Originality be damned in Hollywood, it’s time to look at some action sequels the world needs…
Recently it was announced that Sly Stallone would be donning his climbing gear and hitting the mountains for a Cliffhanger sequel. That sent the Flickering Myth office into a frenzy of ideas… actually, it was just me in a solitary corner off my rocker on coffee. So I gave you a few suggestions of other Stallone classics and/or misunderstood cult movies which deserve a sequel. It got me thinking though. What other action star classics deserve the sequel treatment? More importantly, which might still work given that many of these iconic action titans are in their bus pass years now? No need to wonder anymore because here are 10 action sequels that the world (okay, maybe just me) needs…
Speed 3 – Keanu Returns
Almost 30 years ago, Speed came out with a concept that really shouldn’t have worked, but became a massive financial (and pop cultural) success. It cemented Keanu Reeves as both an action man in the making and a box office golden goose.
The concept was deliciously simple with a bus that would trigger a bomb after going 50mph and explode once it dropped below that speed. Jan De Bont’s film eeked out plenty of thrills and tension on the concept, particularly the bus portion of the film (the finale, shifting to a runaway subway train doesn’t quite hold up). It was great then and it’s held up thanks to great stunt work, just the right amount of logic-defying silliness and the great cast. Keanu Reeves has all his iconic early boyish charm and Sandra Bullock at her effervescent break-out best. Dennis Hopper then strolls into the film and spends huge portions of it talking to himself.
Speed is still one of the best action films of the last 30 years but the second film which featured an out-of-control boat under the control of the villainous Willem Defoe lacked any palpable tension simply because the concept went completely against the title of the film. That boat be slow y’all. As fudge… Defoe, as always is great but the film misses Reeves and the inherent chemistry he and Bullock had and that is the key to Speed 3.
Bullock and Reeves must return to action and the film will feel the need… the need for speed. So let’s set our action on either an out-of-control plane or bullet train with Keanu once again required to find his way onto the out-of-control transport and save the day, aided by Sandra Bullock.
Dark Angel 2 – I Return in Anger.
As a fan of the Master of the Universe himself, Dolph Lundgren, there are several characters I’d love to see him revisit, including Frank Castle. However, one film that screamed out for a sequel, was Dark Angel (also known as I Come In Peace). The blend of action, sci-fi and comedy made it possibly the most crowd-pleasing Lundgren film where the big Swede is the leading man. It’s great fun and full of crazy action, big stunts and an almost excessive amount of exploding cars. Best of all, it’s back in the halcyon days when action movies had to create set pieces practically. To show a car blowing up you had to blow up a car (or 50).
Sequels have been tentatively rumoured over the years but there have been complex rights problems along with the unavoidable fact that this made no impact theatrically. Still, the film was huge on video and has become a cult favourite in recent years. Matthias Hues the imposing legend of b movie cinema, who stars as a nefarious 7ft drug-dealing alien has long championed a sequel.
Maybe it’s time the recently retired Jack Caine (Lundgren) is paid a visit from another spaceman, bent on revenge and played once again by Hues. Do we need an elaborate storyline as to whether he’s miraculously returned, is a brother, or a clone? Neh… the first film had killer CDs. The script needs a mass of one-liners (writer available here by the way…) between Lundgren and his old FBI frenemy Agent Smith (Brian Benben), some explosive action and a suitable sci-fi plot that brings an extraterrestrial threat to the world only Caine and Smith can stop. I’ve been waiting 33 years for a follow-up…
Lionheart 2
Jean-Claude Van Damme has plenty of stonkers (I said stonkers… not stinkers) which deserve a sequel. For years the man himself has teased rumours of sequels to films like Bloodsport and Double Impact. There have also been rumours over the years that Van Damme may revisit Lyon Gaultier the legionnaire turned street fighting protagonist of Lionheart. One of Van Damme’s early tournament brawler classics, Lionheart isn’t quite as iconic as Bloodsport or Kickboxer in his canon, but it’s a firm fan favourite.
There’s one key ingredient that Lionheart (also known as AWOL and Wrong Bet) has over the others though and that is its heart. Gaultier flees the legion to visit his ailing brother but is sadly too late. He then sets about trying to help his late brother’s wife and daughter who are left destitute. Aided by a fight bookie named Joshua (Harrison Page) Lyon rises through the ranks of the underground fight circuit trying to make money for his family. With an array of themed brawls along the way the film had the requisite fighting required for fans. Harrison Page is great and whilst Van Damme is still at the stage of finding his feet as an actor, he’s got a melancholic stoicism that works very well. By the end, you’ll be crying out “lionheart!!!” and wiping away tears when the agents sent to retrieve Lyon to face court marshall let him return to his impossibly adorable niece waiting at the door for him.
