I am trying to thing back to what start all this sequel craze,
Planet of the Apes seems to be the 1st movie to have a sequels:
1. PotA
2. Beneath the PotA
3. Escape from the PotA
4. Conquest of the PotA
5. Battle for the PotA

Then came:

The God Father I, II and III

Then Came:
Jaws 1, 2, 3, 4...

Then Came:
Star Wars 4, 5, 6, 1, 2...

Then Came:
Star Trek 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

My 8 year old buy now always assumes that there will be sequel to every movie, he want to know when the next movie is coming out while we are walking out of the theater.

Is the above correct or was there another movie set to start off the Sequel craze beside the PotA?

I think I found the 1st movie with sequels:

1. The Love Bug $51,264,000 3/13/69

2. Herbie Rides Again $38,229,000 6/6/74

3. Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo $29,000,000 6/24/77

4. Herbie Goes Bananas $18,000,000 6/25/80

What about the Universal monsters series? Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, etc.... All of these movies had plenty of sequels...

I never thought of the Monster remakes, so it looks like the sequel movies have been around almost as long as movies have been around.

I'm not sure if the Monster Sequels can be topped.

how does something start a sequel craze? I'm sure those planet of the apes sequels were really much of a profit so much that they were cheap to make and also, drive in's and B films were the big thing.

the idea of sequels is simple really.. if something works, do it again.. that they did.

King Kong (1933)

The Son of Kong (1933) Released the same year!

Abd since Chaplin played pretty much the same little hobo in most of his early silent films, couldn't we say that he was sequel crazy?

I love how some members of this forum think movies first appeared in 1970. Of course, you're still in the minority since most folks here think The Matrix was the first film ever made (and every film since rips it off).

I think that before the 1960s, studios were just as likely do sequels and especially remakes, although they didn't usually number them as is common practice today. I can think of a few examples--The Shop Around the Corner (1940) was remade as In the Good Old Summertime (1949) and later You've Got Mail (1998)... Love Affair (1939) was remade as An Affair to Remember (1957) and again as Love Affair (1994)... The Front Page (1931) was remade numerous times, most notably as the more successful His Girl Friday (1940).

A Cary Grant filmography alone is a great source for finding remakes, since in the 30s and 40s romantic comedy plots were recycled just as they are today, and were often used as a vehicle for Grant and his ilk.

Think about it... we're complaining about Hollywood being out of ideas for remaking movies from 20 or 30 years ago, a couple of the examples above are remakes of very successful, well known films done less than a decade later!

In terms of POTA, as I learned from Behind the Planet of the Apes, the success of the films lead to studio pressure for sequels but also ever-shrinking budgets. The first film was very expensive: the detailed make-up work so that it didn't look like the apes were just wearing cheap rubber masks cost a lot. In the later films, there were a lot more cheap rubber masks. So really, they shouldn't have been so cheap to make, but opportunistic studio execs made sure they were.

The Thin Man (1934)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Another Thin Man (1939)
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Did a little bit of search on this, and here is what I found:

This may be the first:

Rudolph Valentino in THE SHEIK (1921) followed by SON OF THE SHEIK (1926).

So what's the longest running/most sequels?

Godzilla at 25 "sequels"? He started in 1954

The Battle of the Franchise: James Bond vs. Godzilla!!!1!

How about Jason and Freddy vs Godzilla.

Friday the 13th might end up breaking that Godzilla record.

James Bond

Godzilla

Dr. No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty's Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man with the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill GoldenEye Tomorrow Never Dies The World is Not Enough Die Another Day

Godzilla: King of the Monsters Gigantis, The Fire Monster King Kong vs. Godzilla Godzilla vs. the Thing Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster Godzilla vs. Monster Zero Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster Son of Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Godzilla's Revenge Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster Godzilla vs. Gigan Godzilla vs. Megalon Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster Terror of Mechagodzilla Godzilla 1985 Godzilla vs. Biollante Godzilla vs. King Ghiodrah Godzilla vs. Mothra Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (II) Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla Godzilla vs. Destroyer Godzilla 2000 Godzilla vs. Megaguiras GMK: All Monsters Attack

Won-Fei Hung has got to be up there. There's over 100 films in the series. James Bond and Godzilla ain't got NOTHIN' on him!

Don't forget Godzilla v. Mecahgodzilla 2003

Actually, I've heard on a few non-consecutive trivia instances that Sherlock Holmes holds the title as most-filmed character.

Sounds about right. I would have guessed Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan. Both probably well exceed either Godzilla or James Bond.

A quick character search on IMDB for Sherlock Holmes returned 173 different results. Of course, I don't know that all of those can truly be considered sequels - considering 15 of those 173 are different versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Definitely a lot of remakes in that bunch.

Sequels HAVE been around since the dawn of cinema.

Hundreds, thousands, of sequels were made before the POTA series.

One could argue that POTA, while not the birth of the sequal craze, was the birth of the Franchise craze. The original film was diversified into T-shirts, books, comics, toys, TV shows, etc. The sequels followed with similar results. I don't think that had ever been done before. Certainly not to as large an extent.

James Bond never had a TV show.

Thats probably true (and Fox didn't forget that lesson when Star Wars came along) but there was some merchandising in the 60's with James Bond (toy cars, figures, books,etc ) and some merchandise tie ins for Godzilla in the 60s (mostly in Japan but Ideal did make a Godzilla boardgame here). But you're right, POTA went all out (and the Mego action figures from '74-75 are great. ).

A few questions. Why doesn't Bond ever age? How does Ms. Moneypenny get younger? And how does Tokyo get rebuilt so fast after each new attack?