Text | Mia
"Black Panther 2", "Ant-Man 3", "Shazam 2", "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", "Mission Impossible 7", "Fast and Furious 10", "Transformers 7", "Indiana Jones 5", "Captain Marvel 2", "Quidi 3", "Aquaman 2", "The Expendables 4", "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2", "Frozen 3", "Toy Story 5", "Zootopia 2"...
It is not difficult to see from the above film list that whether it is a new Hollywood film that will appear in 2023 or the future plans officially announced by major studios recently, the protagonists are all kinds of sequels.
On the other hand, most of the Hollywood sequels in the past two years have performed less than expected in the mainland market. For example, the recently released "Black Panther 2" failed to break 100 million on 9 days of release due to its mediocre quality, which cannot be compared with the box office result of the first 662 million.
Hollywood suffers from "sequel dependence", which has long been an "open secret". Behind the frequent launch of various "23456", is it a model of IP development or a manifestation of insufficient originality?
PART
01
Big IP sequels are coming
Is it worth looking forward to?
Throughout the upcoming Hollywood sequels released in 2023 or recently officially announced, there is no lack of explosive models that the public expects, as well as aesthetic fatigue of "how is it again", which are generally nothing more than the following categories:
First, superhero films are still gaining momentum. The "war" between the two giants Marvel and DC has not been uneven, and the wave has risen again.
On February 17, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy", which will be released simultaneously in China and the United States, will kick off the fifth phase of the Marvel Universe. Ant-Man has entered the quantum realm again to save his daughter, and the ultimate villain of the multiverse, "Kang the Conqueror", will also appear for the first time.
"Guardians of the Galaxy 3" and "Captain Marvel 2" will also meet the audience in May and July respectively (the mainland is not yet set). The release of "Black Panther 2" marks Marvel's return to the mainland market after nearly three years, but the film's sluggish performance also poses greater challenges to the "latecomers".
At the same time, DC is not to be outdone, and the upcoming "Shazam 2: Wrath of the Gods" on March 17 is expected to continue this IP as a small and broad dark horse.
"Aquaman 2", scheduled to be released at the end of the year, is DC's box office success, but the starring negative news has cast a shadow over the film's future.
Second, longevity IP "grows stronger when old". "Mission Impossible 7", "Fast and Furious 10", "Transformers 7", just from the numbers behind, you can see the longevity attributes of these IPs. The three series are 27, 22 and 16 years old, respectively, and have accompanied the growth of generations of audiences.
"Mission Impossible 7" is still a familiar taste, Tom will once again personally fight to challenge impossible extreme action scenes; "Furious 10" will also continue to tell the "family" story, but the exit of director Justin Lin is slightly regrettable; "Transformers 7" director is no longer Michael Bay, the story will also return to 1994 to introduce the new army.
It is undeniable that both "Tom", "Quick" family and "Transformers" have a wide fan base, but with the sequel appearing in turn, how to alleviate the audience's aesthetic fatigue has become a difficult problem.
Third, animated movies are also the world of sequels. Just a few days ago, Disney announced 3 heavyweight sequel development plans in one go: "Frozen 3", "Toy Story 5" and "Zootopia 2" are all on the agenda.
If the official announcement of the sequel to "Zootopia 2" after seven years can be regarded as expected, "Frozen 3" is decent.
That "Toy Story 5" is quite controversial, after all, in the hearts of many fans, the fourth part is the final chapter of the "successful ending", and now a sequel is added, whether it is a continuation of glory or a dog-tailed continuation of the mink, there is a question mark.
PART
02
The sequel has a bad box office
Hollywood originality in worry?
Failing to break 100 million in 9 days, the score fell to 5.5, and the box office was only 21.2 million on the first day, "Black Panther 2" created Marvel's worst record in the mainland market in the past 10 years.
On the other hand, the first round of word-of-mouth of "Ant-Man 3" was also released today, with a freshness of only 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is also not optimistic, making people sweat for its box office performance.
The poor reputation of "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" is also a microcosm of "Marvel production" in the past three years.
Many "Phase 4" films, including "Spider-Man: Homeless", "Doctor Strange 2: Multiverse of Madness" and "Thor 4: Love and Thunder", are of mediocre quality, and the ratings hover near the passing line, which is a big drop from the previous works overall.
The audience generally reported that these superhero sequels lacked breakthroughs in narrative and visual effects, the story characters were thin, the routines were serious, and the gameplay of only stacking Easter eggs and special effects to entertain the audience had gradually failed.
Not only Marvel, but these have almost become a common problem for Hollywood commercial sequels. The "Fast and Furious" series, loved by Chinese audiences, has created countless classic action scenes and is also the sentiment of a generation, but with the bombardment of sequels, the plot has become more and more stylized, and the stunts have gradually deviated from logic, which has disappointed many fans.
2021's "Fast and Furious 9" created the lowest rating in the series, and the mainland box office also shrank from 2.67 billion in the eighth part to 1.39 billion.
The same is true of the "Jurassic World" series, the ratings of the three films have fallen one by one, and the third mainland box office has also created the lowest series, and "mediocre", "boring" and "repetitive" have become the keywords of negative reviews.
The famous director Francis Ford Coppola, who has directed the "Godfather" trilogy, once bluntly said in an interview that Marvel movies just repackage the same things, the same recipes, over and over again to make them look different. And what drives this creation is undoubtedly commercial interests.
It is true that Hollywood sequel movies have been a model for commercial film IP development, and there have also been many masterpieces that are "better than the blue" and have both business and art.
However, in recent years, the proportion of sequels has continued to soar, and 9 of the top ten box office in the United States last year were sequels, and even remade many ancient IP remakes that have been shelved for decades, which is undoubtedly a manifestation of insufficient originality.
And these routines are serious, and sequels that rely only on code stars, pile up special effects, and hype feelings are becoming more and more difficult to meet the audience's increasing aesthetic needs.
Top 10 US box office in 2022
Especially in the mainland market, domestic films have accounted for more than eighty percent of the total box office for three consecutive years. Coupled with the rise of domestic blockbusters such as "The Wandering Earth 2", the level of industrialization has been continuously rising, and shocking visual effects are no longer the patent of Hollywood blockbusters.
In this context, if these sequels want to retain fans and audiences, they undoubtedly need more charismatic characters and more heartfelt plots, and they must also show more sincerity in production.