2017 has been the year of sequels. It started off slowly with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, xXx 3: The Return of Xander Cage and John Wick: Chapter 2, then picks up pace mid-year with Alien: Covenant, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Despicable Me 3, Transformers: The Last Knight, Kingsman: The Golden Circle and shows no sign of stopping down. This last quarter has been and will be filled with sequels; it started off with the anticipated Blade Runner: 2049, Thor: Ragnarok, A Bad Mom’s Christmas and coming up is the mother of all sequels- Star Wars: The Last Jedi, followed by everyone’s favourite A Cappella singers in Pitch Perfect 3.
2018 looks like it’s on a sequel roll as well, with titles like Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom, Incredibles 2, Pacific Rim: Uprising and of course, The Avengers: Infinity War. Beyond these blockbusters, there are others in the works in the next couple of years. Here’s a look at five of them:
The Equalizer 2
This is a surprise sequel. Although the 2014 movie was a moderate hit for Denzel Washington, making USD192 million worldwide, it didn’t have a memorable storyline or action like how Taken has gripped us. It did, however, showed a deft Denzel still kicking ass at his age. As a retired agent who just wants to lead a normal life, he finds his skills coming to good use when saving a young girl from the clutches of some evil Russians.
For the sequel, we’re imagining Denzel returning to kick more butt and save more lives in the same deadpan face he did in the original. Not much of the plot has been revealed, but we are getting a strong Taken vibe.
The Accountant 2
Released in 2016, The Accountant stars Ben Affleck as ace accountant Chris Wolff, a high-functioning autistic Math whizz, who just so happens to be a highly trained combatant as well. He’s hired as a forensic accountant to un-cook the books for criminal organisations, and finds himself entangled in a web of conspiracy with a new client, and catching the eye of the law enforcement. Thankfully, his combat skills allow him to dodge attempts on his life. Grossing a total of USD155 million worldwide on a USD44 million budget, it was a refreshing change to see the new Batman in a role like this, a socially awkward mathematician with a deadly fighting ability.
There clearly is room for expansion, and if the makers follow the same formula as the original, it could go on for a few sequels. As of now, while the sequel has been announced, nothing much has been released, but we’ll be patient for now.
Edge of Tomorrow 2- Live Die Repeat and Repeat
Based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Edge of Tomorrow (2014) is like Groundhog Day with aliens, starring a lean Emily Blunt alongside everyone’s favourite Hollywood star, Tom Cruise. The premise was intriguing, a soldier finds himself reliving the same day over and over again after he was attacked and killed by an alien in a war he was reluctantly sent to fight. Instead of dying, he restarts the day every time he gets killed in combat thereafter, and he must find a way to stop this endless loop. With a staggering budget of USD175 million, the movie grossed USD370.5 million.
Cruise was the one who initiated a sequel idea, with Blunt, director Doug Liman and writer Christopher McQuarrie all excited and eager to return. Although little is revealed about the plot, it’s not hard to guess the storyline, with a title like Live Die Repeat and Repeat. What we do know is what Liman has shared, “I’ve had some radical ideas about how to make a sequel that would interest me, in the same way that I had ideas of how you make an independent film and then Swingers came along and it was like ‘Aha, that’s the perfect movie for me to test these ideas out on.’ I had these intellectual ideas on how you should make a sequel that is unlike how anybody else makes a sequel, and this script and this idea fit perfectly into that idea. So it’s going to revolutionise how people make sequels.”
Die Hard 6- Die Hard: Year One
While Sylvester Stallone has his Rocky and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator, Bruce Willis also has a character that we associate him with- John McClane. Started in 1988, Willis has reprised McClane four more times, with the latest in 2013 in A Good Day to Die Hard, where he teams up with his son (Jai Courtney) against the Russian gangsters. The movie made USD304 million with a USD92 million budget. At 58, Willis was still pretty agile for his age, and is able to keep up with his younger co-star. But now that he’s passed the 60 mark, can he still make it as an action star?
It turns out Die Hard 6 isn’t going to be yet another sequel. Instead of continuing with McClane’s escapades as a butt-kicking cop, it’s partly an origin story, throwing us back to the 1970s with McClane as a rookie cop in New York in the 1970s. Willis, however, will still appear as the present day MacClane.
Lucy 2
As the title character in the 2014 Lucy, we see Scarlett Johansson as a full-fledged action star, when we previously could only catch glimpses of her kicking butt in The Avengers as the Black Widow. The movie, in typical Luc Besson style, blends fast-paced music with equally quick action sequences to deliver a palatable movie about how an average woman basically transforms into a mean killing machine after absorbing the drugs she’s carrying as a drug mule. The movie grossed USD463 million, 11 times more than the budget of USD40 million.
Besson is currently working on the sequel, having already written a script for it. It’s a question mark as to whether Johansson will return for the sequel. Although we didn’t see her die in the first film, her character “ascended” into the space-time continuum. The sequel could borrow the same premise as its original movie, spinning off with another drug mule angle, or it could continue with Lucy’s story, having her return to physical form.
