From spotlighting former side characters to revisiting standout villains,
there's a reason these stories might feel a little familiar.
"Supercop" is a martial-arts action extravaganza released in 1992. The
film represents the only live-action starring collaboration between two legends of the genre:
Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh. The plot revolves around Chan and Yeoh's characters going undercover
to take down a dangerous criminal organization, complete with tons of fights and death-defying
stunts along the way. Although the movie was released as simply "Supercop" and marketed as a
standalone film to English-language audiences, this is actually the third film in a series.
The original Chinese title of the film is "Police Story 3: Supercop." The first two
movies in Jackie Chan's "Police Story" series were massively successful and influential in
the Hong Kong film industry but were far less recognized and accessible in the West
at the time of the third film's release. In addition to dubbing the film into English,
distributor Miramax also changed the title, re-edited the film,
and made substantial cuts totaling over eight minutes' worth of footage, all of which made
the story of "Supercop" seem less like a sequel and more like a standalone film.
Additionally, the soundtrack and sound effects were changed,
a new highly-stylized opening-credits sequence was added, Jackie Chan's
character had his name anglicized from Ka-Kui Chan to Kevin Chan, and changes
were made to the plot that further distanced the story from the series that preceded it.
These days, most people are familiar with the "Mad Max" series as a whole from the
originator to "Fury Road" and all the way to the upcoming "Furiosa." But that wasn't
always the case. It took a while for the first "Mad Max" to reach international audiences,
as it was made with a low budget and only received a limited release at first. The sequel, however,
had breakthrough power right off the bat and became an international hit straight away.
Since "Mad Max" was practically unheard of in the U.S. at the time the sequel was released,
its title was changed from "Mad Max II" to "The Road Warrior."
"You wanna get outta here? You talk to me."
"The Road Warrior" went on to become a huge success in the U.S. as an original stand-alone
film, and it wasn't until later on that audiences went back and discovered the original "Mad Max."
The connective tissue between the first and second "Mad Max" movies is quite slim in the first place,
so the sequel distancing itself didn't change much. With the first film lacking the budget
to properly pull off the dusty post-apocalyptic future aesthetic, "Mad Max II" feels like a hard
reset for the series and barely feels like it's set in the same world as the first movie anyway.
Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan burst onto the Hollywood scene with a couple of high-quality,
twisty thrillers in "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable." Unfortunately,
his reputation began to diminish over time with a string of notorious disasters. In 2016, though,
Shyamalan mounted a surprise return to form with "Split."
James McAvoy stars as a man with numerous split personalities who abducts
three teenagers. One of the teens, played by Anya Taylor Joy, is determined to escape.
What begins as a psychological thriller takes on a supernatural aspect as it moves along.
"Holy s---. This is so cool!"
It isn't until the film has come to a close that a post-end-title scene
reveals "Split" to be set within the same universe as Shyamalan's earlier
"Unbreakable." The two films would coalesce more directly in his next movie: "Glass."
"Split" turned out to not just be a return to form for Shyamalan but also a return to
his roots. As Shyamalan revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:
"This character, Kevin from 'Split,' was in the original script of 'Unbreakable.' [...] Instead
of bumping into the Orange Suit Man, David bumps into one of Kevin’s personalities
and goes to save the girls. So you’d have been watching the girls' side of it the whole time."
"Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem" is an Israeli drama from 2014. The film
stars the highly-lauded Ronit Elkabetz in the titular role of Viviane Amsalem,
a woman seeking a divorce within Israel's rabbinical marriage system, which requires
the full consent of the husband. In addition to giving an incredibly impressive lead performance,
Ronit Elkabetz also co-wrote and co-directed the film alongside her brother Shlomi Elkabetz. She
passed away just two years later at the age of 51 as a result of cancer.
As a festival and awards darling, "Gett" had strong international appeal and broke through to
far-reaching audiences around the world. Many who watched the film were completely unaware of the
fact that "Gett" is the conclusion to a trilogy. The film tells what feels like a completely
self-contained story, but Ronit Elkabetz had previously portrayed the Viviane Amsalem character
in "To Take a Wife" and "Shiva," and all three films were written and directed by the Elkabetz
siblings. Simon Abkarian also stars in all three films as Viviane's husband Elisha, and the
entire trilogy focuses on the interpersonal drama involved in their family and marriage. There was
a substantial gap in time between the first two movies and the third, and "Gett" makes no mention
of the previous movies, nor does it require any knowledge of the characters' backstories.
"Get Him to the Greek" is a raunchy 2010 comedy about an intern, played by Jonah Hill,
tasked with transporting a wild, unpredictable musician, played by Russell Brand, from the U.K.
to Los Angeles to get to an important concert on time. The film was a modest box-office success and
earned the certified-fresh badge from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. As well received as "Get
Him to the Greek" was, though, it is a secret sequel to a movie that performed even better.
Before filmmaker Nicholas Stoller made "Get Him to the Greek," he made "Forgetting Sarah
Marshall" as his directorial debut. Jason Segel, who wrote and starred in "Forgetting
Sarah Marshall," was not a driving force in the sequel, though he remained involved
as a co-producer. Stoller wrote "Get Him to the Greek" himself and elevated the standout
supporting character played by Russell Brand in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" to a leading role.
"Why did you do this to me?"
"Out of love."
