Two new movie trailers were released (or perhaps they just escaped) onto YouTube today, both for high-profile sequels, due for release in March and May 2016 respectively. While they may not match in content (one is a super-stylized, effects-heavy fantasy adventure film, and the other is a less-stylized, effect-heavy action adventure film), they are both sequel films to not-at-all-good-but-still-somehow-very-successful movies.
Check Out: The Trailer Hitch
The first is a sequel to Tim Burton’s inexplicably popular Alice in Wonderland from 2010, which was a gritty, action-oriented sequel to (despite having the same title as) Lewis Carroll’s famed children’s novel. The film was, critics said, a mess of ugly effects without any sort of dramatic cohesion. The film, however, was a huge hit, and has actually spawned an entire Disney-backed subgenre. Now Disney animated classics are all getting their own live-action counterparts, wherein the story is reinterpreted. This is a genre that includes Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, and God knows how many more in the pipeline. It also includes Alive Through the Looking Glass, and equally unfaithful adaptation of the source material. Let’s enjoy the silliness below.
Check Out: A Lesson About Coming Attractions
The other big preview is a sequel to the equally baffling Olympus Has Fallen, a cheap B-picture about terrorists taking over the White House, and the Gerard Butler who stands in their path. The film is murky and weird and not very good, and was easily outstripped in all respects by the other bad-guys-take-over-the-White-House thriller from later that same year, White House Down. Olympus Has Fallen, however, made mad bank, and the production team is returning in March with London Has Fallen, which is the same premise in a different country. If the sequel is successful enough, this formula can be repeated in many other countries. I await The Kremlin Has Fallen. Let’s watch.
Alice Through the Looking Glass will be directed by James Bobin, and is set for released on May 27th, 2016. London Has Fallen will be directed by Babak Najafi, and is set for release on March 4th, 2016.
Top image: Disney
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
