Last week, big whipping boy of Twitter was Triplets, announced as the sequel to the 1988 Schwartzenegger/DeVito comedy Twins. This time, Eddie Murphy is attached to appear as the long-lost triplet of the brothers established in the first film.
Then earlier this week came the news that the Farrelly Brothers are getting together with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels to make Dumb and Dumber 2, following up the 1993 original film.
And lets not forget that Columbia has been trying to get Ghostbusters 3 together for years, with seemingly every interview with one of the principles bringing up the subject.
What's the deal with all of these reunion fests two decades after the fact? Is there really a demand to go back and see old friends, or is it an acknowledgement that Hollywood is out of ideas?
One of the few of these films that worked was Rocky Balboa. It's probably one of the best of the series and honestly, you could just watch the first film and the last film and come away with a pretty satisfying experience. (Though I guess you'd need to account for how Rocky became the champ.) There was more meat to Balboa than some of the earlier sequels, and the film really invested you in Rocky's final fight, even if it was a bit implausible that he could still last in the ring that long. It also had the benefit of ending the series on a high note, rather than leave Rocky V as its epitaph. For that reason alone, it justified iteself.
But would it really be fun to see the Ghostbusters twenty years older and out of shape? Will it be funny or just plain sad to see Harry and Lloyd still as dumb as they were during the Clinton Administration? Sometimes I think it's just best to leave the original alone. Why not get the Dumb & Dumber team together, but make an entirely different movie?
What do you guys think? Are there any older movies you'd like to see pull off a reunion movie? Are there any long-delayed sequels that you really like? Imagine the possibilities - E.T. 2, Labyrinth 2, Three Men and an Old Maid...
With so many 80's properties being revisited, I'm actually very surprised we haven't had E.T. 2 by now.
ReplyDeleteI also liked some of the "adult Goonies" script ideas that floated around, but those never happened.
I'd be shocked if we ever got E.T. 2. I know at one point Spielberg considered it, but decided that to do it would cheapen the original. He seems to have a very personal attachment to that film and that whole experience and that alone will probably keep him from corrupting it with an inferior follow-up.
DeleteI don't have the attachment to Goonies that most of my peers do, but I feel like that'd fall under the "who wants to see the Ghostbusters old and fat?" category. Aside from the novelty of reuniting everyone, do we REALLY want to see how they turned out?
I admit a bit part of my wanting E.T. 2 is because of a memory of reading what I think was Dynamite magazine back when I was in 2nd grade and there was talk about it happening then.
DeleteI think with both E.T. and The Goonies, a lot of the audience will be parents who bring their kids along to see the sequel to the movie they grew up loving. I'm not saying it *should* be done - after all, we didn't really need to see Indiana Jones again in this decade, and the "Clone Wars" referred to in the Star Wars trilogy are much better than the prequels gave us... but I'd still see that sooner than I'd care to see "Triplets."
Short Circuit, if only to see how they'd get around the hilariously racist character of Ben Jabituya/Jahvri.
ReplyDeleteBut in terms of reuniting an awesome cast and playing catch up... Big Trouble In Little China 2. MAKE IT HAPPEN
I'd prefer a season 3 of How to Make it in America :)
ReplyDeleteI'd nearly agree with you on ROCKY BALBOA, but I loved the first half of it and not the second ... in my opinion, he didn't NEED to fight at the end, and that took the movie out of what it had settled into, which was a drama about a man who had everything and was trying his best to come to grips with his mortality ... thinking about the past, his wins and losses and regrets ... the fight itself, didn't need it and it was also far too implausible ...
ReplyDeleteIs it any different from the slew of horror movie sequels that eventually bring back one of the original survivors of the earlier ones?
ReplyDeleteI would actually like to see a Ghostbusters 3. As for Labyrinth, it has a sequel in manga form.
It's too bad a lot of these concepts are purely for the nostalgia factor, and most don't pan out. I guess they fall into the studios' "it worked before, so it will work again" line of thought.
ReplyDeleteThe TRIPLETS idea sounds terrible. Part of the appeal of TWINS was the originality of the idea paired with the casting.
I'd heard John Carpenter's been working on a sequel called BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE ITALY, which sounds pretty good.
I wouldn't be surprised if somebody's developing a kind of BACK TO THE FUTURE 4, but this time it's Doc Brown's kids as the main characters, with Doc and Marty in supporting roles. I remember a Saturday morning cartoon based on this concept from the mid-90s.
Schindler's List part Deux: Return to Schindler's Mountain in 3D.
ReplyDeleteLabyrinth 2 might be interesting... maybe Sarah has a daughter? But any of the others fall into the "rather remember them as they were" category for me.
ReplyDeleteReally sorry, Bitter, but para 3 - principals.
Can we have Alien 4: Resurrecting the series after Alien: Resurrection?
ReplyDeletei'm pretty sure the farrelly brothers always envisioned dumb and dumber as a trilogy.
ReplyDelete