Inception (2010) was a mind bending action movie that had the audience on the edge every second. Personally, I was unaware the movie exited until quarantine struck. I was looking to watch a movie on Netflix and when I read the description of Inception, I was hooked. I wanted another movie, but unfortunately there isn’t one…yet.

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I will try to explain it the best I can for those of you who haven’t seen it, but I had to watch the movie twice to fully understand it myself. Dom (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is an expert thief known for his ability to extract. In the movie, the term extracting is used when they go into someone’s mind during a vulnerable dream state and extract secrets. Because of his unique ability to do this, he is an international fugitive, so he has lost everyone he has ever loved except for his team. Similar to other movies, Dom is offered one last job. Instead of stealing an idea, their job is to plant one. To incept this idea, they have to go deep into the dream state and manipulate the person they want the idea to be in. The tricky part with this is that once the idea is planted, the task is done, meaning the team can not control the unpredictability of its growth. They have to complete the perfect job. Once into the dream state, they are attacked by the high profile person’s self conscious because the person underwent training against extractors. After many mind bending events and deep stories, the job gets completed. The team is free to do what they want, and some continue while other have other dreams they want to pursue.

All of the action sequences, different settings, and high profile actors made for a very high budget of about $160 million. Fortunately, all of this payed off considering the movie grossed over $830 million. Why not make a sequel? I am sure the work that everyone put into this movie was exhausting and possibly, they do not want to go through that again. With the right price, maybe they will, however. But the people have to really want it.

What did the reviews say? They were all glowing!

“A one-of-a-kind mind-blowing masterpiece!”

“Inception; Christopher Nolan’s first masterpiece!”

“Sci-fi perfection. A truly mesmerizing film.”

Christopher Nolan directed this film and wowed us all…again. He also directed the Dark Knight trilogy which brought a similar level of unpredictability. Now he has two great options for sequels. I hope he makes as least one of them if not both! I would like to see Inception 2 rather than Robin, but I will enjoy either 🙂

World War Z (2013) was one of many zombie themed movies and started like most of them do, with the outbreak. When I saw this, I was not impressed and lost interest. Somehow, by the end of the movie, I was sucked in and the characters had grown on me through their experiences that I only have watched. After the first time I watched it, I had to watch it again to get the full experience. At this point, I was sold that it was one of the better zombie themed movies to be made. In fact, they can not go wrong with a sequel (Z2).

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For those of you who didn’t get the opportunity to watch it, I will give you the less thrilling recap. Former UN field agent, Gerry Lane, is with his family in Philadelphia when the city gets overrun by zombies. Him and his family were in a car and they watched people turning into zombies all around them. They fled to the closest building and harbored in a small apartment with another family. Once they figured out what was happening, an old friend of Gerry’s from the UN reached out and offered to send in a helicopter. Gerry’s family struggled to make it to the roof but they did and rode the helicopter to a military aircraft carrier. In order for Gerry’s family to stay on the helicopter, he had to do his part and help out. He traveled across the world to a military sight where it was believed the pandemic began. He spoke with a poisoner there that said Jerusalem already had a wall surrounding it. He then took the plane there and began asking questions to the person who built the massive wall. As he is learning more about how they knew of the virus, the infected start climbing the wall because people are making noise due to celebration. The infected make it over the wall and as Gerry tries to escape, he sees the infected avoiding an old man and a mal nourished boy. He determines that they are not healthy enough hosts for the virus, so the infected do not bother them. He travels to a research lab in Europe so he can tell them what he knows. Once there, he tests his theory through a dangerous and thrilling experiment. His theory was correct and the scientists there develop a vaccine and send it out.

This sounds like a nice ending and the loose ends are tied, but the vaccine only prevents more from being infected. There are still millions if not billions of zombies running around the world. The sequel could dive into this issue. It could go into the direction of curing everyone or could lean more towards a survival movie. There are so many different variations and directions the writers can go in, that their is no issue writing another.

The original movie’s plot was changed several times and even resulted in the re-shooting of certain scenes. This did raise the budget significantly from $130 million to $190 million. Fortunately, the movie did do well in the box office and grossed a whopping $540 million! After realizing how much money was made on the first movie, Paramount Pictures almost instantly announced a sequel. The sequel was written but various complications halted production and it does not seem like it will be out in the near future.

The production company stopped things, but if the people really want a sequel, I am sure they will pick it up again. The movie had stellar reviews when it came out, but there would have to be another surge of excitement to get Paramount interested again.

This is what the people had to say after the first movie:

“Light, family friendly and internationally marketable.”

“It’s NOT a zombie movie… It’s ten times better than that!”

Now do YOU want a sequel? Comment below and it may just happen 🙂

Some of you may have never heard or seen of the Goonies (1985). It was an extraordinary adventure and comedy film directed by Richard Donner with help from Steven Spielberg. “The Goonies Are Back” may be a possible title for a sequel. To fully understand why the movie needs a sequel, you have to watch it, but if you need a recap, here it is.

