Prequels only happen if the original movie or franchise is successful enough. And prequels are only a hit if there’s a huge enough fanbase that know a prequel is happening. But these prequels were such a secret that even the studio didn’t bother telling the fans.
Maybe they wanted the prequels to succeed on their own or maybe the director wanted to test out his own pedigree. Whatever the case may be, these awesome movies you keep watching over and over again are indeed secretly prequels.
The Thing (2011)
There were some subtle differences between the original John Carpenter movie and the 2011 movie. Fans thought that it was a remake of the 1982 classic. And that’s the reason the movie kind of bombed. Apart from the incoherent story arc, The Thing (2011) also got a bad rapport as fans thought it was trying to replace John Carpenter‘s masterpiece.
The 2011 film is indeed a prequel. The John Carpenter 1982 movie begins after an alien incursion in a Norwegian outpost creeps its way into an American Camp in Antarctica. The new movie tells the tale of what transpired in the Scandinavian outpost. In fact, its final shot leads directly to the early scenes of the 1982 film.
The Planet of The Apes Trilogy
The new Planet of the Apes trilogy has been lauded as some of the greatest CGI masterpieces in Hollywood. The story of a simian named Caeser learning human speech and eventually leading the apes in a post apocalyptic world where humanity is slowly dying is actually a prequel to the original Planet of the Apes movie that came in 1968.
While the 1968 film shows us a world where intelligent primates have taken over the world, the new trilogy shows how Caeser’s actions helped his race usurp humanity. And that makes the trilogy a prequel.
Fast & Furious 4, 5, & 6
After the success of the original movie, Vin Diesel refused to return for the 2003 sequel. 2 Fast 2 Furious was still a commercial if not a critical success. Unperturbed, the studio hired Justin Lin to make Tokyo Drift. Probably the most underrated fast & Furious movie, Tokyo Drift failed to hit it big at the Box Office.
Then Lin was roped in again for the fourth, fifth, and sixth movie. In Tokyo Drift, the final scene reveals a Vin Diesel cameo. The purpose of that cameo was revealed to be Han’s death, who died in Tokyo Drift’s post credits sequence. Since Han was alive in the next three movies, that essentially makes them prequels.
Final Destination 5
The Final destination films are praised for their creativity and success despite a modest budget. The Rube Goldberg mechanisms that lead to the deaths of the movie characters is also worth mentioning. Each Final Destination movie involves a person experiencing a premonition of a tragedy, which allows a group of people to escape their ill-fated deaths.
2011’s Final Destination 5 ended with the main characters boarding the Volee Airlines Flight 180 to Paris. That’s the same plane that exploded mid-air, leading to the events of Final Destination 1. It was all a loop. The audiences were duped!!
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is part of a larger trio of movies. The other two are A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. This movie came before the other two and was bolder and grander in design and production. It was also set quite a few years before For A Few Dollars More movie.
One clue is the setting. It is set right in the middle of the Civil War while the previous films had hints they were set after the war. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly actually shows the legendary Clint Eastwood character gathering and assembling the iconic trinkets that go into his costume in the other two films. While it was set as a prequel, the movie was never marketed as such. this sometimes got fans super confused.
