10 Movie Sequels That Took 30 Years To Make
Were these belated sequels worth the wait?
Movie sequels are the cornerstone of Hollywood, as any remotely successful film will have studios scrambling to produce as many follow-ups as possible.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, studios do actually take their sweet time getting a sequel made - sometimes decades, in fact.
The belated sequel is one of the most unpredictable commodities in the film industry, because for every shockingly impressive smash hit, there are countless depressing duds, such as Dumb and Dumber To, Zoolander 2, or Independence Day: Resurgence, to name just a few.
Three decades is such an absurdly long gestation period for any sequel that it's often a bad omen: an indication of major creative issues in getting the film off the ground. But there are certainly examples where it's simply a case of finding the right filmmaker and cast for the job, and not rushing things to completion.
These 10 sequels all hit screens three decades (ish) after the previous film in the series, but were they worth the wait, or did they simply disgrace what came before?
Honourable Mentions: Tron: Legacy, Superman Returns & Terminator: Dark Fate
Before our list begins in earnest, here are some honourable mentions for those movie sequels which didn't quite make audiences wait 30 years, but nevertheless cut it pretty damn close.
2006's Superman Returns was a spiritual sequel of-sorts to Superman II released 25 years earlier, Tron: Legacy came more than 28 years after the original Tron, and Terminator: Dark Fate was a table-clearing sequel which ignored the three prior movies and acted instead as a direct follow-up to the 28-years-earlier Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
That's not to forget a host of direct-to-video belated follow-ups you possibly never even knew existed, such as Kindergarten Cop 2 (25 years), Critters Attack! (26 years), Backdraft 2 (28 years), and A Christmas Story 2 (29 years).
Were any of them worth the wait? Superman Returns was a flawed yet nostalgic treat, and Tron: Legacy was a stunning exercise in style-over-substance, but the rest? Not at all.
And now, on with our list proper...