Yes, Lionheart 2 made with the heartfelt sincerity of Rocky Balboa could make good use of Van Damme’s late-era gravitas and seeing Page returning would also be welcome. A new reason to return to the fight arena is all that’s required to make this one work as well as the return of John Scott’s brilliant theme.
Universal Soldier 5
Let’s stay with Van Damme for a second. When John (son of three-time Van Damme director, Peter) Hyams took the helm of Universal Soldier: Regeneration there probably wasn’t a huge deal expected. John Hyams had come from a documentary background and the clamour for more Unisol films pretty much died with the disastrous first sequel (not including the two rogue made-for-TV specials). He took the franchise into dark and gritty territory featuring once fresh-faced hero Luc Devreaux as a broken-down, PTSD-suffering machine. He’s left somewhere between man and Frankenstein monster, slowly trying to return to humanity but always a hair trigger away from exploding.
So when a band of terrorists with some freshly stolen clone research and machinery kidnap hostages and rig a nuclear reactor to explode, the military kidnap Devreaux and force him to lead a mission to take out the enemy and their super Unisol guard. The ace up the bad guys sleeve is a clone of Andrew Scott (the returning Dolph Lundgren). Regeneration was great, but due to limited resources and the availability of Van Damme, had an awkward sense of lacking a clear protagonist. However, the action is superb, particularly a thrilling opening car chase, the MMA-infused super soldier brawls and a great Van Damme vs Lundgren showdown.
Then Hyams produced magic again with Day of Reckoning which skewed wildly into a weird blend of Detective noir and horror. It was as if Kubrick, Lynch, Cronenberg and Nic Winding Refn all joined forces to make a Universal Soldier movie. Unfortunately, the film was highly divisive and seemed to particularly annoy Van Damme fans who didn’t like where Luc had been taken to (as a kind of nightmarish Colonol Kurtz figure). Some fans though, considered it a brilliant and completely unexpected film given the origins of the franchise.
It even adorned a number of high profile top 10 of 2012 lists who really tapped into the dark existential auteur vision. Hyams made the film he wanted, a proper director’s film and that’s why those in the love camp of Day of Reckoning would love to see him get another crack at the franchise. Where could they take it now? Scott Adkins should return, perhaps shifting to becoming a villain or anti-hero. One rumour that did the rounds had the idea of a series of Andrew Scott clones. An army of Lundgren’s? That said, should both Van Damme and Lundgren return there needs to be a way to pass the torch on and keep them to a minimum. Both have more recently excelled as character actors and don’t need to keep brawling. Andrei Arlovski has always been an intriguingly stony presence in the films too, should his clone soldier return.
King Conan
Arnold Schwarzenegger is still going and he’s still stoking the rumour fires about his return as Conan the Barbarian. It’s been nearly 40 years since he played the role but that last shot tease in the original film, featuring an ageing King Conan sitting upon his throne has long stayed in the minds of fans. The original film in particular is a slightly underappreciated masterpiece. A unique, operatic and bombastic Barbarian adventure with one of the greatest orchestral scores ever.
Conan the Destroyer lacked the depth of the original but isn’t without its handmade, all practical charms. Revisiting long dormant films can go two ways, with either unexpectedly great results (ask Denis Villeneuve) or disaster, but genuinely, more so than the rest of these suggestions, a King Conan has masses of potential. Schwarzenegger has one great movie left in him. The likelihood of that happening rests largely on whether someone takes on King Conan and goes for an Unforgiven vibe.
The film really needs a good director given unfettered power to deliver their vision. Paul Verhoeven still makes great films and could definitely give the film some suitably blunt violence. It’s time someone really played to Arnold’s age and helped inspire a great performance out of him, rather than playing caricatures which he’s done of late.
China O’Brien 3
Cynthia Rothrock is about to kick some heads in her passion project Black Creek which she recently crowdfunded. Billed as a dark dystopian Western I’m definitely game to watch, particularly as it compiles a who’s who of 80-90s video action icons together, including Olivier Gruner, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Billy Blanks and Richard Norton.
This might already be a sequel in spirit, given that it sees Rothrock and Norton sharing the screen again, but one film I’d love for Rothrock to revisit is China O’Brien. The original two films would mark her introduction to the US market, having initially made her name out in Hong Kong, breaking out in the same film as Michelle Yeoh. China O’Brien and its sequel were both directed by Robert Clouse, director of Enter the Dragon no less. A third film was rumoured shortly after the second film came out but hit the bricks whilst Rothrock was waiting on a William Friedkin and Sly Stallone picture. By the time that film (The Executioner) hit a brick wall, China 3 was off the table.
Who knows what the web of rights is like but Rothrock’s Walking Tall with high heels double whammy were very enjoyable. China’s just a small-town girl who’s probably kept a sheriff’s badge to a near impending retirement. Maybe throw in some invading force of bad guys who are shitting up her (long sleepy) town and it’s time to get kicking again, with the help of Richard Norton and Keith Cooke of course.
