Direct to DVD sequels have become a very strong trend lately. Sadly, most of them verge on the incredibly poor side of things. Consider many of Disney’s needless follow-ups to classic animated films. Do we really need to see what happened after “happily ever after” for Cinderella or Mulan? Think about the fourth and (ugh) fifth chapters of American Pie. I mean, we’re down to cousins of original characters and Eugene Levy. Is that really any way to treat what was once a decent franchise?
Sadly the trend continues. Lately we’ve been talking about the planned sequel for Joel Schumacher’s Lost Boys but we have an even bigger offense in today’s news. There’s been talk for years now that Richard Donner and the cast of The Goonies want to follow up the original classic ‘80s children’s adventure movie (from which every other children’s adventure movie steals from). Now, according to an unnamed Warner Brothers source, Moviehole is claiming the sequel is happening, with a direct to DVD destination.
Sadly we all know what that means – what kind of a budget would Donner get for a sequel that wasn’t even aimed at theaters? And that’s assuming Donner would even be involved. Much like Schumacher, Donner doesn’t necessarily own any rights to the franchise, which could allow a movie to move on without him and leave both him and the original cast out in the cold.
Goonies isn’t the only flick getting the DTDVD sequel treatment talk over at WB. Gremlins 3 is a possibility as well as another Scooby Doo movie. As Richard at Filmstalker points out, this could mean a double market for DVDs: the second run of theatrical blockbusters and a premiere market for ill-conceived, hastily-produced, underfunded sequels to those blockbusters.
I hope this really is a bad source on Moviehole’s part. Not because I want them to have a bad source, but because I really don’t want my love of The Goonies to be taken advantage of and skewered like so many other franchises out there. If the studio isn’t willing to do a sequel up right they should just leave the original alone and leave us with our fond memories of childhood untarnished. Maybe it’s not as profitable, but it’ll make more people happy.
