Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Nam Rumin Editor|Park Fang
There is a clear trend in the film industry this year, that is, the number of sequel movies has increased significantly.
Of course, as far as the films released in the current market are concerned, there may not be much feeling, but from the perspective of the reserve projects, filing projects, release projects, etc. of various companies, the sequel movies in 2023 are significantly increased, and there are some head sequel projects, which will be released in the following time. This trend actually has the reason and logic behind it, and it is also related to the next market wind change.
2023, the year of sequels
With the recent announcement of Donnie Yen's three new films, the topic of sequel movies has been raised again. Action film "Misjudgment", police action film "Fuse 2", kung fu film "Ip Man 5". If "Fuse 2" is the result of calling for years of waiting, a carnival of fans, then the appearance of "Ip Man 5" is intriguing, you must know that "Ip Man 4" has clearly stated that it is the final chapter of the series, and the character of Ip Man has died, so that "Ip Man 5" was complained by netizens as "Ip Man's Coffin Rises".
In addition, the number of sequel movies announced by major producers in 2023, including sequels that have been filed and sequels that will be released soon, adds up to a lot, and it is far more than the number of previous years. This also indirectly proves that the industry's creation is indeed somewhat bottlenecked, and it has to start large-scale "copy and paste". Of course, some classic sequels are still very worth looking forward to.
(Some sequel films announced and filed in 2023)
In the announced sequel movie, Rhino Entertainment believes that it is basically divided into three categories. The first is the sequel to the past classics, such as "Myth", "New Police Story", "The Fuse" and so on. However, after so many years, these classic Hong Kong films have successively launched sequels, which is somewhat of a poor donkey. If you follow this idea, there are too many classic Hong Kong films, and if they are all repackaged for sequels, they can ensure that the industry is worry-free for 3 years, the problem is that this does not care about the audience's life and death.
The other is the sequel to some high-quality word-of-mouth films. The most obvious is "Love Myth" and "Lion Boy", saying that the classic is not a classic, and the 200 million + box office is not a hit, but it still does not prevent the launch of sequel works. High-quality word-of-mouth can ensure that these works can be retained, and the extension of the sequel can help the expansion of the entire IP.
Of course, more than that, it is still the sequel launched by some blockbuster movies, which is also the most likely to launch a sequel. Such as "Operation Red Sea", "Nezha", "Flying Life" and so on, of course, including the controversial "Ip Man 5". Once a blockbuster is created, unless it is really not likely to be a sequel, it will almost continue to be filmed, after all, this is a low-risk and high-yield way.
Not only "Ip Man 5", including "Flying Life", the protagonist in the first part has died, and how to resurrect will be a big attraction. For example, "The Wandering Earth 2" used the prequel to resurrect Wu Jing, and like the earlier Hong Kong film "True Colors of Heroes 2", it resurrected Chow Yun-fat in the form of twins. The popular "Fast and Furious" series is a large-scale character resurrection scene, basically resurrecting one per episode on average. In a word, as long as it is a hit, there is always a way to revive the character.
It is actually very rare for so many sequels to appear in one brain. You must know that the sequel output of domestic films is far from constituting the scale, and it is suddenly like Hollywood, stepping into the sequel film country. You must know that the number of projects in the industry as a whole is limited, and the increase in sequels will reduce the corresponding original projects, after all, there are so many funds in the industry.
In the early years, it was IP fever, the whole industry is grabbing IP, it is not only rich a group of network writers, its negative impact has lingered, in 2015 the industry hoarded IP, can be 10 years of development of the amount, but now it has long been rotten in the hands; There is also a remake fever, whether it is Japanese, Indian, Korean, or American, but all the projects that are in some color are stared at by major film parties, buying copyrights and localization, so it is not lively.
Seeing that these tricks are not good to use, now they are aiming for sequels, and they will take out those classics to do sequels, regardless of whether the audience accepts it now, at least the capital level recognizes this business model. In short, everyone is not good at originality, this is a job about creativity and creativity, but the industry that is forced to helplessly can only rely on sequels to continue their lives.
Why are there so many sequels all of a sudden?
The most defining sequel movie is undoubtedly the current hot "Fast and Furious 10", as an original IP, it is very rare to have such a long life and look at the whole world. And this series can be maintained, the biggest trick or characteristic, that is, to hit the face, hit your own face, it has also become one of the most capricious series.
The dead characters have been resurrected repeatedly, and the villains have been repeatedly whitewashed, in fact, the reason is that the series is too long, forcing some characters to return, forcing them to change villains repeatedly. No way, who keeps it selling well? But after using a routine countless times, there will eventually be fatigue, which is also the dilemma faced by the sequel movie.
Back to domestic movies, in fact, throughout the movies released in recent years, the proportion of sequel movies is very small, "Detective Chinatown" sequel, "The Wandering Earth" sequel, etc., in fact, most of the films do not have sequel ideas or ideas. In a way, this is actually a good thing, proving that creativity has not dried up. In contrast, in Hollywood, the annual box office TOP10 is almost completely occupied by sequel movies, and Hollywood's original ability has approached zero.
So under what circumstances will there be more sequel movies? First of all, the results of the first film are very good, or far exceed expectations, or have outstanding quality, so that the film side moved the idea of making a sequel, just like the three categories listed earlier. From this logic, most of the domestic popular projects will basically have sequel derivatives, but the overall number of explosive projects is too small, so the number of sequels will decrease accordingly.
Another key reason is a mechanism for risk avoidance. The so-called sequel, must be the previous work is successful, even if it is not a blockbuster project, but at least certain achievements, and doing a sequel is a relatively conservative method, at least from the point of view of investment, its safety is greater than the original, after all, it has a successful case. For the current domestic investment environment, especially now there are many complex changes, in the case of limited funds, hedging is particularly important.
Finally, as mentioned earlier, this is a helpless choice, which is the result of the choice of the film party and the creators, after all, the difficulty of originality is too great, and high-quality originality is even more difficult, and then a series of creative deformities have been derived. Such as more remakes, more sequels, etc. Insufficient originality and creativity are also important reasons for the increase in the number of sequel movies.
The sequel movie can be described as a side dish, but if it becomes a main course, it not only proves that the industry has dried up, but also a tragedy for the audience. Take a look at this year's Hollywood movies. Ant-Man 3, Black Panther 2, Thunder Shazam 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Fast and Furious 10, Indiana Jones 5, Mission Impossible 7, Transformers 7 and more. In contrast, it seems that domestic movies are still much better.