Looking back at 2024: The year a slew of sequel seized the screens

For the first time since 1974, the box office top ten had no original films

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

If there was ever a hill for Hollywood to die on, it would be the hill of sequels. If it exists, it can spawn a sequel, that is the Hollywood motto. Or a prequel, or a shot-by-shot reboot. As long as it reels in viewers unable to avoid the inescapable pull of nostalgia, it's good to go.

As Gladiator II has taken pains to show us, coming out as it did 24 years ago after Gladiator, it matters little if the original that fathered the sequel is decades old. If someone could figure out a way to raise the Titanic back up to dry land on hydraulic legs and polish it up a bit, we would have on our hands Titanic 2. Or Titanic: Reloaded. With climate change having taken care of some of those troublesome icebergs littering the North Atlantic, the newly restored Titanic could survive its voyage this time no matter how distracted its crew is, paving the way for Titanic 3 and Titanic 4. There is no putting that toothpaste back in the tube.

A year of repeats

If you remain unconvinced about this sequel epidemic, you need only take a pithy glance at this year's top ten imaginatively named box office hits, as laid out for us by IMDb. This was the year that gave us, in descending top ten order of ticket sales, Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Moana 2, Dune: Part 2, Wicked, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, King Fu Panda 4, Venom: The Last Dance, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Just missing a spot on the top ten, coming in at number 11, we have Gladiator II. Later down the line at number 14, we have disaster film Twisters. Keep scrolling down and you will come across Alien: Romulus (prequel to Aliens and sequel to Alien), Smile 2, A Quiet Place: Day One (prequel to 2018's A Quiet Place), the much-mocked Joker: Folie à Deux, and of course, the Disney prequel absolutely nobody asked for, Mufasa: The Lion King.

Speaking of prequels nobody asked for, we also have the sequel to Forrest Gump that nobody wanted, Here, featuring an AI-aged Tom Hanks. And it doesn't end here! (Pun very sadly unintended.) Yet another Garfield film, Terrifier 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the Mean Girls musical and an addition to the Paddington franchise all make an appearance. The message is incontestably clear: whether a sequel will bomb or fly, come hell or high water, you are going to get it. If not you, then your children. And their children. All the way until the end of time or until the sun explodes, whichever comes first.

A rising phenomenon

Sequels have never been out of fashion, but this year has been even more sequel-heavy than usual. According to IMDb, this is the first time in 50 years the top ten list has consisted entirely of sequels. Going back 30 years, out of the top ten films of 1994, only three were adaptations. None were sequels. This was the year that churned out Forrest Gump, The Lion King and Pulp Fiction – all of which are now considered classics, and two of which have succumbed to a needless sequel (Forrest Gump) and both a reboot and a prequel (The Lion King).

Where last year we had the powerful 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon, born with the twin release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, this year cinema attempted to give us 'Glicked', the forcible jamming of Gladiator II and Wicked (presumably because 'Wadiator' did not have quite the same ring to it). Where both Barbie and Oppenheimer were original films, Gladiator II and Wicked were certainly not. Wicked may not be based on an existing film, but it is based on an existing Broadway show, which in turn is based on Gregory Maguire's novel (Wicked), which is based on the MGM film (The Wizard of Oz), which is based L Frank Baum's book of the same name. Wicked the film just happens to be the latest link in a very long chain of adaptations and prequels.

As for Gladiator II, we may not have had Russell Crowe's Maximus (on account of Maximus's unfortunate demise in the original film), but we did have Paul Mescal's Lucius, Maximus's son. Familiarity may breed contempt, but absence makes the heart grow fonder – which is how we have ended up with a Crowe-less Gladiator sequel 24 years later. As long as there is someone in a gladiator costume wreaking havoc in the familiar embrace of the Colosseum, no one cares. Other than perhaps Crowe himself, who, according to Deadline, campaigned hard to find a way to bring Maximus back from the dead, but to no avail. So far, anyway. Provided it is mildly familiar and reminiscent of days long since past, someone will buy a ticket.

In a sequel's defence

What conclusions can we draw from this? We can see, for a start, that creating organic, original content, appears to be edging into cold fusion territory: a great idea, but a bit of a headache to put together. Looking ahead to 2025, we are already pencilled in for a Disney's Snow White reboot for February, which, if trailer reception is any indication, looks to be even less appealing than Hanks' AI-generated visage in Here. However, as the top ten list has proved, nostalgia-baiting is by no means a strategy employed only by Disney, despite the (justifiable) flak the studio gets for reeling in millennials with reboots, prequels and villain origin stories. Coming up in May, meanwhile, we have yet another one of Tom Cruise's impossible missions (no slouch in the sequels department) to look forward to, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

Perhaps, as a filmmaker, it is easier not just to make a sequel (secure in the knowledge that at least someone will succumb to nostalgia), but also, as a viewer, to watch something you already know. With streaming services pulling out old popular series such as Friends to soothe a pandemic-plagued planet, perhaps there is a lesson to be learned. In a world wracked with uncertainty, inflation, climate change, and doom-laden news, watching the relatively comforting and familiar Inside Out 2, Kung Fu Panda 4, or yet another Deadpool film may not be the worst idea. And with this in mind, perhaps we may just live to see Titanic 2 after all.

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