There’s a problem with releasing a great movie that tops the box office, a TV series that breaks viewing figures, or a project that blows away critics — ultimately, studios and fans alike will always want more. Imagine if Star Wars ended with the second Death Star blowing up, or what if The Godfather Part II never fleshed out Vito Corleone’s story with Robert De Niro?
As Tinseltown continues to bombard us from every direction with sequels, prequels, remakes, and requels, it feels like no franchise is ever truly over. Prequels are a lucrative corner of the market that is only growing in popularity, but unfortunately, for every Better Call Saul and Wonka, there’s a Young Sheldon and Oz: The Great and the Powerful just around the corner. It seems that no matter what, we’ll never learn from the perils of prequels.
Back to the start
For many, your average prequel is a story that fails to raise the stakes and simply doesn’t need to be told. Despite Ewan McGregor’s lauded performance in George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s role in A New Hope clad him in plot armor and ensured he was never in any real danger. The same can be said for Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts movies and Corelanius Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Done right, though, prequels can expand on lesser-known characters or fill in the gaps, like what happened to Padmé as Luke and Leia’s mother. Also, look at the tragic trajectory of Anakin Skywalker from happy lil’ podracer to the metal menace of Darth Vader.
Disney is particularly guilty of prequel perils, with us questioning who asked for the slew of Direct-to-Video movies like The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning and The Lion King 1 1/2. The House of Mouse has similarly become obsessed with taking iconic villains like Maleficent and Cruella de Vil and trying to humanize them through sympathetic origin stories. Having clearly not learned from Universal’s TWO Huntsman movies that focused on Snow White‘s Evil Queen, 2024’s Mufasa: The Lion King looks like it will be much the same as an outing that is completely unnecessary.
If there’s one genre that’s renowned for plundering prequels, it’s horror movies. Even if it’s cheaper to throw a bit of corn syrup around than craft a Planet of the Apes prequel like Rupert Wyatt did with the brilliant Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there’s many bargain basement bin slashers out there. Hannibal Rising, Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings, and the abysmal Exorcist: The Beginning are just a few, although we’ve got to hand it to Final Destination 5’s shock ending for inadvertently making one of the best prequels of all time.
Unfortunately, you sometimes can’t tell how these things will go. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is effectively a band of Rebels stealing the plans to the Death Star, and given that we all know how that goes, it was a big risk to make a 134-minute movie about it. Aside from some uncanny valley CGI on Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia, Rogue One is about as perfect a Star Wars movie as you can imagine. These days, it’s remembered as a heart-wrenching war epic rather than a prequel.
The same can’t be said for Solo: A Star Wars Story. Even though there was enough interest in how Han Solo became the scruffy Nerf herder we can’t help but love, Solo flopped where Rogue One flew. As well as being the first Star Wars movie to bomb at the box office, Solo‘s failure saw Lucasfilm largely shift its focus to an expanding Disney+ slate and led to plans for more anthology movies to be scrapped.
Importantly, Rogue One taught us you don’t need to necessarily slap on the moniker of a prequel to work. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus was a bold reinvention of the Alien franchise that soared, whereas Alien: Covenant flopped for trying to be too similar to the 1979 classic while expanding the franchise law. Similarly, Ti West’s Pearl fits the bill of being an X prequel but also feels like a wildly different movie. If you’d asked us a decade ago whether a Native American-led Predator prequel would’ve worked, we’d have laughed. Now, look at the success of Prey.
The struggles of the small screen
It’s not just munching popcorn in the dark of the local cinema that makes prequels big business, with TV also being a prequel paradise. Better Call Saul took the fan-favorite Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and explained how the law-abiding Jimmy McGill became the slippery lawyer. Yet, taking the events beyond Breaking Bad to continue his story as Cinnabon Gene, there was something else that Better Call Saul had going for it. Giancarlo Esposito pitched his own Gus Fring prequel to Variety, but aside from Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan saying he’s done, we know one good prequel doesn’t always lead to more.
