this general trend of part 1 & 2 of films

[XtremelyBaneful]

I don't know if it is just me but I feel like every since harry potter and the deathly hallows, a whole lot of films have been following a trend of splitting up their scripts to make the movies longer.

i first noticed it with the hobbit, when they said it was gonna be 2 movies, and then they turned it into a trilogy.

then they did it with one of the twilight movies, and now they're doing it with the hunger games, and now they've also announced it for the avengers 3.

one key difference though is that the deathly hallows films were half a year apart, and the rest of the films had a whole year in between.

do you think harry potter was the one that started this trend? or were there a set of films before it that started this whole part 1... part 2 thing earlier on? that is my question.

to me it is kind of a win win scenario. studios make over 2x in the box office and we the fans get to see more of the story being told/delineated. the deathly hallows also had a shared budget between parts though, i don't know if the same can be said about the rest of these films

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Justice League is doing it too.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Justice League is doing it too.

really? how far apart are the 2 parts?

 

[John Locke]

Justice League part 1 is 2017 part 2 is 2019.

 

[Rocketman]

Technically, before Harry Potter there was:

Superman I & II
Back to the Future II & III
Kill Bill 1 and 2
The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3

 

[Dave McFly]

those do not count they are sequels separate movies the ones where they split one movie into 2 parts started with the last Harry Potter. I personally do not care for the whole spreading the final film of a series into 2 parts it annoys me. but if it makes it able to fit more of the story of the last book the last film of said book then I am cool with it.

 

[Quasimod0]

With huge event films, I'm totally fine with it.

 

[kedrell]

I think with regards to JL and TA being split, it's not a real split as there isn't a book being adapted with one single story that's being split up to milk it for all it's worth allow necessary space to finish the story. Comic book adaptations are different. They are just calling those part1&2 when they could just as easily have called them Avengers 3 and 4 or JL 1 and 2. The well they draw from is nigh bottomless.

 

[Lord]

It has happened before with The Matrix for example, but it seems like people used to reach negatively at the idea, now people are starting to prefer this aproach. To tell the truth, i'm getting kind of tired of this trend, imagine if Return of the Jedi had been split back in the day too.

I think they need to stop spliting every single conclusion.

 

[DA_Champion]

It's our fault for preferring brands to original work.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I think in regards to certain novel adaptations, it's a perfectly fine alternative to radically gutting the source to fit a 2 hour run time. But not all books need be approached like that, or are even served by that.

 

[dark_b]

if you rewatch Matrix Revolutions its one movie cut into two. literally into two. there is no ending in 2 and no beginning in 3. I think to this day no franchise did this.
with matrix 2-3, HP,POTC,Twilight,HG,JL,Avengers its obvious about the money.

if you noticed its when a franchise has fanatical fanbase. people who will watch the second movie no matter what happens. and thats why its the best business plan ever. you make a decent first movie and bad second movie. everyone will have to watch the second movie to finish the story. and they will because they are fans of the franchise.

its why i KNOW that James Camerons Avatar sequels will be one big story. obvious. who in the f.. mind would go to make 2 or 3 movies together with different stories? WHO?

 

[Lord]

It's our fault for preferring brands to original work.

Pretty much, but there are many previous works and brands that are made into films but are stand on their oun as complete movies, look at The Godfather, Wizard of Oz, Jaws, their original Batman and Superman movies, etc.

But now every film is already leading into a sequel before it starts being made, i don't think there's an inherent problem in having a strong running franchise like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Pirates of the Caribbean or even Marvel films, i think the worst part comes when the vast majority of high budgeted films are parts of a brand or franchise.

Coming back to the topic, while watching the last Harry Potter films, they always felt incomplete to me, and even though they felt like this, the films still cut some good material, like Dumbledore's past, anyone who only watched the movies wouldn't know there was a previous Dark Wizard, i frankly think Deathly Hallows should have been a single 3 hours+ epic finale, possibly with a more visionary Director like Cuaron.

