If you follow my columns, you’ll know that I’m a sentimental sod at the best of times, and my idea of the perfect December holiday was to relive my teenage years by watching all the great action series that captured me in those days. So I got myself the entire Die Hard Series, Lethal Weapon, Alien, Mad Max and pretty anything else I could find. Watching them proved to be less than what I had imagined. While some of them managed to deliver a little more excitement, action or mix of humour in their sequels, I eventually found myself skipping ahead to the good parts, thinking to myself “How did these guys ever get away with re-hashing the same formulas over and over, and why did I just eat it up as a consumer?”.
Most global release schedules for movies and games are built around the major markets like the US, Britain and Japan, depending on the product. For movies, it’s mainly the US. It’s been interesting to me to notice how big releases are moving away from Christmas, and focussing on the big Easter period. Even gaming releases are starting to follow this trend, but movies definitely have been doing this for some time. I guess people on holiday don’t really go to the movies, and it’s only the really serious movies that want to be in contention from Oscars that release around this time to be fresh on the judge’s minds. So it’s no coincidence that Lincoln, Les Miserable, etc, all hit movies screens at that time. But the big guns are being saved.
The real blockbuster’s expected to have moviegoers flocking to theatres are scheduled to start in April and May. And like the ‘80s series I was so disheartened with, it’s the sequels and reboots that are generating the most excitement. Sequels to Iron Man, Star Trek, Thor, Hunger Games, Wolverine, Percy Jackson and Die Hard (how long has that one been going?) are among the headliners; with Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot Man of Steel also sharing the limelight. For gamers, nothing is bigger than Grand Theft Auto V, except maybe God of War: Ascension, both of which land at around the same time.
So when I think back now, I remember why those sequels generated so much excitement. The excitement of waiting two or three years since the last instalment, the anticipation of everything you loved about the last movie, and everything new that would be introduced, the nervousness about whether the last episode (which is now your favourite) can really be topped and if you are going to be leaving the theatre disappointed, or head straight back to the video game store to trade in your purchase. It’s not the developers, producers or directors who are unoriginal, it’s us. We don’t want to try a different football sim for a year, we want it to be like it was, just better and more up to date. I loved how that the last Bond killed off the Judi Dench’s M (born of the Pierce Brosnan 007 reboot) to make way for an M more like Bernard Lee’s original M. Is it a reboot of a reboot, or just a boot to the groin? Will movie goers take a chance on Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, or Neil Blomkamps’s Elysium? Let’s hope so, though it may mean we’ll be looking forward to their sequels in a couple of years.
By: Suvesh Arumugam
