More before: 20 iconic films that should have a prequel

Alright, so maybe you didn’t imagine us starting with a movie that was released less than a decade after the invention of talkies, but we mentioned The Thin Man in the intro, so let’s start there. The film's premise is that Nick Charles is a former private eye who retired when he married the wealthy heiress Nora. They live a life of luxury, and The Thin Man sees Nick reluctantly dip his toe back into investigative work as a favor. Why not have a movie about Nick’s last case, a movie that culminates with him meeting Nora?

No Country for Old Men has a lot of unanswered questions that lead into the action, but that’s part of what makes it such a great, gripping movie. We don’t want to know more. We don’t want the “Firewalk with Me” of this Coen Brothers movie. On the other hand, it would be fun to see some of The Dude’s adventures, the ones he tells Maude about. Hey, give us a movie of The Dude being a roadie for Metallica! That’s good enough for us!

This may be heresy to some, but we’d argue Rushmore is Wes Anderson’s worst film. The big reason why? Max Fischer (and Jason Schwartzman’s performance as Max Fischer). We want to see a prequel before Max is even around. How about a character piece about Bill Murray’s character Herman Blume? That’s a story worth telling.

There are movies in the MCU that take place before the events of Black Panther but are different from a prequel. Wakanda Forever dealt with the death of Chadwick Boseman reasonably well, an immense task to undertake. What may be better next time is to explore a version of Wakanda from before T’Challa is even born. Black Panther has plenty of flashbacks in it. Why not expand on that?

They tried to revamp Men in Black, and it flopped staggeringly hard. Will Smith is, well, a complicated public figure these days. However, the best part of Men in Black III was Josh Brolin doing a Tommy Lee Jones impression as a young Agent K. Why not just do a throwback film to the young K? If you go even further back, you don’t need to mess with the timeline of the series so far at all.

What is seemingly the general consensus about Pixar’s Up? The opening section with Carl and Ellie’s life packs such a punch. Then, the movie continues and is just kind of, you know, whatever. Why not let us have a full movie of some portion of Carl and Ellie’s life? If Pixar wants to make it a comedy, that’s fine. If they want to make it a domestic drama, we’re there. We’ll still call this one a prequel, even if it falls into the section of the film covered, in part, by that opening segment.

One more Pixar movie because, like, just tell us what makes the world of Cars like that. What’s the deal? What happened to people? Were people ever really there? Answer our questions. Let us sleep at night.

Minority Report is an underrated 2000s sci-fi film. There isn’t really room for continuing the story when it ends, but there is room for a prequel of some sort. Sure, that means no Tom Cruise, but you could tell a story about entirely different characters.

The Ocean’s crew had some fun but ran their course. You couldn’t do a film with the same cast as a prequel, and not just for age reasons. Obviously, they didn’t work together before this film. We know Danny and Rusty have a working relationship, though. Why not do a story about a time the younger versions of them got up to something?

The Die Hard series got quite over the top as it went on, so why not refocus and streamline it with a trip back to before John McClane ever met Hans Gruber? Maybe the film won’t have as much bombast, but it could be a fun, gritty crime thriller. Maybe the idea of anybody playing McClane other than Bruce Willis seems like heresy, but we would argue that films like Live Free or Die Hard left the legacy in the lurch as is.

Here’s the thing about a Wayne’s World prequel: We don’t want to recast anybody. Mike Myers is Wayne. Dana Carvey is Garth. Does Ed O’Neill want to come back? The role is his! Does it make sense? Within the parameters of the Wayne’s World universe, absolutely.

Well, we are purportedly getting a prequel series on HBO Max, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, in 2023. It’s animated, set in 1920s China, and focuses on a 10-year-old Sam Wing. It seems like it could be a little cutesy. That’s not our Gremlins vibe. We want anarchic horror comedy. Some mean-spirited Mogwai could have been fed after midnight before the events of the first film, anywhere in the world. A lot is on the table!

A lot of detective characters have film franchises. He may not be the title character, but Eddie Valiant is vital to the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Before Valiant met Roger and sort of found himself, he was a toon-hating, hard-drinking noir detective in a technicolor world. Why not let him do that for a full film but still help to solve a case in the end?

What about Ferris Bueller’s Day On? You think he’s not getting up to stuff during the school day? And maybe he has obligations after school? Also, maybe this time, somebody calls Ferris out for being a narcissist who uses everybody in his life.

Quint gives an iconic speech in Jaws about his experience aboard the USS Indianapolis. When you hear that speech, you may think to yourself, “That would make a great movie in and of itself.” Well, why not do that? After Jaws: The Revenge, there is no reason to hold the franchise sacred.

What if “Summer Nights” was a movie? You dedicate an entire movie to Danny and Sandy’s summer, replete with a bunch more new songs. Now, movies of this ilk have not been super popular since the 1960s, but you never know. Grease nostalgia could have people saying…tell me more.

Before the events of Billy Madison, it is quite clear that Billy is just a lazy maniac doing whatever he wants and talking to shampoo bottles. He has no drive, no want, no quest to go on, which, we mean, yeah. Wouldn’t that make for a weird but interesting comedy? Imagine just following Billy and his buddies on some random adventure so non-essential it practically feels nihilistic. OK, maybe we’re just trying to save the big-screen comedy, but it would also be a fun exercise in absurdity.

Wait a second, but the first movie is the first time counselors are being killed. Jason’s mom (spoiler?) is killing them because her son drowned at Camp Crystal Lake. What would this movie be? Um, a bunch of counselors having fun and doing drugs and fooling around, we guess? Imagine if they said there was a new Friday the 13th movie, and it was a hangout comedy with zero murder. That’s a truly outside-the-box prequel.

We do not want to see a film where Daniel Craig isn’t playing Benoit Blanc. However, after the very of-the-moment  Glass Onion, how about a prequel? Go as far back as possible while still having it be plausible for Craig to play Blanc. Let him work within different technological parameters. That’s the freshest way to do it at this point.

On the internet, the desire for a Jurassic Park prequel is high, it seems. Given that, we wanted to explore the possibility there. What would the story be? It could be about the quest to successfully synthesize the first dinosaur. It could be about the early days of John Hammond. You could have Dr. Grant and Dr. Satler doing something, but it would not be related to the park, of course. There are a few potential stories to tell here. Maybe they can just do a movie about Dennis Nedry growing frustrated with his employment at the park and the creation of his famous computer virus. Uh-uh-uh, you didn’t say the magic word, uh-uh-uh…