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The movie begins with a group of neighborhood boys, the goonies, trying to save their friend’s house from foreclosure. They look in the attic for things to sell and stumble across a treasure map for One-Eyed Willy’s treasure. They follow the map to an old dinner and went inside. They found that the local crime family was running it but they decided to keep following the clues that led them underground. One of the goonies was captured by the crime family for interrogation and he found out that they wanted the treasure too. Once the crime family discovered the goonies were already on their way to the treasure, the family rushed after. Along the goonies path there were multiple booby traps that they had negotiate. After they passed all of the traps and evaded the crime family, they came across a pirate ship where they found One Eyed Willy’s corpse. They gathered as much treasure as they could carry and began to leave. The notorious crime family stopped them but they were able to make it out with the help of the police. Unfortunately, this summary does not do the movie justice as I missed the great comedic sections.

The sequel to this movie would have to be set years later after they found the treasure because all of the actors are 35 years older than they were in the making of this movie. It would be great to see the actors on screen again, on another adventure. They could bring in new young actors and plot the movie with them as the original actor’s kids. If this were the case, it would still be nice to have the original characters back on screen. Some movies of this type have been seen as  failures, but now they know what not to do.

Compared to today, the movie had a very low budget, coming in around $20 million ($45 million today). Also, the blockbusters in 1985 did not ‘bust’ as much as they do today. It only costed around $3.50 to go to the movies in 1985, when today, it costs around $14 to see a movie. With this in mind, The Goonies made $64 million ($150 million today). Overall, this is a strong profit for a movie made in 1985, and it would most likely make more today with its audience. The movie did not really make much money outside the United States, and I think a sequel can be marketed to other nations as it does not have to completely rely on the sequel.

A sequel should be done. It may be hard to make right, but I think there is definitely room for success. I’m sure Spielberg’s and Donner’s talents can be used in other movies, but the goonies would be a nice retirement/flashback movie for them.

What movie do you think deserves a sequel?

UP 2 where? Nooo, UP 2, the movie! Nearly everyone who watched UP, adored it so why not make an other?? UP is a heartwarming adventure-filled animated comedy produced by Pixar. My last blog was also about a Pixar movie, Inside Out 2. You can find it here!

SPOILERS AHEAD

As many of us saw UP in 2009, I will give a refresher. A young boycott (Russell) is pursuing his “helping the elderly badge” to become an eagle scout. He finds a man (Carl), who’s wife just passed, and asks him if he needs help. Carl is grumpy, but Russell persists. Carl is forced to leave his home and has the imaginative idea to tie balloons to his house to float to South America. He wants to find the place he and his wife always dreamed of going she was still alive. When he decides to leave, Russell gets stranded on his porch because he was knocking on his door again to see if he needed help. On the journey in the floating house, Carl and Russell begin to learn more about each other, but Carl remains Grumpy. Once they arrived relatively close to their desired destination of a water fall, they were forced to walk the semi-floating house to the correct spot (keep in mind that they are doing this for a good portion of the movie). Along their journey the stumble across a dog who has a special collar that allows him to speak English. They befriend the lost dog and even find another pet along the way. They find a strange bird and Russell names him Kevin. The old man still maintains his grumpy attitude, but he is beginning to tolerate Russell more as he is stuck with him. As they get closer to the water fall, they find another human (Muntz)! They find out that his life goal has been using his dogs to find the mysterious bird. Russell says that Kevin sounds like the bird he is looking for, and Muntz turns hostile thinking they are here to ruin his fame. Carl is able to escape and return to his house, but Russell has been captured. Eventually the old man feels bad and decides he should save Russell. He even sacrificed his home, which he traveled across the world in, to save Russell. All ends peacefully with the bird in Carl’s care. Carl even gets the chance to present Russell with his merit badge which meant a lot to Russell!

What would UP 2 be about? The rest of Russell’s journey to becoming an eagle scout can be followed with him still having to earn the rest of his badges. The sequel could lead off with the old man dying, although sad, and follow Russell on a spiritual journey in his memory. Unfortunately, a sequel may not live up 🙂 to the emotions of UP, but there are various variations left undiscovered. I am sure Pixar has a better creative team than me alone, so the sequel wouldn’t disappoint!

Is it a money issue? Absolutely not! The budget for the movie was about $175 million, and made half of that back on the opening weekend alone! For the total earned, the movie made Pixar $735 million. Although not the highest profit blogged about thus far, that is still a plethora of money.

What did the reviews say?:

“Brilliant, another Pixar homerun”

‘The best Pixar film to date”

“UP ‘upped’ the bar once again” (My personal favorite | Can’t get enough of the puns)

Pixar needs to make a sequel. I am sure they have other movies in the works, but UP needs to move up in their priorities. They need to take our hearts on another roller coaster ride full of adventure. Maybe even take us “UP, UP, and Away”. Regardless of the UP puns, the people want an UP 2!