Movie franchises with significant time jumps

The title says it all. To be fair, the first movie was called “28 Days Later,” and we were having to catch up right out of the gate! The sequel to the zombie-esque film, sans director Danny Boyle, was “28 Weeks Later.” Now, Boyle is back (but Cillian Murphy isn’t…yet) for the movie “28 Years Later.” That is quite the jump into the post-apocalyptic future.

The Marvel movies can be pretty generic and safe from a storytelling perspective, but credit is deserved for a couple “Avengers” decisions. One, “Infinity War” ended with Thanos achieving his goal of wiping out half of the universe’s population. Two, “Endgame” opened with the surviving Avengers realizing they can’t use the Infinity Gauntlet to undo things — and Thor kills Thanos. Then, the movie jumps five years after what is effectively an “Infinity War” coda. Sure, they then use time travel to undo everything (generic, safe, etc.) but that’s probably why it was briefly the highest-grossing movie in history.

You might argue that this isn’t a “time jump.” Yes, “The Empire Strikes Back” takes place three years after “Star Wars,” and it also came out three years after “Star Wars.” We’d argue it still feels like an in-universe time jump. After all, “Return of the Jedi” came out three years after “Empire” but only has a one-year time jump. We’re counting it!

There is something of a time jump within “Last Crusade,” but that’s really a prequel prologue followed by the movie’s action. Even so, there is also a time jump to the meat of the movie as well. After all, “Temple of Doom” was, in addition to being a mean-spirited movie, a prequel. We move forward three years for this story. “Crystal Skull” may also qualify as a time jump, but it came out 19 years later and is set 19 years later and that feels intentional.

By dint of bifurcating the book “It” by Stephen King into two movies, the second one was always going to involve a major leap forward in time. That is also in the book, after all. Thus, while the first film featured our scrappy protagonists as children, the second film jumps us 27 years into the future.

The “Terminator” franchise’s dedication to its internal logic and timeline is what one might call “all over the place.” Hey, at least we got the slick horror of “The Terminator,” and a pretty-solid blockbuster in “Judgment Day” out of the whole rigmarole. James Cameron’s horror flick is contemporaneous, which is to say it is set in 1984, the year it was released. “Terminator 2,” though, is set in 1995, two years before the titular Judgment Day.

Obviously, “Part III” came out a while after the first two parts of “The Godfather.” You know, the two cinematic classics that each won Best Picture. Those movies are period pieces, though, and that changes the logistics of the timeline. The non-flashback parts of “Part II” take place in 1958. “Part III,” which came out 16 years later, takes place in 1979 and focuses on an aging Michael Corleone.

The “Fast and Furious” franchise has a timeline we’d classify as “stupid.” See, originally it was going to be a series of one-off stories made on the cheap with no sense of an overarching universe. Then, Vin Diesel got his hands on things and it became an overwrought, overblown action franchise. That led to a retconning of the timeline, with the biggest issue being “Tokyo Drift.” Now, within the timeline, the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies happen before “Tokyo Drift,” the third movie. That makes it, after the fact, a time jump from “2 Fast 2 Furious.”

In order to do a story about an aging Logan, aka Wolverine, James Mangold needed to move this franchise into the future. “Logan,” one of the best superhero movies, takes place in 2029, a future wherein no mutants have been born in 25 years and Charles Xavier has telepathic seizures that have the potential to destroy everything around him. Viewing this as a sequel to Mangold’s “The Wolverine,” which is the way to do it, makes for a time jump of 16 years. And then the less said about “Deadpool and Wolverine” the better.

Doing an immediate sequel to “Anchorman” wouldn’t have made much sense. To be fair, doing a sequel to “Anchorman” full stop seemed unnecessary. However, “Anchorman” was a big hit, and it is an excellent comedy, so a sequel was inevitable. Fortunately, “Anchorman 2” proved funny in its own right. This is a case where the “time jump” is shorter than the time between films, but the four-year jump does feel like a storytelling jump, all things considered.

The first three films in the “Fear Street” franchise were all released in 2021 on Netflix. If you aren’t familiar, “Fear Street” is R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” for slightly-older people, so it has more grit to it. The first three films are all period pieces, but they each move backwards in time from 1994 to 1978 to all the way in 1666. “1666” is thus the set up for the next film in the franchise, “Prom Queen.” That one is set in 1988, making for as big of a time jump as you’ll find in a franchise.

“Jurassic Park” is so good, and then we got sequel after sequel that fell somewhere between mediocre and bad. The “Jurassic World” movies are truly bananas, and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” ends with dinosaurs literally breaking free and returning to nature, leaving people to learn to coexist. “Dominion” takes place four years after “Fallen Kingdom,” and it also brought back Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler.

The original “Planet of the Apes” franchise is pretty nuts as well. In the second movie, a nuclear bomb literally destroys Earth, leaving every following movie to be a prequel. Then, the franchise rebooted and we are considering it a different franchise. “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is the second film in the franchise after 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” Things really jump ahead, as “Dawn” takes place 10 years later.

After a strong trilogy of movies, the “Bourne” franchise tried to hand things off to Jeremy Renner. When that didn’t work, they brought back Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. The film takes place 20 years after the events of “The Bourne Ultimatum.” While “Jason Bourne” isn’t as good as any of the original trilogy, it is better than “The Bourne Legacy” at least.

The events of “Awakening” take place a few years after the second film in the franchise. However, “Awakening” is the fourth film in the franchise, while in between is the delightfully-titled “Rise of the Lycans,” which is a prequel. That leads to a larger time jump than it would have been had “Awakening” been the third movie.

The “Alien” franchise has a real affinity for time jumps. It’s the power of cryosleep and sci-fi logic. Like the “Terminator” franchise, “Alien” went from a nasty horror film (and a great one at that) to a big-time action movie. Also, Cameron himself directed “Aliens” in the wake of making “The Terminator.” Maybe Cameron got the idea for a time jump from “Aliens,” which is a movie that takes place 57 years after “Alien.”

We’re including this one just because it’s funny. “Bratz” is a movie based on those dolls that were popular, and possibly still are. It’s a bad movie and it was a flop. The movie begins and we meet all our archetype main characters. It’s all generic and unremarkable and then, suddenly and inexplicably, the movie jumps to two years later. The “Bratz” time jump is as surprising and jarring as the “Endgame” time jump.