After the release of a great film, it seems natural to us now that they’d want to make another. But this was not always the case. Now that Hollywood seems to almost compulsively turn successful films into franchises, reboots, and cinematic universes, are there good reasons to keep making sequels?
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Featuring
Kira Bindrim is the host of the Quartz Obsession podcast. She is an executive editor who works on global newsroom coverage and email products. She is obsessed with reading and reality TV.
Adario Strange is a reporter at Quartz covering media and entertainment. He is obsessed with VR, AR, and real life as science fiction.
Show notes
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is the sequel to the 1982 original
The 2021 Dune film is a reboot of the 1984 film
High-grossing sequels (Adario’s answers in the game):
- Avengers: Endgame (2019), $2.8 billion at the box office
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Episode VII) (2015), $2 billion at the box office
Low-grossing sequels (Kira’s answers in the game):
- Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), $165.4 billion at the box office globally
- The Son of the Mask (2005), $60 billion at the box office globally ($17 billion domestically)
The Fall of a Nation (1916), considered the first sequel, was the follow-up to the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation
This episode uses the following sounds from freesound.org:
Dinner Atmo.wav by burkay
16mm Film Reel by bone666138
superhero theme by humanoide9000
Read the full transcript, or a lightly edited version.