10 Long-Delayed Sequels That Were Worth The Wait

10 Cloverfield Lane is no ordinary sequel. For starters, the film isn't really a direct follow-up to found-footage monster movie Cloverfield at all, but a project that - in the words of producer J.J. Abrams - simply shares the "DNA" of its predecessor. Another reason it's so different to the usual franchise movie? Unlike most, this sequel has arrived a whole eight years on from the original. With gaps between sequels shortening, to the point where breaks of just two years to a year have become the norm (those YA series, like Twilight and Divergent, can churn them out in 12 months or less), two years shy of a decade is a long time. Still, 10 Cloverfield Lane proves it's a case of never say never for movie sequels. If the material's right, a sequel can be greenlit five, ten, even 30 years down the line. While returning to a franchise years and sometimes decades on has led to enormous disappointment in certain cases (The Godfather Part III, anyone?), Hollywood has also given us some great long-delayed sequels that were well worth the wait. And here, are ten of them. 10) Mad Max: Fury Road Sequel to: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Time between movies: 30 years 30 years, it turns out, is exactly what George Miller needed to develop not just one of the greatest sequels of all time, but one of the great action movies, period. After the stale Beyond Thunderdome, Miller temporarily put his Mad Max saga into hibernation. Then the delay for Mad Max 4 would extend, and extend, until original Max Mel Gibson dropped out and Miller found himself with literally decades-worth of ideas building up. When Fury Road finally arrived last year, audiences could see the result of the long period of development: a hyper-stylized, hallucinatory and eccentric blockbuster unlike any other. It's the high point for both Miller and the Mad Max series, proof that a franchise long thought stagnant can still have legs. 9) Queen and Country Sequel to: Hope and Glory Time between movies: 28 years Not all movies especially lend themselves to sequelization. John Boorman's 1987, Oscar-nominated Hope and Glory is a small-scale war-time drama, which stars mostly unknowns and which barely made its own budget back at the box office. Hardly franchise material, then, especially in the superhero movie-friendly aughts. Without much in the way of warning, and without giving much of a crap about 'the norm,' last year Boorman suddenly dropped his Hope and Glory 2.0, Queen and Country. It was his first in eight years, made on the back of a number of flops, but the film proved a surprisingly accomplished comeback, a nostalgia-tinged late-career work inspired by Boorman's own post-WWII coming-of-age experiences. 8) Universal Soldier: Regeneration Sequel to: Universal Soldier: Redemption Time between movies: 11 years After 1999's Redemption (5% on Rotten Tomatoes!), nobody expected another Universal Soldier movie and, to be frank, there likely weren't many who actually wanted one. But the schlocky direct-to-video market works in mysterious ways, and in 2009 the demand of the few fans the franchise had left led to the movie gods giving us Universal Soldier: Regeneration. Shockingly, it proved something of a direct-to-video classic. Reuniting Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren for a Chernobyl-based bloodbath, Redemption is far deeper than it has any right to be, a kind of melding of action cinema and arthouse. The fight scenes are brutally orchestrated by director John Hyams, while the former artist ponders questions of reality and mortality as he simultaneously blows supersoldiers' heads to pieces. Glorious. 7) Return to Oz Sequel to: The Wizard of Oz Time between movies: 46 years Taking a family-friendly story and reimagining it for a more cynical age, Return to Oz is the tune-free antithesis of Victor Fleming's technicolor masterwork The Wizard of Oz. It's the nightmare to the original's gaudy cheese-dream, the dark aftermath to the 1939 musical that nobody asked for. It is, fundamentally, brilliant. Few responded well to Walter Murch's Return to Oz initially (what would you expect when Apocalypse Now's sound guy is hired to helm a kids' movie?). But slowly, over time, the consensus has changed. Critics have come around to viewing Return to Oz as its own unique property, a marvel of design that works as the sinister flipside to the 1939 classic. 6) Rocky Balboa Sequel to: Rocky V Time between movies: 16 years If last year's Creed proved anything, it's that you should never count the Rocky franchise out. Just when you think it's done, Sylvester Stallone's little franchise that could scraps its way to a comeback. After the disappointing Rocky III came the majestic Rocky IV, last year came Creed, and almost a decade before that, in 2006, came Rocky Balboa, following on from the incredibly awful Rocky V. The Rocky Balboa project was something of a joke before its release. Here was Stallone, at the end of his 50s, getting back in the ring, for the (much lower-budgeted) sixth movie in a series that everyone thought was finished creatively. The film proved to be surprisingly moving though, a tale of growing old alone and refusing to just fade into obscurity. It's a solid sports movie, but an even better drama. 5) Toy Story 3 Sequel to: Toy Story 2 Time between movies: 11 years Due to the nature of what they do, Pixar always take more time than it usually takes for Hollywood to knock out a sequel. Toy Story 3, however, wasn't originally in the studio's plans, with Disney originally taking the sequel to a rival animation house during its gestation period. Thankfully, Pixar took back the reins, and after a long development process birthed the greatest animated sequel of all-time. Funnier, more profound and (owing to the advance in animation in the 11 years passed) better-looking than the previous two Toy Story's, Toy Story 3 is one of the greatest - if not the greatest - trilogy-capper ever made. In 2018, the third Toy Story movie will get its own long-delayed sequel, but it's hard to imagine Pixar being able to top Woody and co. facing off against an evil teddy named Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear. 3/4) Before Sunset/Before Midnight Sequel to: Before Sunrise Time between movies: Nine years It seems no contemporary filmmaker deals in unconventional sequels quite the way Richard Linklater does. This year, he has Everybody Wants Some, a 'spiritual sequel' to his high-schoolers-hanging-out-and-getting-drunk flick Dazed and Confused, a movie that never appeared to be crying out for a follow-up in the first place. Even more unconventional, however, is Linklater's Before series, the films made in nine year intervals as the two main characters (and actors) age in real-time. These aren't blockbusters, but intimate, wordy romantic dramas made with the arthouse in mind. They're not for big audiences. But they are, all the same, masterpieces, with Before Sunrise sequels Before Sunset and Before Midnight two particular gems in Linklater's singular filmography. 2) Dawn of the Dead Sequel to: Night of the Living Dead Time between movies: Ten years One striking thing about the difference between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead is how they feel as though they were made by completely different directors. The man behind the first movie is heavily indebted to Hitchcock and black-and-white horrors of old, while the guy behind the second film seems less keen to ape any one style and more interested in making a statement. What the two films do share is a mark of quality, with Dawn of the Dead arguably just edging out the excellent Night as the best film George A. Romero has been responsible for. It's not just a zombie movie; it's a message movie that skewers consumerism and the frailty of contemporary society, with a zombie getting its head lopped off by helicopter blades as a bonus. 1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens Sequel to: Return of the Jedi Time between movies: 32 years OK, so there wasn't quite a 32 year gap. There were fresh Star Wars movies - beginning with 1999's The Phantom Menace, ending with 2005's Revenge of the Sith - made just 16 years after Return of the Jedi. But who on Earth's going to count those anymore now we have The Force Awakens, a movie which has in ten of its 135 minutes more ideas and creative spark than all the prequels put together. With director JJ Abrams injecting energy and genuine affection back into the franchise after George Lucas' tepid Episodes I-III, The Force Awakens was instantly well-received. Episode VII is a modernized summation of all that made the original Star Wars movies great, with new actors and special effects perfectly complementing the old styles. It's family-orientated science fiction done right.