To sequel or not to sequel?

I can’t wait to see this one. I bet it will be even better than films like

Arrival 2, Speed 2 or the Crow 2…

Many people get excited about sequels to popular films, some get upset and angry. I think its great see more about characters you love and to learn what happened to them after the first film ended. However, sometimes sequels has none of the original cast, characters or locations, this is so weak!

Some films stand alone, there is no need to make any sequels, one reason might be that most of the characters from the first film died in the end of said movie. Movie studios feel it is than logical for the sister/brother or often cousin of the protagonist to step in and take over the search/quest for what ever they pretty much fixed or found out in the first film.

If you make a movie about a hero, may it be super, cop, ex-marine or cyborg. That character will have lots of action in his life, and there will be plenty of room to make sensible sequels about their life. If you have a movie about some random regular person being thrown into an action adventure, it’s not very likely that they end up in a situation like that again, example: Sandra bullocks character from Speed, what are the odds of a similar scenario happening to her again? 

I am personally a fan of sequels, and if they make a bad one I don’t think it takes anything away from the original film. That film will still be a great film. However, you might get bummed out when the character you rooted for the whole first movie overcoming all odds to survive, dies in the first minutes of the sequel. Here the Hostel films comes to mind, I actually saw the second one first, and when I saw the first one I recognized the main character to be the guy who died in the opening minutes of hostel 2.

The need for a sequel often depends on the type of source material used, is it a book, short story, comic or an original screenplay? The one thing you can be sure of is that if there is money to make, sequels will be pushed by the studios. Sometimes the actor’s won’t come back. Than the studio must wait for the stars fame to fade or his debts to grow for a new film in the series. Just waiting for Dennis Quaid and Martin short to make Innerspace 2, hope Megan fox is in it…