Revenge of the sequels

The next few years are going to see a lot of the same films cropping up with colons appending their names, and "2's" and "3's" or part I and part IIs tacked to the end. First up, The Hobbit is being expanded from two films to three films. To those who aren't in the know, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is a single, 300-page book. How could that possibly cover the ground for three movies? THR notes that "production cost of the third could run between half and two-thirds as much as one of the other two films thanks to work that's already been done" [emphasis added]. That means that director Peter Jackson is essentially stretching out the book into three films instead of two, so fans will have to wait two and a half years to see the series complete. The first installment opens this Christmas, with the two after planned for the fourth quarter of 2013 and summer 2014. This isn't that different than what Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games did or plan to do: chopping the final book into two parts. Although I've never read Tolkien's books, there must be an awful lot of material to turn such a short book into three movies. In Jackson's official statement, he notes that the Hobbit movies include material from other Tolkien works, and that the decision to add another movie was made after watching preliminary cuts of the first and second films. But did the filmmakers really see a gap in the story, or simply an opportunity to turn two movies into three when presented with a long, unedited first cut? I wonder if the films will end up with lagging pacing, or if the three movies will be filled with just the right amount of action sequences and plot.

Besides The Hobbit, there will be plenty of other multi-film franchises of this summer's films, which THR compiles in a lengthy and slightly depressing list. With the exception of Prometheus, which may not even get a sequel, there have been very few films I've seen this year that have warranted a repeat. However, the success of Ted and Magic Mike, along with Snow White and the Huntsman (star Kristen Stewart's affair with the director notwithstanding), Men in Black 3, and The Amazing Spider-Man means these films will be the first of many. Get ready, because the next couple of years will bring plenty of déjà vu.