Sequels bounce back after last year’s duds

By the end of last summer, “sequel” was a dirty word in Hollywood. “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” anyone?

But this summer, boosted by “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” “Shrek 2” and now “Spider-Man 2,” sequels are flying high again.

Unlike the huge crop in 2003 that inundated summer moviegoers — 15, with many underperformers and outright duds among them — this season’s offerings number only eight.

The smaller field has produced three major hits so far. The latest, “Spider-Man 2,” took in $180.1 million in its first six days, topping the record of $146.7 million set last year by “The Matrix Reloaded.”

“What you are seeing this summer is attention to detail that you didn’t see last summer — attention to story, attention to character,” said Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, which produced “Spider-Man 2.”

“I think many of us have learned that when you have a continuing story or character that people are invested in and people care about, they want to see what happens to that character,” Pascal said.

Sony doesn’t plan on messing with the formula, already giving the green light to put “Spider-Man 3” in director Sam Raimi’s hands again.

The strong performance and generally good reviews of the Big Three — “Spider-Man,” along with “Shrek 2” ($410.7 million earned so far) and “Prisoner of Azkaban” ($225.7 million) — set a high bar for the other summer sequels waiting in the wings.

Those include Matt Damon in the espionage sequel “The Bourne Supremacy,” which opens July 23, and the teen-girl fantasy “The Princess Diaries 2” on Aug. 11.

Also coming up are “Alien vs. Predator,” due Aug. 13, which has generated enormous interest among fans of the video game that incorporates the two popular space monsters; the long-delayed and extensively reshot and recut “Exorcist: The Beginning,” on Aug. 20; and “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,” opening Aug. 27.

Last summer saw some of the biggest sequels stumble in theaters. In Sony’s case, it was “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.” Even though the comedy-action film starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu grossed $100.8 million domestically, it arrived with a huge wave of marketing and promotion behind it and never lived up to the potential the studio envisioned.

The summer had started well enough with “The Matrix Reloaded” and “X2: X-Men United,” both of which opened in May. But by June, sequel fatigue began to set in, with other disappointments coming from “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life,” “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde.”

“The summer of 2003 almost killed the future of sequels,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “This summer, it’s all about rebuilding the audience’s trust. Two or three great sequels can erase any damage done by 15 sequels last summer.”

Tom Pollock, a veteran producer who once ran Universal Pictures, said sequels only work “when effort is taken by the people who make them to try to be better than the first.

“That’s why this summer’s sequels like ‘Shrek 2’ outperformed the first one,” Pollock said. “It’s better than the first one.”

If that effort isn’t there, he added, “A lot of the audience can smell the cynicism (and realize) the movie was made only for the money.”

For studios, part of the calculation is whether to switch directors.

While Sony has chosen to keep Raimi behind the camera for its “Spider-Man” sequels, Warner Bros., after Chris Columbus directed its first two highly successful “Harry Potter” films, turned to Alfonso Cuaron for “Prisoner of Azkaban.”

Cuaron’s film has not yet reached the box-office heights of the first two films — and may never — but it has received the best reviews, for bringing more texture and style to the story. Yet another director with a very different style, Mike Newell, is at work on “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” set for release next fall.

More big sequels are on the way next summer. “Batman Begins,” the next installment in the popular comic-book series with Christopher Nolan (“Memento”) in the director’s chair, is set to open June 17.

And Paramount Pictures has staked out next year’s Fourth of July holiday for Tom Cruise and “Mission: Impossible 3,” with Joe Carnahan at the helm. The previous “Mission: Impossible” films were directed by Brian De Palma and John Woo.

But watch what you call them. Even when such films perform well, studios like to refer to them as new chapters, or reimaginings, or continuations — anything but sequels.

“In Hollywood,” said Matt Tolmach, co-president of production at Columbia Pictures, “it’s become a bad term.”

Here’s how some big-name sequels have fared financially, compared to the original films:

• “Shrek 2,” $410.7 million to date (“Shrek,” $267.7 million)

• “The Matrix Reloaded,” $281.6 million (“The Matrix,” $171.5 million)

• “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” $225.7 million to date (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” $317.6 million)

• “X2: X-Men United,” $214.9 million (“X-Men,” $157.3 million)

• “Spider-Man 2,” $180.1 million to date (“Spider-Man,” $403.7 million)

• “Spy Kids 3D: Game Over,” $111.8 million (“Spy Kids,” $112.7 million)

• “2 Fast 2 Furious,” $127.2 million (“The Fast and the Furious,” $144.5 million)

• “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” $100.8 million (“Charlie’s Angels,” $125.3 million)

• “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life,” $65.7 million (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” $131.2 million)