Funny how some film franchises seem to develop a “curse”. People talked for years about how Star Trek suffered from the “odd-numbered movies curse”, till Nemesis showed up and proved an even movie could suck too. And the reboot proved an odd one could be cool. For superhero movies, that curse seems to be the third one. Even when the first two installments are great, for whatever reason the franchise seems to head into the wrong direction in the third one and then into a downward spiral till a God-awful fourth film, if there even is one. I´d go as far as to say that, in some cases, there has been a “second movie quasi-curse”. That is, some second movies presented problems of varying natures and degrees that, while not deeply compromising the final result, seemed to help ignite the troubles of the third one.
There are some clues, however, as to why it has happened so often. Based on them, here are my tips for future third installments to avoid such a plague:
1. Keep the man with the vision – When a director has a clear vision on how to portray a superhero on the big screen, and the result is a critical and commercial success, it seems like a no-brainer to just stick with that guy, but it has often not been the case.
Whatever were the squabbles between director Richard Donner and the Salkinds, depending on whose version you hear, the director got fired by the producers even after Superman The Movie was a critical and financial megahit and he had even shot most of the second one. Because of that, the sequel was still an overall enjoyable movie, in spite of memory-erasing kiss and whatnot, but then the franchise fully fell into the hands of Richard Lester for the third one and, in spite of the cool bad Superman subplot, we had to put up with Richard Pryor as a threat, and a ridiculously silly and unfunny opening scene, among other atrocities.
The X-Men franchise, under Bryan Singer´s helm, was a well-oiled machine for two movies, and everything seemed in place for the third one, then there was the famous switch where at one point Superman film director Brett Ratner came to direct the third X-movie, while Singer moved on to Supes, a turnout that didn´t seem to benefit much either franchise – and one whose behind the scenes workings may also change depending on who you hear it from. They even tried to maintain the look and feel of Singer´s first two films, but there was an elegance and completion to his work that Ratner just couldn´t imitate.
Tim Burton´s case was a little more complicated. His first Batman movie was a huge hit, but the second one made a lot less money, and caused some angry reactions to things that would seem silly now – the black goo in Penguin´s mouth, Catwoman´s dominatrix wardrobe, etc. I myself never understood why some fans are so enthusiastic about this one, which always felt to me like Tim Burton putting his own personal cinematic idiosyncrasies far above the source material, but to each their own. Then Schumacher came in, and the age of Batman nipples, butt shots and neon-obsessed Gotham begun.
To sum it all up, Hollywood: don´t let petty squabbles become more important than the talent involved. A great director with a strong vision for the character isn´t easy to find and even less easy to replace, so when you get one, fight to keep him in.
2. Don´t push stuff down your director´s throat – After Sam Raimi´s highly successful first two Spider-Man movies, and he got confirmed to helm the third one, fans really hoped this one would break the curse. While I don´t call the movie the total train wreck some fanboys see in it, there were some major problems. One of them is, it was no secret that Raimi had no affection for Venom, although he´s a popular villain. The director ended up giving up to producers´ pressure, and included the character. But, as is usually the case, you can tell when a director includes something for purely professional reasons, with none of his soul and heart into it, and Venom´s appearance in Spidey 3 didn´t really satisfy him or the character´s fans.
There are rumors, although nothing confirmed by either side, that Jon Favreau also wasn´t happy with Marvel´s interference in Iron Man 2 – not to mention his paycheck, but that´s more of an item 1 problem. That the studio pushed too hard for tie-ins with the planned Avengers movie within the plot of the sequel, which was cool for some fanboys, but ended up being one of the most criticized aspects of the movie, distracting and slowing down even more the movie´s second act. Granted, they hired the talented Shane Black to direct IM3, so who knows, maybe Iron Man will have a little bit of an inversed version of the ST curse…
3. More doesn´t always mean better – Whenever studios talk about making a sequel “bigger and better”, they should also be reminded of the classic saying, “less is more”. Spider-Man 3 had no less than four villains, if you count black suit Spidey as one. X3 had tons of short appearances by various mutants, but left little room to properly develop its lead characters. Black Widow had barely anything to do as a character in Iron Man 2, even her “love triangle” subplot barely went beyond Nickelodeon teen series level of flirtation.
4. Have some kind of overall game plan – Of course you don´t script an entire trilogy all at once, but it doesn´t hurt to have at least a general idea of the overall story you wanna tell, so you don´t get to the third part doing forced, tacky things to make the thing “come full circle”, like, say, reveal out of the blue that there was another mugger involved in the killing of Uncle Ben, or kill off Cyclops in the first ten minutes of the movie.
Our hope, for the near future, is that The Dark Knight Rises may be the one to finally break the curse and deliver the first fully-accomplished superhero film trilogy. Nolan is coming back, and he´s at the prime of his prestige at Warner Brothers, with the success of his Batman movies and Inception. He´s gonna bring a new take on Catwoman, a classic villain he still hadn´t reinterpreted, and one of the most talented actors he´s worked with in Inception, Tom Hardy, to play Bane. Unlike Topher Grace – who was kind of a mesh-up of animated and Ultimate Eddie Brock -, Hardy can totally incarnate the brute badassitude of Bane, who´s a perfect character to be hunting down Batman as a fugitive. Although Nolan works one movie at a time, he always talks about finishing the story they set to tell, which is a strong indication that there was an overall plan for the trilogy.
If it happens, hopefully it will set an example to be followed by all superhero trilogies. Our amulet against the curse.