Patrick H. Willems Takes On Legacy Sequels

It’s been a minute since we’ve checked in with Patrick H. Willems here at this site. We’ve looked at his horror comedy video essay and his Shane Black Christmas action video essay—but here’s a double helping of the cinephile’s thoughts, specifically around the concept of legacy sequels.

Legacy sequels - those sequels that are delivered after many years to a franchise with usually new hopes of jumpstarting the enterprise again - are everywhere recently. So Willems (and company) decides to take a look at them in two video essays.

The first defines them, figures out the origins and rise of legacy sequels throughout cinema, including the 7 basic plots of all legacy sequels:

While the second wonders what’s it all mean and where’s it all going by asking “have we reached Peak legacy sequel?”