We all like sequels… ok maybe there’s that one snooty artzy fartzy guy who hates any film that’s the least bit commercial, but for the rest of us we love learning of more movies in a series… but what about the ones that you didn’t know were related?
Well I searched around on the internet and found 5 of the most interesting cases for me. Let’s get started. Oh one thing before we begin, there’s no real order to this in terms of worst to best or anything, it’s just for fun.
5. Jackie Brown/Out of Sight
Let’s start off with the most well-known of these cases. First we have Quentin Tarantino’s third film, “Jackie Brown” and his ode to blackspoiltation cinema. Like all of his films, it’s filled with great dialog and characters. The story centers around Jackie Brown smuggling money for a gun smuggler through her job at the airline. After being caught by some ATF agents, she begins to play both sides against each other for her own goals. “Out of Sight” is about a failed bank robber who once he gets out of jail, tries to score a huge stash of diamonds while also sharing an attraction with the female US Marshall tracking him.
The connection is the most obvious as it shares a character and actor. Michael Keaton plays Ray Nicolette in both films with the main reason being that the character appears in both the novels that each film is based on. Now what makes this especially cool is that “Jackie Brown” is a Miramax film and “Out of Sight” was Universal. That NEVER happens unless there’s some major time in between for the rights to change hands or something. I explained this in an earlier article but how rights to book work for film is that you buy the rights for one film and that includes all of the characters that appear in the book, so if a different studio buys the rights to the sequel, spin-off, or in this case a book that take place in the same universe, then you have the rights to the story, but you’ll have to change the characters that already appeared in the other film. Unless the studios can agree which rarely happens because both sides basically are always arguing for a higher percentage of the profits. So normally that’d be the end of it and the scene in the book with Ray would have been cut or transferred with whatever dialog and plot details needed to someone else. However director Steven Soderbergh somehow made it happen. He called up Quentin Tarantino and asked if it was okay, who talked Miramax into going along with the idea. So Michael Keaton’s character from “Jackie Brown” just shows up for one scene in “Out of Sight.” For me it’s the best part of the film. Keaton agreed apparently because he liked the idea and thought it made the character feel more like a real person that could just show up randomly in another film. It works so well here that it makes you forget how often it goes wrong.
4. The Godfather Trilogy/The Sicilian
“The Godfather” Part I and Part II need no introduction. And if you haven’t already seen them… then you’re probably someone with your own schedule and shouldn’t be chastised for having seen or not seen certain movies. That being said here’s my advice, see them. If you’ve somehow never heard anything about them here’s a brief synopsis. Michael Corleone is the son of a powerful mob boss, Vito Corleone. Wanting nothing to do with his family, he tries to follow a different path until forces beyond his control force him into the life and eventually taking over the business. “The Sicilian” is another book by Mario Puzo that is often considered the literary sequel. It’s a fictional telling of the life of real person Salvatore Giuliano, a Robin Hood-ish bandit from 1950s Italy. “The Godfather” is considered a classic and one of if not the greatest films ever made while “The Sicilian”… is not. If I had to explain in 5 words, “Christopher Lambert as an Italian.”
This is sort of like a reverse of the previous entries’ case, and sadly much more typical. Paramount Pictures produced “The Godfather” and Fox released “The Sicilian.” So some minor spoiling for “The Godfather.” After his father Vito Corleone is almost killed on the street, Michael goes to meet a rival mobster and a corrupt cop and kills them both for revenge. After this, he is forced to lay low in Italy for a year, then the story of the film continues after he returns. “The Sicilian” takes place during Michael’s time in Italy. Now from what I understand of the book Michael is our narrator character while Salvatore is the actual central focus of the book. So removing Michael and all of “The Godfather” connections seems like it wouldn’t hurt the true story too much. However, from looking up people who read the book’s opinions of the film it seems that is the least of the film’s problems. Also while Michael is not the central focus, the story of “The Sicilian” helps create a fuller tapestry for Michael Corleone’s story. There are parallels he sees in Salvatore and himself or things we know he will do later in the story of “The Godfather.” I certainly don’t recommend seeing “The Sicilian” but it is fascinating to see a story completely “de-sequel-ified.” However technically it’s still connected. The best part is imagining that Al Pacino as Michael is just a few towns away off-screen while watching this film.
3. American Psycho/Rules of Attraction
And this is sort of a reverse of the other two above, Lionsgate owned both films and was completely on board with the connections. What makes it interesting is the genres both films are in. “American Psycho” is a thriller/mystery and “Rules of Attraction” is a romantic comedy. Now “American Psycho” is specifically about a young investment banker who seems totally normal and someone most would want to be. However his hobbies outside the office includes brutally murdering friends and strangers, but with a mind that’s fractured it’s bound to lead to even more problems with the perception of reality. “Rules of Attraction” is about a group of people in college having shenanigans, however I do hesitate to just refer to it as a romantic comedy as it is much darker than most college films of its nature. I realize that’s a fairly vague description but to give a full summary I’d have to tell you about each character’s story and how they intersect and I don’t have the time. I’ll just say it begins with one of the characters being drugged and raped (while being filmed) at a party and her reaction is just kinda “well that’s a thing that happened today.”
