10 Movie Trends That Have Been Killing Cinema For Longer That You Think

10. Back-To-Back Sequels

The 'Modern' Problem: Shooting movies back-to-back, making two (related) movies at the same time, essentially means that the cost and time of the most unpredictable part of production, actually filming the pesky actors, is minimised. So you can see why, with the gap between installments in series shrinking, this is a popular method. All those split-in-two novel adaptations are shot this way, while numerous sets of sequels sequels (Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Matrix) were rushed through together to capitalise on the original's popularity. Avatar looks set to push things to new extremes, with a sequel trilogy planned to shoot all at once. This was made vogue by The Lord Of The Rings, which had immense success after filming all its action over one year, but what most subsequent versions have missed is that there the structure was pre-determined. Back-to-back films tend to leave us with an open-ended first film with the creativity spread thin over two. But Actually: This has been a pretty common practice for decades. Even before the Back To The Future sequels there's a multitude of examples, with the earliest being Superman and Superman II; even though there were some major behind-the-shifts, the majority of both films were shot at the same time.