A formula for success

The last two months have seen a number of ‘part twos and threes’ of well-known Hollywood movies — ‘Fast Five’, ‘Pirates Of The Carribean — On Stranger Tides’, ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’, ‘The Hangover 2’, and more recently, ‘X-Men : First Class’, ‘Green Lantern’ and ‘Cars 2’.

In a few days, ‘Transformers — Dark Of The Moon’ and ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part 2’ will be hitting the screens as well.

Closer home, Bollywood is not lagging behind with Bheja Fry 2 and Double Dhamaal hitting the screens. But are movie-buffs excited about watching subsequent parts of a well-known movie?

Do these sequels live up to their expectations built out of the first movie? Metrolife finds out.

Sridhar, an engineering student at New Horizon College of Engineering, is a big fan of horror and science fiction movies.

“I have seen many sequels like ‘Terminator Salvation’ and ‘Fast Five’. Though these were good, I am not a big fan of sequels. There are too many of them around. I prefer watching new movies,” he says.

“Nowadays, Hollywood production companies only want to mint money out of their previous successes.

So they keep churning out sequels with no originality to them. For instance, ‘Pirates Of The Carribbean — On Stranger Tides’ was not as good as its earlier parts.”

Javed, an IT consultant, watches all kinds of movies. Language holds no bar for him too.
“I do like sequels but not all of them. Some of them, like ‘Hangover 2’, offer nothing new and have the same story. Even ‘Pirates...’ was boring compared to its earlier parts,” he says. “However, ‘Terminator 2 — Judgement Day’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ were awesome,” he adds.

“On the whole, I don’t care whether a movie is a sequel or not, as long as the content is good.”  Being a keen follower of Bollywood films, Javed is looking forward to Double Dhamaal and Bheja Fry 2 as well. Says Irfan Fardin, an engineer in Volvo, “The usual perception is that the second or third part of a movie aren’t that good. That’s because most of the sequels aren’t as good as the first part of a movie,” he notes. “But certain stories, like that of ‘The Lord Of The Rings’, ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘The Matrix’, cannot be told in a single movie. So in such a case, the makers have to make many parts,” he adds. But Irfan has been disappointed many a time with sequels. “At times, I get upset thinking why I spent so much watching a bad sequel,”he laughs.

But ask these film-lovers on the reason behind the rising trend of sequels and they say it’s nothing but a formula for success. “If the first movie is a hit, the brand name is already there. So 50 per cent of the audience comes to watch the second part because of the first part,” says Javed. While Irfan feels most sequels are not even planned.

  “Only once the movie becomes a hit, the makers decide to cash in on its success. This is true especially in the case of Hindi movies like Hera Pheri and Golmaal,” he sums up.