If you're watching a big budget movie that isn't directed by Christopher Nolan odds are the studios got their eye on it spawning a few sequels. Time was this would be a terrible thing; in the past sequels were cheap cash-ins attempting to get a little of the magic from the original. Now they're very expensive cash-ins that aim to top the original. We'll definitely take the modern deal, although as quality becomes a growing issue there's the question of how you make an add-on to a story feel like a legitimate narrative development. Throwing in little teases for what's to come is a mainstay of big movies; Darth Vader flies off at the end, Back To The Future is 'To be continued' and Batman gets the Joker card. Those cases were just general hints for the fans, but even if the idea behind them's a little more concrete it makes a sequel that little more justified. That's why Toho specify Godzilla should never die at the end of a film; there's always an easy way to bring him back. The best thing about these little teases is that they're just bits of groundwork that don't take away from the film. After all, the best way to guarantee a sequel is to make a good movie. There is, of course, another tactic. Worried that a sequel could look too blatant, many films now spend an inordinate amount of time setting up later events, often at the expense of the story at hand. And it's becoming painfully obvious. Here are ten of those films that only cared about getting a sequel green-lit.
(Dis)honourable Mention - The Hobbit
If there's one series from the past few years that's stalled so much with the exact intent of leaving enough for later sequels it has to be The Hobbit. As earnest as Peter Jackson's efforts to turn a children's book from rollicking adventure to cinematic epic are, it's left us with films that have no real worth by themselves, employing televisual cliff hangers just to keep fans amped. The Lord Of The Rings certainly worked so much better as a whole series than individual entries, but there each film was awesome and justified in its own right; we weren't waiting for the last one just to see if the whole thing makes sense.
