Over 530 sequels released since 2000 have brought in $74.3 billion at the domestic box office, but it doesn’t mean Hollywood should depend on them.
Of course they don’t
The point is they’re less risk
They do on average, because there’s lots of original movies that are flops, so they don’t get sequels. So naturally sequels have a higher chance of success even if they are always worse than their first installments.
If they wouldn’t make above average money, they wouldn’t be less risk. We all know sequels tend to be shitty, but if you look purely to the money it is a smart choice to give succesful movies a sequel.
Yup. Studios don’t chase
blockbustersgreatness anymore. They go for the safe bet that is good enough to result in some profits. This is done through formulaic scripts around well known franchises. If it’s not a well known franchise, they hope the big names in the production team will suffice.And to a certain degree, it’s understandable. Netflix and many others are pumping out tones of movies, and I see why they don’t want to bet big on something risky.
These are still blockbusters. A blockbuster is essentially an expensive film that makes up for being expensive by catering to a wide audience and become very popular to become profitable. That includes a lot of risk, so making sequels to blockbusters using the blockbuster model makes perfect sense as it reduces risk.
Noted. Reworded my comment accordingly.
I am not sure if evaluating the profitability of sequels as a whole really illustrates anything.
I am curious if a similar analysis of originals as a whole would illustrate that they are not profitable either.
Two movies make more money than one movie
Joker Part 2 has entered the chat.
Indiewire is trying really hard to make the answer no, but has limited success imo
But consider that of the roughly 18,450 movies that have been released in that 25-year span, 530 films is not quite 3 percent of all theatrical films, yet in that span the domestic box office has brought in roughly $245.2 billion, and those sequels have accounted for 30 percent of the overall gross. Granted, nearly all of those sequels hail from major studios, and if we only looked at studio output in that span, with no indies that drive a good chunk of the box office, the overall percentage of sequels to studio titles would likely be far greater.