Throughout his relatively short stint as a big-budget comedy leading man,
Russell Brand was quite severely typecast, something which he knowingly embraced. His
screen image aligned closely with the persona he had earlier crafted as a standup comedian,
and his rock star character in the two Nicholas Stoller comedies fit snugly within that
typecast wheelhouse. With Brand playing so many similar rich, addict, playboy-type characters,
it was easy for audiences to miss the fact that he was playing the exact same character
and not just a similar one in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him to the Greek."
"Sin. Be cool."
"Be cool? You don't know me."
"Be Cool" is a gangster comedy set in the expensive and high-profile world of the music
industry. If that premise sounds familiar, it's because "Be Cool" is a sequel to "Get Shorty" and
kept the same basic plot while making the simple switch of transporting gangster Chili Palmer from
the film industry to the music industry. "Get Shorty" is often considered a highlight of its
genre, but "Be Cool," on the other hand, has fallen into obscurity and largely been
forgotten about these days despite being a full 10 years more recent than its famous predecessor.
Even though "Be Cool" featured a star-studded cast packed with the likes of John Travolta,
Uma Thurman, Dwayne Johnson, Vince Vaughn, Harvey Keitel, Danny DeVito, and more,
the film was a financial disappointment and a major critical failure. This sequel cost more
than twice as much to make and brought back less money at the box office than the first movie.
With the runaway success of the original, it is a surprise that the film's marketing
didn't lean more heavily into "Be Cool" being a direct sequel, though the full decade that
transpired between the two films might explain that decision. One has to wonder if the film
would have been more commercially successful if it were called "Get Shorty II" and had been made
closer to the original, though the weak critical reception would likely have been unaltered.
Although the film was critically divisive, 2005's "The Devil's Rejects" was a hit amongst
horror fans and has remained Rob Zombie's most successful original film. The story
follows three psychotic criminals known as the Firefly family — played by Sid Haig,
Bill Moseley, and Sheri Moon Zombie — as they torment unsuspecting victims. They are put on
the defensive when a vengeful sheriff, played by William Forsythe, proves willing to break
the law to take them down, and he just might be even more disturbed than them.
The story of "The Devil's Rejects" is completely self-contained, but this trio of main characters
made their first appearance two years earlier in Rob Zombie's feature film directorial debut,
"House of 1000 Corpses." This first film was extremely light on story,
and Zombie's background as a musician and music video director are impossible to miss.
The plot of "House of 1000 Corpses" is mostly a disposable excuse to get to the violence,
but Zombie knew he was scratching at the surface of something more interesting with the Firefly
family. When he revisited them in his next film, the result was a more cohesive story and a more
mature film. 14 years later, Zombie revisited these characters once more in "3 from Hell."
"This is 40" is a 2012 comedy from writer, director, and producer Judd
Apatow. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann play a married couple who face a pair of
mid-life crises as they both turn 40 while navigating myriad troubles in their lives
and their relationship. Given how simple and down-to-earth these characters are,
it was easy for audiences to miss the fact that they had seen them on screen before.
"We're like Simon and Garfunkel and somehow you turned me into Garfunkel."
"I don't even know what that means."
"Art Garfunkel."
"What's wrong with Art Garfunkel?"
Rudd and Mann first played this particular married couple five years earlier in Apatow's
"Knocked Up." The two were prominent supporting characters who were upgraded to leads for "This
is 40" and given their time in the spotlight. The plot of "Knocked Up" has little to no bearing on
the events of "This is 40," and Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl's two lead characters are not
present. For a film about aging and looking back on one's youth, it makes perfect sense
to revisit characters that were first explored on screen at an earlier stage in their lives.
"The Purity of Vengeance," which is also known as "Journal 64," was released in Denmark in 2018
and quickly became the highest-grossing movie in the history of the Danish film
industry. The story follows two detectives, played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares,
as they investigate a disturbing mystery involving abducted girls, medical experiments,
and mummified corpses. Although the story functions as a self-contained mystery plot,
"The Purity of Vengeance" is actually the fourth film in the mystery thriller
series known as "Department Q," which are all adapted from the novel series of the same name.
The first three films all contained the series name in their titles: "Department Q:
The Keeper of Lost Causes," "Department Q: The Absent One," and "Department Q:
A Conspiracy of Faith." For the fourth outing, "Department Q" was dropped from both versions of
its title. This title switch-up allowed new viewers to jump right into the latest movie
without feeling the need to have already seen the previous entries and undoubtedly played a
role in "The Purity of Vengeance" becoming the highest-grossing entry in the series by far.
2004's "2046" is a romantic drama from acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai.
Tony Leung [LUNG] stars as an author writing a science fiction novel, and the film moves in
and out of reality and the fictional world of his book. The title has many meanings,
as "2046" refers to the futuristic setting of the sci-fi book as well as the number of
a room where nothing ever changes, which is the destination of the novel's characters. "2046" is
also the number of the hotel room where Leung's character experiences the doomed romance that
haunts him and is the room he currently resides next door to while writing the book in room 2047.
From the outside, "2046" appears to be a self-contained story, and one could watch
the film and never realize that it was a part of a series, but they would be missing out on
the bigger picture. The past romance that haunts the science fiction author isn't just character
backstory, it was the subject of Wong Kar-Wai's highly-lauded 2000 film "In the Mood for Love."
Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung also played the same characters a decade earlier in Wong Kar
Wai's 1990 film "Days of Being Wild." Though each film can be watched and enjoyed independently,
the full scope of the story and characters can only be found by watching the entire trilogy.