I think it's fair to say that with the exception of the Lord of the Rings film, all of which tell one story in three parts, and, arguably, Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, the little-seen, 2004 sequel to the little-seen 1995 film Before Sunrise, every single sequel to every film ever made was greenlit based mainly on the producers' projection of how much money they could make. No matter what directors or scriptwriters may say about having more stories to tell, at the end of the day there's invariably a suit or bunch of suits more concerned about return on investment that make the final decision. There's a reason, after all, it's called show business.
To be fair, the obvious financial motivation behind most sequels has not always resulted in badly-made films. Some of the most widely-acclaimed films in the history of the medium have been sequels, such as The Godfather Part II, Aliens, Terminator 2, Toy Story 2, Spider-man 2 and The Dark Knight, to name but a few.
Pixar films is no stranger to fantastic sequels; Toy Story 2 was one of the rare films that equaled if not eclipsed the charm of the original, and even though last year's Toy Story 3 was not quite as good as Toy Story 2, it still contained genuine emotional resonance.
I confess, however, that I was disappointed with the latest choice of their films to "sequelize," namely Cars, the sequel to which, Cars 2, will be coming out in a few weeks' time. Cars is viewed by many as easily the weakest of all Pixar films storywise, its plot having been widely recognized as having been taken almost straight out of Michael J. Fox's 1991 film Doc Hollywood. It has the lowest score of any Pixar film among aggregated critics' reviews, whether on rottentomatoes.com or metacritic, and it is the one Pixar film that broke their streak at the Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film, having lost to Happy Feet, a cartoon so boring that even my four-year-old son wanted to walk out of it.
If I were given the choice of Pixar films for which a sequel should be made, I would, without hesitation, choose 2004's The Incredibles, directed by Brad Bird and winner of two Oscars, among them the best Animated Feature Film award. As a nearly-universally acclaimed, bona fide box-office superhero smash with a story that not only left plenty of room for sequels the way most superhero stories do but actually ended on a cliffhanger (with "the Underminer" showing up at the end for the heroes to battle), this would quite arguably be the best-suited film for a sequel in Pixar's entire library.
In fact, speaking purely in terms of box-office returns, The Incredibles, with a worldwide gross of about $630 million, still manages to trump Cars, which grossed about $462 million worldwide. Bird is a visionary and deserves to weave his magic with the Parr family one more time, preferably before Tom Cruise locks him up to direct a series of Mission: Impossible sequels. Of course, the fact that apparently Bird himself hasn't declared that he's come up with the perfect script for a follow-up adventure could serve as a hindrance to the sequel getting made. Still, I'd argue for the aggressive development for a sequel to this film before any other in the Pixar stable.
From a purely financial perspective, though, there are numbers on the side of Cars that simply cannot be argued with: from 2006 to early this year, the merchandise derived from Cars has earned EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS, a figure rivaled by probably only one other franchise in film history: the Star Wars series, which is over 30 years old. To put things in perspective: Avatar, the biggest box-office hit in the entire world, grossed THREE billion dollars, or less than HALF of what the merchandise for Cars earned.
It would appear, therefore, even where Pixar is concerned, that awards and accolades and even box-office, to an extent, can go out the window when compared to the lure of billions of dollars in merchandise sales. This marks the second year in a row that Pixar is coming up with a sequel instead of one of their unique and original films like Finding Nemo or Up.
From what I've seen based on the trailers, which feature a lot of big explosions and several unfunny jokes involving Mater, the film looks largely uninspired and a lot like the cash-grab I firmly believe it is. Sure, some sequels are fantastic, but this doesn't really look like one of them.
As if to add insult to injury, the animated short film that will precede Cars 2 will be a Toy Story spinoff starring Barbie and Ken, neither of whom are characters created by anyone at Pixar, but who are, in fact, dolls from Mattel, the manufacturer of the Cars diecast toys that have made the company 8 billion dollars richer. Considering how much they stand to make from this film, I wouldn't be surprised if Mattel picked up the entire bill for this movie. After all, what's a couple of hundred million when one can make it back more than ten times over? However, I said it once when I slated Pixar for giving Barbie and Ken starring roles in Toy Story 3 and I'll say it again: Pixar DOESN'T need the money...but they're taking it anyway.
Movies made purely for the purpose of selling toys are generally mindless crap (as evidenced by both Transformers movies and most likely the third one as well and the forgettable G.I. Joe), and while Pixar is not in the business of making mindless crap, I am not optimistic regarding Cars 2.
Now, I will recognize that I could be completely off-base about this; considering the development time that went into this movie, and considering Pixar's generally rock-solid track record, Cars 2 still has an even chance of being a very good movie, even if it should fall below Pixar's usual standard of excellence the way the first one did. I would be happy to be proven wrong, even though part of me doubts that'll happen.
Furthermore, if Pixar greenlights Cars 3 before it does The Incredibles 2, they will definitely not get my money.
No comments:
Post a Comment