Like “Jackie Brown” and “Out of Sight,” “American Psycho” and “Rules of Attraction” are based on books that aren’t sequels per se but share some of the same characters. However, most of the connections in this case are either downplayed or removed for the film. First, and most major, are the main characters. “American Psycho” stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman and “Rules of Attraction” has as its main character… Sean Bateman. Yes, the two are related… brothers in fact. Again, both owned by Lionsgate so we don’t have to put up with changed character names. You watch one movie and just know when Sean goes back home for the holidays, Patrick is most likely there too… awkward. To my understanding there is a small scene in the book where Patrick appears and they even tried to film it for the movie, but Bale turned down the cameo. They apparently did film the scene with Casper Van Dien filling in. It’d be cool to see the scene with this obvious connection, but with it being a totally different actor it wouldn’t have felt as nice so maybe it was for the best. Still, while watching Sean pull crap like faking a suicide and getting drunk in the snow, all I could think of was Patrick chasing a woman with a chainsaw in his underwear…a unique viewing experience to say the least.
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2. Blade Runner/Soldier
If there’s one other film on this list that needs no introduction it’s “Blade Runner.” Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, though not loved in it’s time originally. Partly due to the studio’s meddling and bad decisions and partly due to the fact that (as a friend once put it) “Nobody likes ‘Blade Runner’ their first time watching.” It is a movie that takes multiple viewings to fully appreciate. The plot is about a future society where robots on earth have been made illegal and special police officers named Blade Runners track down and “retire” (kill) the androids known as Replicants. Now that probably sounds like an awesome action flick, but it’s much more somber. Now if you want to see a macho action flick that takes place in the same world then what you want is “Soldier” from 1998 starring Kurt Russell and directed by Paul W S Anderson. The story is about a future society where the military trains soldiers from birth and then a new batch of genetically modified soldiers are created to take their place. After a failed demonstration, our lead soldier (Russell) is left on a garbage planet and befriends a colony of people living there and eventually becomes their defender from his former platoon. It’s not a great film by any definition of the word, it’s not bad either, it’s just… okay. If it was a first effort by the writer or director then I’d probably be kinder, but it was all made by professionals and from an extremely simplistic script.
Now like the one above this one is totally legitimate as far as the rights go, both films are done by Warner Bros. Also, there’s the obvious stuff like a spinner (the flying police cars) from “Blade Runner” being among the trash on the garbage planet in “Soldier.” Now that could just be a little in-joke, but there is more. In “Blade Runner” there is a very famous speech toward the end that goes, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate…” There’s more, but that would be getting into spoiler territory. Point being, in the beginning of “Soldier” while seeing the stats on the main character it mentions that he fought in battles near the shoulder of Orion and the Tannhäuser Gate meaning he fought either along the same side or against one of the main characters as Roy Batty. However, if you want to call all of that just in-jokes then you may want to ask David Peoples; not only writer of “Soldier” but also one of the co-writers of “Blade Runner.” He has confirmed that they are in the same universe and even calls “Soldier” a sidequel.
1.) The Commitments/The Snapper/The Van
“The Commitments” was a VHS I remember seeing at my grandmother’s house since I was a kid. Something about the cover always drew me to it, but wasn’t able to watch due to the R rating. Years later my dad mentioned the movie a few times and really liked it. So since he had been right about a number of other films he introduced me to (ex “Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “The Full Monty,” “A Thousand Clowns” among many others) I decided to give this a try and I’m glad I did. After he passed away I discovered “The Snapper” and “The Van” and their connection to this film. It became another reason I wish he was still around so I could have shown him this trilogy. Anyways, “The Commitments” is about a group of poor musicians in a small town in Ireland. The main character assembles them to create a successful Soul band, however the conflicting personalities of all of the characters threaten to destroy the band before it even begins. “The Snapper” is about a 20 year old Irish girl who gets pregnant but refuses to name the father and to have the baby as her family struggles to deal with this along with the small town’s reaction. “The Van” is about an Irish father (one of his children being a young woman who has a recently born baby) who goes into business with his best friend running a food van.
All are slice-of-life comedies with some drama and all I’d recommend. In the case of all the other entries, I didn’t care for the lesser known “spin-off” films. They’re interesting for the purposes of this list, but I have no plans for re-watching (yes that includes “Out of Sight”) but this “trilogy” on the other hand… I love them. So here’s the connection for all of these films…it’s all the same family. Yes they’re all based on books of the same series…that happened to each be bought by a different studio. As a result the family is called Rabbitte (the name from the books) in “The Commitments,” Curley in “The Snapper,” and Reeves in “The Van.” Aren’t book to film rights fun? But here’s the fun part, Colm Meaney appears in each film as the same character, the father… even though his name keeps changing. Colm Meaney is a fantastic actor who can really add so much with so little. A good example being that he was originally cast in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” as the guy who runs the transporter, but made that role so engaging they kept bringing him back and eventually made him a main character in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” The dude is awesome is what I’m trying to get across here. And he is the glue for this trilogy. Even though all of the other actors are constantly changing, his performance is solid and helps you feel like they are properly connected. I have no idea how we lucked into him getting cast in each film for 3 different studios, but I’m so glad it happened.