Whether it’s a superhero movie like “Batman Begins” or “Man of Steel,” or a horror movie (including recent releases “Annabelle” and “Dracula Untold”), the genre of the prequel has become a common appearance into any year’s movie marketplace. While some prequels match up with their original material, several have fallen critically and commercially short.
Of Hollywood’s prequels, one specifically rises to the top of the list: “The Godfather: Part II.” While the film is a sequel to the 1970 crime epic “The Godfather” and returns the majority of its predecessor’s cast as it follows son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) as he expands his family’s empire, it is at the same time an origin story of the man who started it all: Michael’s father, Vito (Robert De Niro, who won his first Oscar for this). While the film runs over three hours, it is just as engrossing, intense and well-made as the original “Godfather,” and is revered in many circles as better than the first. It’s splitting hairs to determine which one is truly the best.
When prequels like “The Godfather: Part II” and, for more recent examples, “Red Dragon” and “Prometheus” (prequels to “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Alien,” respectively) are fitting additions to the original film’s canon, several have fallen short. While it has made a whopping $37 million in its first weekend of release, “Annabelle,” a prequel to last year’s sleeper hit “The Conjuring,” was still unable to usurp “Gone Girl” from the top spot at the box office, and has not received the acclaim or commercial success the original film had. It’s safe to say that while its affiliation with “The Conjuring” and October release helped draw in an audience, it may not have delivered on every level.
Then there’s the predicament of the origin story. A recent phenomenon, these stories allow directors and actors to put their own spins on well-known characters’ pasts, and reshape their images to audiences.
A prime example of this working in full is “Batman Begins,” the first film in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy with Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader himself. Introducing a trend of all-star supporting casts – this film includes Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson and Tom Wilkinson, among others – that would continue throughout the rest of the series and gradually move over to other origin stories, Nolan’s “Batman Begins” imbues Batman’s backstory with the appropriate amount of darkness, never ceasing to become a grittier thriller when it needs to be.
With the success of “Batman Begins” and, in reality, the trilogy as a whole, Nolan singlehandedly changed the public perception of Batman, so much so that when it was announced that Batman – recast with Ben Affleck – would appear in the “Man of Steel” sequel, doubt rose about if this new incarnation would work.
Prequels are an infrequently successful trend in terms of quality, but they’re a trend that’s here to stay. Hopefully more will live up to the reputations of their predecessors.
