As much as movie sequels now dominate the box office more than ever before, they have also been around for more than a century. Hot off the success of The Birth of a Nation, author Thomas Dixon Jr. (who wrote The Clansman, the book on which D. W. Griffith’s racist epic was based) directed its sequel The Fall of a Nation himself in 1916 to diminishing returns. It’s considered by many to be the first sequel to a feature film. In 1925, Douglas Fairbanks starred in Don Q Son of Zorro, a sequel to his 1920 smash hit The Mark of Zorro, in an attempt to shore up United Artists. As long as there have been moving pictures, there has been an urge to capitalize on proven intellectual property.
With each passing decade, that urge grew alongside the undeniable monetary benefits of the formula. By the bloated 1980s, acceleration was met with stagnation. These narrative continuances often felt more perfunctory than passionate, and the box office suffered. Yet the sequels persisted, bigger than ever before. After all, for every The Sting II there was an Empire Strikes Back. As Hollywood attempts to survive and thrive in this ever-changing media landscape, the familiar serves as an easy comfort. With that in mind, which are the ones you might have missed or dismissed that are worthy of your time?
