Movie sequels are the biggest gamble in entertainment. The first movie is the first bet: how much do you build it toward a franchise at the expense of its story? How many of those folks will stick around for a second adventure? With your Adventure #2, how do you retell Adventure #1's story in a new way? Those and more questions make it amazing second and third movies happen at all (let alone 20+ Avengers building blocks). But what if that sequel process isn’t as hard as it looks? What if it’s actually pretty easy to do...as long as you avoid a few classic pitfalls audiences reject every time?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt teams up with Cracked editor/columnist/swell fella Cyriaque Lamar for a look at mistakes multi-million dollar movie franchises repeat year after year. They’ll dig into the story problems studios keep bringing on themselves. They’ll examine why Aliens, Terminators, and more Hollywood big bads turn kind of lame after enough iterations. And stick around for a few movie franchises that nail this every time, in replicable ways (HINT HINT MOVIEMAKERS).

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/7-common-mistakes-that-ruin-movie-sequels-trilogies/