The Year of The 3quel

Thursday, Jan. 04, 2007 By RICHARD CORLISS
Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp have relieved viewers of $1.7 billion.
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The more ambitious sequels want their characters to grow. Avi Arad, producer of Spider-Man 3, explains the arc: "The first Spider-Man was about the reluctant hero learning about his power. No. 2 was the kid learning to handle this awesome responsibility among other aspects of life, like love. No. 3 is, Does it go to his head? Once you master your ability and everybody applauds you, do you believe your own publicity?"

The industry hopes--prays--that audiences believe all the hype for these threequels. Movie people know that for every Spider-Man, there's a thudding Hulk; for every Shrek, a wildly off-orbit Treasure Planet. They also fret that with so many seen-it-before films clogging the May-June release schedule, sequel fatigue may set in. Pandya suggests this could hurt the June 15 opening of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a follow-up to the 2005 film Fantastic Four.

What may really hurt these sequels, however, is that they are simply machines, designed to replicate themselves forever. None are organic, like The Lord of the Rings and the first two Godfather films, in which a complex story unfolded in lavish detail and made audiences gasp in fear and wonder.

But there's a reason it's called show business. Look, if the moguls had been Greeks, they would have given The Odyssey another title: Iliad II--better brand recognition. And they would surely have pressured Homer to come up with a threequel. Maybe Ulysses could go up against Hercules in a real battle of the titans. Why, it could outgross Freddy vs. Jason.

With reporting by Rebecca Winters Keegan/Los Angeles