More often than not, prequels run before they can walk and try to fast-track an expanded universe. Fear The Walking Dead started out as a humble sister series to The Walking Dead and took a more unique approach. While we loved the addition of The Walking Dead’s Lennie James as Morgan, multiple time jumps and confusing continuity saw Fear catch up to the main series. Amidst complaints AMC’s series jumped the zombified shark, it started to face the same critiques as The Walking Dead and ultimately limped to its finale.
Where Gotham was a fresh twist on the Batman IP that focused on Ben McKenzie’s Jim Gordon, Pennyworth following Bruce Wayne’s stiff upper-lipped butler reminiscing about his time in the SAS wasn’t something anyone asked for. If a sequel genuinely adds something to an established world, it usually gets a free pass. Game of Thrones might’ve ended on a clanger, but by tracing back through the Targaryen family tree and picking up throwaway lines from the sister series, House of the Dragon spread its wings while feeling like peak Thrones. We’ll remain sceptical about whether all the other planned spin-offs will see the light of day, let alone be a success.
The problem is that the bigger IP, the bigger you fall. Star Trek: Discovery introduced a wholly different crew away from Captain James Tiberius Kirk, but with the tractor beam of the USS Enterprise pulling us in, it couldn’t help but lean on legacy characters like Spock. Continuing to dilute the brand, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a series that revolves around The Original Series characters, including Captain Pike, Spock, and Number One. More series are planned, meaning it’s surely a matter of time until the Trek-Verse caves and unites a young version of the Enterprise crew under young Kirk. This in itself feels like a middle finger to Star Trek: The Original Series.
One of the biggest gambles in recent memory was Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Having shelled out a whopping $250 million for the rights to the Tolkien estate, the streaming giant then locked itself in for a further $750 million to film six series. Being the most expensive TV series of all time is even more daunting when The Rings of Power boasts a lukewarm reception and (according to The Hollywood Reporter) was finished by just 37% of domestic viewers. The Rings of Power showrunners told Total Film how they were up against pitches for Young Aragorn and Young Gimli shows, proving that the well of untapped potential will likely be drained before long.
It’s not all doom and gloom, as Tony Gilroy’s Andor was another big hit that achieved critical acclaim during its first run of 12 episodes. With a second (and final) season following, fingers crossed that it’s more of the same for this Rogue One prequel. There’s no rhyme or reason to what fans will love or loathe, with the McGregor-led Obi-Wan Kenobi also getting a Hoth-like reception. These massive IPs tend to have a more passionate fanbase, which explains why prequels are even more of a risk. Samuel L. Jackson has recently been banging his drum that Mace Windu survived, and with 2024’s Star Wars: Mace Windu comic charting his escapades before he was a Jedi master, we imagine dollar signs are ringing in Disney’s eyes for another prequel series.
The subtlety of the prequel is usually its winner, and one of the best little-known Hollywood factoids is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It seems that most of you love a prequel until you know it’s one, with far too many shackling themselves to their predecessor with post-credit teases and unnecessary cameos. Like how Better Call Saul and The Godfather Part II serve as a sequel and a prequel in one, this can be a sweet spot of storytelling, although they seem to be rare exceptions. While we wouldn’t say no to a story about Ageon’s Conquest in the world of Thrones or a Gremlins origin movie, let’s be honest that we probably don’t need a whole Outbreak Day series for The Last of Us or another Fantastic Beasts movie. Sorry, but some stories are better left untold.
Based in Manchester, UK, Tom Chapman has over seven years’ experience covering everything from dragons to Demogorgons. Starting out with a stint at Movie Pilot in Berlin, Tom has since branched out to indulge his love of all things Star Wars and the MCU at Digital Spy, Den of Geek, IGN, Yahoo! and more. These days, you’ll find Tom channelling his inner Gale Weathers and ranting about how HBO did us dirty with Game of Thrones Season Eight.
