Movies: Originals, Sequels & Trilogies
Movies. People love to watch, rate and discuss them whether it is the latest blockbuster in theaters or a classic sequel or trilogy. Movies can invoke fond memories of unforgettable story-telling moments. Sequels and trilogies can turn a movie franchise into the next pop culture icon. As rare as they now seem to be, original movies can breathe fresh air back into the movie-watching experience.
Sequels and trilogy movies have been around for decades.
The first considered sequel ever is a “talkie” movie that was released June 6, 1916. The Fall of Our Nation is the sequel to the movie The Birth of Our Nation that was released the year before in 1915.
Some agree that some movies should not have sequels or trilogies, but that ends up being everyone’s own opinion and preference.
Renee Yan is a senior journalism student at the University of Texas at Arlington and is taking a course this semester that dedicates their class time to watching movies. After they watch the movies, they have discussions and critique the films with their professor.
They did not watch many sequels or trilogies during the duration of her class, but they did touch the topic and the history of them.
Yan doesn’t particularly enjoy watching movie sequels or trilogies, but that is based on her own experiences with such films.
“I prefer movies that stand alone, I typically don’t enjoy movie sequels or trilogies because usually viewers can see a decrease in quality of plot and quality,” says Yan.
“However, this is only a general rule, and there are exceptions, like Toy Story, for example.”
In her class, they watch films that have significance to cinema history and she has learned a lot about culture and evolution of cinema.
One of the well-known movie franchises that everyone knows of is Twilight. The films come from a book series created by Stephanie Meyer.
“Twilight was a mistake, that was pretty painful to watch,” says Yan.
“The sequels to Twilight were easier to watch, but I had higher expectations for it, and I feel it was rather disappointing, especially because it was a book series first.”
She thinks that movies that are adapted from books usually face higher expectations depending on how well the books are written.
Sometimes movies are split up into two, for example the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn was made up of two movies, whereas in the book there was just one.
A lot of people use Rotten Tomatoes or similar websites to look at movie trailers or to see the reviews and ratings that movie critics give to certain films. This website uses red, fresh tomatoes if a film is rated 60 percent or higher of positive ratings, and rotten, green tomatoes for films that are poorly rated.
Other people prefer to just go see the movies for themselves and make their own conclusion about the movie.
“I like to go into a movie with an open mind, so I never look at reviews beforehand,” says Yan.
“I want to be as objective and unbiased as possible and go in with a fresh perspective.”
In the “The Numbers” website there is data that provides rankings, release dates, distributors, genres, gross total and tickets sold for a particular year.
The Top Five Grossing movies of 2015 happened to be mostly sequels and trilogies with the exception on one. Furious 7 was ranked fifth with a total gross of $351,032,910 while the number one spot had a total gross of $742,208,942.
The chart ranks the movies by the amount of earnings each movie made during that year.
Using this chart, you can also find out information by clicking on the title of the movie and it will take you to another webpage that gives you information such as how much money the movie made at the domestic box office, international and worldwide box office.
We compared our crowdsourced data from this survey with the data set gathered by The-Numbers.com. According to The-Numbers, the top 10 grossing movies of 2015, seven movies were a sequel, remake or spinoff to an established movie franchise. Some examples listed were Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Furious 7, and Jurassic World. In this same group, the only three original, non-remake and non-sequel movies were American Sniper, Inside Out, and The Martian.
When examining the data gathered from The-Numbers.com, it is easy to see that movie sequels and trilogies are more successful as well as plentiful compared to original movies. If we look at the top 20 grossing movies, 11 movies were a sequel, remake or trilogy, and 9 were an original movie. It is also interesting to note that only two movies in the top 20 were rated R, American Sniper (No. 6) and Straight Outta Compton (No. 19). Using this data, we can assume a movie sequel, remake or trilogy rated either PG or PG-13 is more likely to succeed in theaters than an original, rated R movie would.
In a survey with 81 individual responses, we wanted to know what types of movies people felt strongly about. We asked 18 questions to see if people’s movie-watching habits were dependent on the originality or the continuation of them.
Although our survey consisted of only 81 responses gathered over a period of two weeks, the data yielded interesting results. First, we asked about demographics. Per our survey data, 55 percent of people were female and 45 percent were males. With 48 percent, most our survey responders were between the ages of 22 to 34. Out of the 81 responses, only two people were under the age of 21, and only one was age 65 and over. 30 percent of people said they watch five movies a month.
In our survey, 77 percent of people said they watch only one movie per month at a theater. Interestingly, two people said they watch four or movies per month at a theater. To put this into perspective with costs, we used the price of one adult admission ticket for a movie at an AMC Theatres location. According to the AMC Theatres online ticket prices, one ticket costs $13.69. People who watch four or more movies at theaters would spend about $55 on movie tickets alone each month, not including additional tickets, discounts, food or drinks.
For comparison, we asked people how many movies they watched on services such as Netflix and iTunes. 63 percent of people said they watched one to two movies through these online movie services, and 8 percent said they watched seven or more. The cost of one Netflix membership is about $8 per month. Assuming people use Netflix at home and watched any number of movies, $8 is all they would spend per month on this hobby.
We then asked people if they thought movies got better, worse or stayed the same with sequels and trilogies. 56 percent said movies stayed about the same with the sequels and trilogies. However, 38 percent said movies got worse when compared to original movies. Lastly, 6 percent said movie sequels and trilogies got better after the originals. As for remakes, 65 percent of people did not like the idea of remaking an established movie franchise, whereas 35 percent of people did.
When asked about reading movie reviews or checking ratings before watching a movie for the first time, our survey responders were the most divided. 51 percent of people said they do read them before watching a movie and 49 percent said they did not. With this in mind, we can assume that one out of every two people who are about to watch a movie for the first time most likely has already read a review or checked the rating for it.
Movie franchises with sequels and trilogies that were liked the most by people who took our survey included Star Wars, Finding Dory, and Harry Potter. The most recent original movies people said they have watched included Avengers, Moonlight, Arrival and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Lastly, we asked people how much were they watching movies this year compared to last year. 42 percent said their movie-watching habits stayed about the same, whereas as 41 percent said they were watching less movies. Only 17 percent said they were watching more movies.
In conclusion, movies that are either original or sequels and trilogies do have effect on people’s movie watching habits. At theaters, sequels and trilogies rule the box office in terms of gross income generated. The originality of movies seems to be getting rarer, as sequels and trilogies become more common. Regardless, most people tend to watch one movie at a theater per month, which is also consistent with their movie-watching habits when compared to last year.
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