Attention all you writers out there. The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Universal has put out an open call for writers to tackle a third installment of the Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor franchise and may God have mercy on their souls. Perhaps Mr. Jerry Lewis can take some time away from his musical stage version of The Nutty Professor to lend a hand with the scriptwriting and then the whole thing can explode like a Sherman Klump Thanksgiving parade balloon. As The Amazing Criswell would say, “Help us all in the future.” Read it and weep.
No Country For Old Sequels
This quote from Chris Nolan in the LA Times on the difficulty in cowboying up for a third Batflick got me thinking…
“On a more superficial level, I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name? [Laughs.] At the same time, in taking on the second one, we had the challenge of trying to make a great second movie, and there haven’t been too many of those either. It’s all about the story really. If the story is there, everything is possible. I hope that was a suitably slippery answer.”
Well, how many good third movies in a franchise can you name? Off the top of my head…
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (seriously, it may be the best in the series besides the original)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Goldfinger (technically the third in the James Bond series)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Return of the Jedi (Ewoks notwithstanding)
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (I might be alone on that one)
The Bourne Ultimatum
and, of course, High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I haven’t seen it myself, but I hear good things.
Of course, Nolan makes a good point. Even with all these titles, I can rattle off many more threequels that sucked (*cough* all of May 2007 *cough*), but what do you think?
OK, so I just updated the top 10 selling DVDs on the Filmcritic.com home page. This week’s best sellers include not just Starship Troopers 3 and Step Up 2 the Streets (for at least 2 weeks running), but also The Art of War II and even Belly 2. And these are purchases, not rentals. Who is buying this stuff???
All told, seven of the top 10 DVDs this week are either sequels or TV series box sets. Wow.