Breaking Dawn had even less content to adapt, it barely had enough for a single movie, let alone 2, from what i heard, Hunger Games has a similar problem, so it seems like another instance where spliting the finale isn't needed.

Had Matrix 2+3 or Pirates of the Caribbean 2+3 been released nowadays, i think they would have probably been better received than they were at the time.

 

[:eek:]

Hollywood has always had a kind of "follow the leader"-mentality. Just looking in recent years, Harry Potter had success with splitting the final book into two movies, so virtually all YA-adaptations is doing the same. Marvel had success with their cinematic universe and now everyone is trying do something similar with whatever franchise(s) they have.

 

[Loki882]

I'm fine with it in certain situations. For example, the final Harry Potter book is so long and has so much detail that to adapt it into one movie, you'd have to make said movie like 6 hours long anyway. Heck I could make a case that every film starting with Goblet of Fire could have been two movies (a lot of fans complain about things being changed/cut out for time in those films). With Avengers and JL, I presume what will happen is that the events of Part 1 will directly lead into Part 2. For example, hypothetically JL 1 ends with them defeating Brainiac, but then they fine out that the battle has drawn Darkseid to Earth, which leads to Part 2.

However, not every book needs this. Breaking Wind did not need to be two movies. I'm not sure that Mockingjay needs to be two movies either, but we'll see how that goes.

 

[dark_b]

who said that every detail from a book needs to be in a movie? movies are different from books.

you can have characters walking from A to B and back to A and back to B in a book and it works. you can not have this in a movie. and thats what we get when movies get split. everything is repeating and there is no forward movement.

 

[Supernova]

Simply put cash grab. It worked for deathly hallows then twilight did it and worked and now hollywood is doing all over. Mocking jay is a great example as well as far as recent.

 

[Roose Bolton]

who said that every detail from a book needs to be in a movie? movies are different from books.

you can have characters walking from A to B and back to A and back to B in a book and it works. you can not have this in a movie. and thats what we get when movies get split. everything is repeating and there is no forward movement.

By that reasoning you would have been ok if Lord of the Rings was one movie with 80% of the characters and plot removed.

 

[Supernova]

By that reasoning you would have been ok if Lord of the Rings was one movie with 80% of the characters and plot removed.

Those movie had 3 seperate books, one per movie. The Hobbit however that fits this talk too a tee

 

[Lord]

By that reasoning you would have been ok if Lord of the Rings was one movie with 80% of the characters and plot removed.

I think there are some exceptions, but Lord of the Rings was itself published as 3 different books, so 3 films was fitting, and it was quite a challenge that was well succeeded.

 

[Donut]

Justice League part 1 is 2017 part 2 is 2019.

The Avengers & Justice League doing it both is interesting

 

[Prison Mike]

Simply put cash grab. It worked for deathly hallows then twilight did it and worked and now hollywood is doing all over. Mocking jay is a great example as well as far as recent.

I agree. It's a money grabbing scheme. Yet...I will still fork it over for JL and Avengers.

 

[Drizzle]

We all know it's about money, that much is certain. But in terms of storytelling, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It worked in Deathly Hallows' favor. The Hobbit movies are mostly good, but Desolation of Smaug was awkwardly paced at times. I'll have to wait and see about Mockingjay, as I don't see how splitting that book into two movies would be beneficial besides boosting box office profits (as if there can be any other reason), but I trust the team behind that franchise.

I'm all for splitting the third Avengers into two films due to the sheer scope of the thing, but overall, even though I may question the decision to split things sometimes (Mockingjay, The Hobbit), I can't really complain because I still end up seeing them.

 

[kedrell]

With JL and TA I'd call it more of a marketing strategy than anything else. They can make as many as they want anyway as long as they're successful so I'd not accuse them of milking it the way I'd call the Y/A adaptions on it.

 

[PalmerTheThing]

Totally cool with it.