s worse? It’s not even written or directed by Richard Kelly (who did both for the original). Everything about this smells like crap backed up in the impacted bowl that is Hollywood.

Brazilian Job (2009)

Box Office Smash or not, I don’t care. Daring to follow in the footsteps of Clooney’s Ocean’s 11, a film originally made by a powerhouse of actors back in the day, the Italian Job crew hasn’t learned the lesson taught by the Ocean crowd. While I realize the film industry is above all things a business, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the two Ocean sequels were anywhere as good as the first. On that note, I can’t see The Brazilian Job coming across as anything but a desperate grab for money. But what really boggles my mind is this: no one in the original film is so desperate for money that they’d need a retread sequel! Charlize Theron, Mark Wahlberg, Seth Green, Jason Statham and Mos Def. Everyone I mentioned here is doing remarkably well: so why go back to this? The original Italian Job didn’t need a sequel…so why does theirs?

Big Momma's House 3 (God Forbid)

Currently in the “rumored” stage, we can’t help but consider taking a drill to our right temple to bore the images out of our mind. The very idea of Big Momma’s House 3 tells us that someone in Hollywood hasn’t quite realized Martin Lawrence’s future is dead. It’s probably Martin Lawrence himself. Take a look at his last 10 movies: College Road Trip, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Wild Hogs, Open Season, Big Momma’s House 2, Rebound, Bad Boys II, National Security, Black Knight, What’s the Worse That Could Happen. A stunning resume of resounding failure. Only Bad Boys II had even marginal success and well, I think we all know who deserves the credit for that. Hint: we’ve scrambled their name: Will Smith. Oh wait, no we didn’t.