The sequel strikes back

LONDON - Coming soon to a cinema near you: Return of the Sequel.

The box office success of movie sequels over the past few years has Hollywood sticking to the formula and banking on a fresh wave of them for 2005, with new episodes in the Star Wars, Batman and Harry Potter series on their way.

The relative financial success of sequels lately has had cinema owners reaching for the number "2" and the word "return" more often than ever for their marquees.

Of the US$20 billion earned by films and their sequels at the US box office from 1980, 38 per cent came from the first in the series and 36 per cent from the first sequel, indicating that sequels perform on a par at the box office with the original, according to research published on Monday by Screen Digest.

Studios issued a record number of 15 sequels in 2002, and 14 each in 2003 and 2004, and they have been rushing the second and third instalments to screens more quickly.

Screen Digest found that the average lag between sequels was three years between 1980 and 2004, but in more recent years the gap has fallen to about a year.

Though the research focuses on US box office success, sequels dominated screens around the world last year as audiences turned to the comfort of their favourite characters.

In Britain alone, four sequels -- Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bridget Jones -- The Edge of Reason, and Spider-Man 2 topped the list of the five highest-grossing films. Only The Incredibles at No 4 was not part of a series.

"Movie sequels have been a key driver of recent sustained box office growth, with some of the highest grossing titles part of a franchise," Screen Digest analyst David Hancock said.

The success of recent sequels is owed to scripts that don't always simply retell the same story in the same way the original did, a common complaint among movie-goers.

"Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spiderman and Shrek are all examples of how creatively strong a sequel can be, proving that it is no longer a cynical option but a clever marketing strategy to build on a good idea and an audience base rather than exploit it," Hannock said.

The highest-grossing series of films in the United States is Star Wars, with the five films raking in US$1.4 billion, according to Screen Digest, with the three-part Lord of the Rings the only other series to top the US$1 billion mark.

The Spider-Man series, however, has earned the highest per film average on US screens, US$376 million for its two titles, and Shrek is second with an average of US$351 million.

Action films dominate the world of sequels with 51 movies or nearly three out of every 10 over the last quarter century, Screen Digest found. Comedy (18 per cent), horror (16 per cent) and sci-fi (14 per cent) are the next most popular genres.

The firm also found that May, June and July account for about half of all sequel releases.

The longest-running series, since 1980, is Friday the 13th with 11 instalments, and US$309 million of total gross proceeds.

Excluded from the study -- which only accounts for films first released in 1980 -- is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's James Bond and Pink Panther franchises, as well as such popular film series as The Godfather, Mad Max, Jaws, Halloween, Airplane and Superman.

- REUTERS