Miramax Goes Sequel Crazy: Follow Ups to "Rounders," "Bad Santa," and "Shakespeare in Love" Planned

There was a time when Miramax was the go to studio for independent and prestige films. Movies like "The Piano", "The Crying Game", and "Pulp Fiction" all found a home there when it was being run by the Weinstein Brothers. Eventually the output seemed to become less reliable and the Weinsteins were forced out of power. For a time the duo founded their own studio, The Weinstein Company, with less than stellar results. Now the Weinsteins are re-teaming with Miramax. While not being put back in control of the studio they are partnering with the current heads and the big plan is to mine Miramax's expansive library of films for sequels.

In an official press release Miramax has made clear their intention to immediately begin work on no less than three sequels. The announced films would be sequels to the 2003 black comedy "Bad Santa", the 1998 poker film "Rounders" and the 1998 winner of the Oscar for best picture "Shakespeare in Love. The first two actually make a fair amount of sense. Billy Bob Thornton has said in the past that he'd be willing to revisit his character from "Bad Santa". And stars Matt Damon and Edward Norton have both been saying for years that they'd be up for a sequel to "Rounders". "Shakespeare in Love" however is more of an odd choice. While the film only covered a small (and fictionalized) segment of the life of William Shakespeare it also was a fairly complete story in and of itself. That film doesn't really lend itself to sequels like the other two do. It's also worth noting that though Miramax has announced the projects none of the stars have been signed yet and no directors have been hired for any of them.

More interesting than these three projects is the inclusion in the press release of a list of other "potential" sequels or TV spin-offs. The list includes "Bridge Jones' Diary", "Swingers", "Clerks", "Copland" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" amongst others. It's looking like Miramax and the Weinsteins are looking at the entire library of films that the studio has and are prepared to jump on any and all that have potential for continuation. The mentioning of TV shows is an interesting one, especially considering how few films managed to transition to television successfully. In fact "Clerks" already has a failed animated TV show to its name. It's also interesting the mention of "From Dusk Till Dawn" as that film has had a number of sequels already, albeit all direct-to-video. That leaves the question open as to whether Miramax is willing to have some of these proposed sequels be quick direct-to-DVD cash grabs or if they're taking all of this seriously.

There's been little word following up on the press release, although writer/director Keven Smith (whose own "Clerks" was named in the release) gave his thoughts on another sequel to his breakout hit. Basically Smith said that at least he knew he could always go to them to make "Clerks 3". However he stressed that he hopes it's not a project they plan to do without his involvement. As an interesting side note Smith pointed out that Miramax holds the rights to most of his movies but not his iconic characters Jay and Silent Bob who appeared in most of those movies. It brings into question how fully Miramax controls the rights to the other projects they mentioned.

Going forward this notion of digging through the catalog for sequels has the possibility of reviving Miramax. However if the sequels aren't done with respect to the originals it could sink the once noted studio for good. It's somewhat ironic that a studio once known for backing unique and original films is now prepared to crank out as many sequels as it takes to get back on top. It'll be curious to see how many of these planned sequels or spin offs get any further than a planning phase.