The Prequel Gamble: 8 Prequels That Lived Up to Their Originals
January 22, 2013 · from the Word & Film archive
Prequels are cinema's riskiest bet: the ending is known, the stakes are inherited, and the audience arrives pre-disappointed. With The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — technically literature's most famous prequel situation, since Tolkien wrote it first — dominating the box office, eight times the gamble paid off:
1. The Godfather Part II — half prequel, all masterpiece; young Vito justifies the entire genre. 2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes — resurrected a dead franchise with a motion-captured performance for the ages. 3. X-Men: First Class — recast icons and got away with it. 4. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — yes, it's a prequel; check the dates.
5. Casino Royale — a reboot wearing a prequel's tuxedo. 6. Prometheus — divisive, gorgeous, swinging for cosmic significance. 7. Monsters University — Pixar does college comedy inside a corporate origin story. 8. The Hobbit — Jackson's return journey, padded but heartfelt, and the rare prequel the author himself wrote first.
The pattern in the hits: prequels work when they're about how, not what — character mechanics, not timeline paperwork. Bilbo's contract with Thorin & Co. is cataloged on the film's page.
