The Rule of "3" : Why some 3rd Sequels Blow

[ChrisIII]

Think in some cases the budget gets slashed as well especially if the first sequel does not perform to expectations.

[AnakinFlair]

The Mummy 3. The first two I loved, and still do. 3 was, well, lets just say I prefer Rock's Scorpion King as the third film in the franchise.

Years ago, I had The Mummy DVD set that came with The Mummy, the sequel, and The Scorpion King. This was before the third Mummy movie and the sequels to the Scorpion King came out, but at one point they did consider Scorpion King to be the third movie in the series.

Jurassic Park III is kind of in a weird place because TLW wasn't really regarded as a "good" sequel I think, and III basically pretty much had the plot to TLW (Rescue mission, although in Sarah's case she wanted to be there) minus the "Capture the Dinosaurs for a new park" angle and a smaller cast.

The film just pretty much switched up the returning cast, restored the focus on Raptors and their intelligence that was absent from the second one, and pretty much adapted the leftover scenes from the novels the first film didn't adapt like the Aviary and the lake attack I think.

It also was pretty much "Spielberg lite" which is pretty much Joe Johnston director's niche.

I think they actually used discarded scenes from both books in JP3. The aviary was from the original JP novel, the lab stuff seemed to be more from The Lost World, and the scenes on the river felt like a combination of scenes from both books.


The problem with third movies, at least sometimes, is that they are in the unenviable position of having to live up to the sequel they follow. In cases like Return of the Jedi, nobody thinks it's as good as Empire, so they consider it a weaker movie. Same with The Dark Knight Rises. I like the movie, but even I acknowledge that it's not as good as The Dark Knight.

With Civil War, I almost feel like people were expecting it to not be as good, so some still say it's a weaker movie. I think it's just as strong as The Winter Soldier, but in a different way.

[ChrisIII]

Civil War certainly had a lot on it's plate-follow the basic comic storyline, continue the Winter Soldier, balance all those Avengers and leave the team in an even more disorganized state after losing their heavy hitters (Hulk, Thor) to set up for the Infinity saga; and last but not least, introduce to the MCU two major franchise leads, including a hero who pretty much IS Marvel yet had appeared in a film only two years prior.