With the upsurge of movie prequels in recent times, one must be asking: has Hollywood become a barren wasteland, devoid of any new ideas, or is there a genuine attraction to film prequels?
X-Men is the first franchise that springs to mind when talking about prequels. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) tracks the making of Hugh Jackman into sideburn clad, claw handed mutant (those sideburns are definitely abnormal). X-Men: First Class (2011) goes back to explain the formation of the rivalry between Professor X and Magneto. In both these films, there is certainly the “oh I get it now” factor after having seen the previous X-Men films. Like a jigsaw, things start to fall into place after watching a prequel. Stories are explained and it sheds new light on older films, sometimes even making you re-watch that film.
There are some films where you are begging for another dose. The only failing of the Lord of the Ring Triology was that there wasn’t a forth and fifth, so the announcement of a two part Hobbit film was certainly a welcomed announcement for another injection of Middle Earth fantasy. It is a chance to see favourite characters and trademark film styles once more, reinvented and reworked.
As seen with X-Men, the Superhero genre is one where the prequel is gaining ground. The Amazing Spider-man scheduled for release next year takes a look at the creation of Spiderman. But instead of seeing the same faces and styles again, The Amazing Spider-man has a new cast with Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) playing the swinging superhero. It is an attempt to rejuvenate the Spider-man franchise and even though the story has been told regarding Spider-man’s creation, there appears to be a need to retell it. We will have to wait until 2012 to see whether that will be successful or not.
There is without doubt a market for movie prequels, to reinvent franchises, relive older films, and to put things in place, and whilst some of these prequels have found success, it will be interesting to see what Hollywood comes up with when they go out of fashion.
Prequels have gone out of fashion, that happened a while ago (think star wars may be to blame)… then we got reboots and old franchises coming back for one last swing.
For example The Hobbit is not a prequel. Prequel implies that the source material was written after the original (see starwars). The Hobbit was written first, so to be honest they just made the films out of order. Would have been more relevant to comment on the fact that people all over the world will now believe the film IS a prequel and get ready to judge it as such, no doubt drawing comparison to other prequels which have gone before it (again, starwars will almost certainly come up).
X-Men first class was half prequel but also half reboot… if you enjoyed comparing the film to the first trilogy take a look at this; http://uk.ign.com/videos/2011/09/06/the-fd-up-timeline-of-x-men-first-class?objectid=14270431
And Spiderman…. The Amazing Spiderman film is a full re-boot… It’s looking to tell a modernised version of the character. They’ve done this partly because they can now make a much bigger profit, as they don’t have to keep paying the big names while still having the franchise behind them, and also because the third film was a bit of a turd.