20 Movie Sequels That Took WAY Too Long
1. The Wicker Tree
And finally, 1973's The Wicker Man is one of the greatest horror films of all time, albeit one that categorically didn't need a sequel, and especially not almost 40 years after the fact.
Though original screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote a sequel treatment in 1989, it never went into production after Wicker Man director Robin Hardy expressed no interest in making it.
In 2006 the infamous Nicolas Cage-starring remake was produced, after which Hardy finally decided to develop a spiritual sequel, The Wicker Tree, based on his own 2006 novel Cowboys for Christ.
The Wicker Tree was released in 2011, some 38 years after the original, by which point the very idea of even a spiritual successor just felt incredibly tired.
For one, original star Christopher Lee was well into his late-eighties by the time shooting began, so he was only able to appear for a brief cameo, and it was abundantly clear that Hardy, who hadn't directed a film in 25 years, just didn't have the filmmaking flair anymore.
Some sort of follow-up to The Wicker Man might've actually worked if it was produced in the '80s or '90s, but by the 2010s it became clear that the energy and enthusiasm necessary from the key figures wasn't there.