There Are Four Winning Strategies Behind Good Hollywood Sequels
Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton from Twister are upcycled into Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell in Twisters.
Illustration by Javier Jaén
Desperate to get butts back into seats after the pandemic, Hollywood went all-in on established intellectual property, cementing the trend toward sure-thing spectacles that began with the rise of streaming. Since 2020, 16 of the 20 highest-grossing releases have been sequels, prequels or requels (aka reboots).
But when Joseph Campbell told us there was only one plot, the hero’s journey, he didn’t mean it had to be the same hero on the same journey. Screenwriters fear artificial intelligence, but will computer-crafted films be more derivative than what the studios are churning out now? Do we need more aliens, apes or kung fu pandas?