Nemesis Reborn
The late great Albert Pyun gifted the world with many a quirky B-movie oddity. He also made the cyberpunk, Terminator-inspired cyborg classic, Nemesis starring Olivier Gruner. It’s perfectly imperfect like many of Pyun’s best works and pauses for a few philosophical musings on what makes us human. Three Pyun-led sequels followed which got progressively more sparse, and weirder. The fourth film which featured female bodybuilder Sue Price disrobed almost entirely throughout was a weirdly fetishistic film mixed with long stretches of talking head dialogue. It’s the weirdest art house action sci-fi film you’ll ever see.
Pyun then lent his name to the dirt-cheap 5th film that saw Price return but bore little resemblance to the original films. What we really need, in conjunction with a revisit to the world of Nemesis, is to finally return to the OG character as played by Olivier Gruner. We also need a new company to rise with the old ethos of PM entertainment, which is to say, giving stunt guys the platform to go hog wild and capture all manner of cost-effective but hugely impressive stunts in-camera. If the fifth film’s plug-in gun effects proved anything, it’s that indie cinema desperately misses the pyrotechnic madness of films like Nemesis and the PM catalogue.
Tim Thomerson returning as Farnsworth would be a welcome addition but the most important thing would be seeking out plenty of impressive cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic visuals from an undoubtedly meagre budget. As Pyun oft proved though, it can be done.
Dredd
After the disastrous Sly Stallone adaptation, it seemed like Judge Dredd’s franchise potential was binned before it had really begun. Then in 2012, almost out of the blue, came Dredd with Karl Urban donning the iconic Judge’s helmet and more importantly, keeping it on!
Urban’s grimace had a character all of its own and the stylish and ruthlessly simple film was an unexpected surprise. After chasing Perps into a high-tech building run by Ma-Ma (an immense Lena Headey), Dredd and his rookie partner are locked in the high rise having to fight their way up to take out Ma-ma and get their passage out. It was a perfect 90-minute, non-stop film with Urban nailing the gruff Dredd.
It was a runaway success, right? Well, people saw it and loved it but not enough to ever entertain the idea a sequel might get made. Still, fans still cling to the hope Urban might get his chance to revisit Dredd and deliver another solid action spectacle worthy of the source material.
Big Trouble in Little China
At the moment, slightly madcap genre fusions are all the rage. Then there’s the continuing popularity of martial arts in cinema too. For some reason, despite many years of a rumoured sequel, Big Trouble in Little China 2 just hasn’t happened. The original film was a colourful fantasy film which moved at a breakneck pace and featured Kurt Russell at his charismatic best, facing the inimitable James Hong as the film’s villain.
A blend of action, fantasy and laughs seems to have touched many films in more recent years with the likes of Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy having pinches of what made Jack Burton’s adventure great. It also exemplified John Carpenter’s range during that era.
One rumour in more recent times suggested Dwayne Johnson might reboot the film but Burton must return as played by Russell. Hong can return as Lo Pan once again, resurrected and hell bent on attaining his physical immortality. It’s now beyond Carpenter but there are plenty of contenders who could vibe with the original films genre blending and sense of whimsy, especially if they take a practical approach to creating the film. Taika Waititi, if he exercises more restrain than Love and Thunder, the Daniels or James Gunn could definitely bring the magic back to Jack Burton.
Drive 2
Part buddy film road movie, part Hong Kong style martial arts extravaganza. Drive was the kind of film people discovered almost by accident on cable or in the video store. After all, by this point, Mark Dacascos’ rise to stardom hadn’t quite hit the heights he deserved. Kadeem Hardison was popular as a supporting artist and TV star but not a big pull as a cover star in movies.
Drive took a while to slowly accumulate its excellent reputation among B movie aficionados, and it was the first really standout Western film which really did capture the frenetic brilliance of Hong Kong fight sequences. Director, Steve Wang and the alpha stunt team knew exactly how to make the most out of a tight budget and put together brilliant fight sequences.
The film isn’t just reliant on those great fights though, the simple plot isn’t bogged down with any unnecessary subplots, opting instead to rest on the chemistry of Dacascos and Hardison, later joined by the late Brittany Murphy who’s infectiously quirky. Full of great lines, amazing fight scenes, this is non-stop action and Toby and Malik’s misadventures seemed to cry out for a sequel. That lack of immediate success didn’t help, and though the sequel got close a few times it never materialised.
A recent 4k release shows there’s still a fanbase, and even new viewers are taken aback by the amazing action design and quotable lines. This could still work with an aging Toby (Dacascos) and Malik (Hardison) having to take down a new advanced bio-tech company trying to eradicate the old turbo drive device that makes Toby better than human.
What action film would you like to see a sequel to? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth or hit me up on Instagram @JolliffeProductions…
