This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s senior fall editorial intern Arianna Nahim. Find her on Instagram at @ariannanahim. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Since I have a ‘Letterboxd’ account I feel that I have claim to speak on the much awaited, yet very disappointing ‘Joker 2’ film. Since the first one was such a hit and overall, making 1 billion dollars in the box office and securing two Oscars, fans worldwide assumed the next would be just as great or even better. Unfortunately, though, fans were disappointed. Yet, it seems the film had almost all the ingredients, yet very experimental ingredients. Lady Gaga, who has proven to be a stellar actress in both ‘A Star Is Born,’ and ‘House of Gucci,’ was cast as Harley Quinn coupled with an announcement that the sequel would be a musical. Secondly, the original director of the first film would not be returning. However, being such a big budget project with two well-established leads still instilled confidence in excited viewers. To be honest, with the great round of movies we’ve had so far like ‘Saltburn,’ ‘Challengers,’ and ‘Dune 2,’ I also thought this was going to be a good movie.
The latest big sequel I can remember is ‘Avatar 2.’ A decade later and James Cameron delievered a visually stunning and equally engaging story worth coming back to tell. This sequel made 2.3 billion dollars, while ‘Joker 2,’ is set to lose 150 million dollars and according to ‘Variety,’ a box office disaster. While the first ‘Joker,’ film had time and trends on its side, comic book movies were huge, it was 2019 and people were still interested in going to the movies. Today though, the thrill of comic book movies has fizzled out and people do not have the urge to spend money on a film that could be mediocre or even bad when prices are currently soaring. Overall, though, the film itself is really just a mess. Audiences leave confused about where exactly the musical part comes in and was done in a very sloppy manner. This is a confusing result as the film had a ‘La La Land,’ level budget and cast, yet came off as karaoke night for discord bros. The film also lends itself to a lot of inconsistencies, which is something modern audiences have no patience for. But let’s lay off ‘Joker 2,’ for a while and examine other sequel failures, because while a flop, ‘Joker 2,’ proves to not be an isolated case.
Thor: Love And Thunder
Thor: Ragnarök was a massive success and another feather in Marvel’s cap. It was a fun film that had elements not seen before or much in other Marvel films, which proved to be beneficial for the superhero company. But Marvel flew to close to the son and produced a cheesy and confusing film. On the one hand, Natalie Portman’s character was diagnosed with cancer and dealing with her inevitable death, but that was hard for audiences to process in between the middle school level jokes caked on. Chris Hemsworth himself even admits this saying, “I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” he told Vanity Fair this year. “I didn’t stick the landing.”
The Godfather III
Speaking of not sticking the land, how could we talk about disapointing movies without mentioning the infamous Godfather fiasco. A lot of people consider this movie to be the best movie of all time. Now while I think the best portrayal of the mafia is ‘The Sopranos,’ the Godfather is objectively a good film. But what happened to that third follow-up? For one it came out 16 years later, I really do not understand why Hollywood insists on resurrecting stories from beyond the grave, but they persist. A lot of previous talent was not a part of the project and falling back on nepotism did not help matters.
American Psycho 2
Some people don’t even know that this cult film bro classic has a successor. This sequel revolved around Mila Kunis depicting a female American Psycho version set in university. The plot line doesn’t really make sense and to make room for the existing story a lot of the first film is discredited. However, I really think that had it not been labeled as a sequel we’d remember this film as a campy fun Halloween film.
Coming 2 America
For some reason, Hollywood would rather make brainless zombies out of what were once known as cult classics. The first ‘Coming to America,’ while certainly not a timeless movie, comedic films are hardly ever. But if you take the first film with a grain of salt it can be funny and does make sense why it did so well back in the 80s. With the sequel thought, it is clear that all the studio wanted was to bank off of the nostalgia of the masses. It’s defiantly a film though that you could not convince most to spend money on seeing.
If Hollywood studios spent half the money and resources, it did on attempting to revitalize old stories that have already been done before, I guarantee we’d all have much better movies worth paying to see. Who knows though, maybe ‘Joker 2’ will serve as a lesson and studios will start taking this issue more seriously.
What’s your least favorite sequel? Do you think sequels are a good idea?
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