Hollywood is littered with the skeletons of dead franchises. Some had a one box office failure and execs slammed on the brakes of future movies, others were stymied by their creative teams losing interest, and some just don’t seem particularly relevant anymore.
But, with the entertainment obviously hungry for reviving old IP (see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Beetlejuice 2, even Mean Girls), let’s pitch seven sequels that could (and should) enter development immediately.
Back to the Present
It’s 2023 and Marty McFly’s son twenty-something son George is watching the news in his tiny apartment. It’s the usual bad news: the ice caps are melting, the economy is in ruins, the environment is falling apart and somehow Donald Trump has a very real chance of being President once again. His phone buzzes to remind him to pay his student loan debt, and an unpaid medical bill lies open on the table.
Searching through his Dad’s old stuff he discovers a key to a storage locker containing the very dusty DeLorean. One test drive later and he’s traveled back in time 30 years to the much more optimistic 1990s. He tracks down that era’s Doc Brown, only to discover that he’s grown up in a “wrong” nightmare future that was never supposed to happen — our world! Should he fix things and erase his own timeline?
Uber Driver
It’s 2013 in New York City and the fire inside the 63-year-old Travis Bickle has long since subsided. His brief vigilante fame is over and he’s still a solitary cab driver eking out an anonymous existence in a rent-controlled Brooklyn apartment.
Then Uber arrives in town. Bickle has to sign up, work harder, and follow the app’s routes. One night he stops to rescue a young woman who’s been spiked, who vomits in his car. Soon after he’s forced to pick up another ride. Due to the smell, that passenger gives him a one-star rating, booting him from the app. With his only source of income and pleasure gone the old Bickle returns, and soon he’s lingering outside Uber headquarters and staring menacingly into the mirror.
Up: Down
In an achingly painful opening montage Carl Frederickson finally dies of old age in his home surrounded by pictures of his beloved Ellie. He travels towards the light but arrives in the world of Soul, where he immediately becomes grumpy and curmudgeonly, causing administrative chaos. As a result, the wrong form is filed and Carl is sent to hell to be tormented for eternity.
Back on Earth Russell is still earning merit badges, choosing “Exorcism” as his final one. While studying he realizes Carl has mistakenly been sent to hell, and resolves to travel through the underworld to get him to heaven where he belongs. Dug is along for the ride, eventually falling in love with a surprisingly upbeat hellhound voiced by Melissa McCarthy and has a litter of adorable flaming puppies.
Good Will National Treasure Hunting
After a long and glittering career, Matt Damon’s Will Hunting has returned to his home city and is now director of the Boston Museum of Science. He aims to encourage interest in higher education among disadvantaged students, though the snobbiness of Harvard dons means he can’t get the funding. One night, while working late, he hears a mysterious sound from the exhibit room, discovering that Nicolas Cage’s Ben Gates has broken in.
Gates explains to a skeptical Hunting that if the treasure map he has is correct, the museum is sat atop millions of dollars of buried Revolutionary War gold, more than enough to fund his educational program. Unfortunately for both men, the soldiers who left the gold there placed a supernatural ward on it that has… unforeseen consequences for the museum exhibits.
Home Rule
In late 1800s Dublin we follow Patrick Connor (Barry Keoghan), a young man with a criminal record due to his passionate campaigning for Irish independence and home rule from the British. Patrick has a growing reputation as a troublemaker and is keenly sought after by the Royal Irish Constabulary working for the British. But, while he can evade them easily enough, there’s one mysterious man after him who seems impervious to all attacks.
Eventually, Patrick is cornered and takes a wild swing at the stranger with an axe. He doesn’t go down, but the wound reveals… a glowing red eye and an all-too-familiar metal endoskeleton! (dundun dun dundun). Patrick Connor is the great-grandfather of John Connor! From here it’s all-out war: Fenians versus the English versus the Terminator as Patrick tries to escape the city while trying to comprehend a distant future he barely understands: “I know one thing though, oppression is oppression whether it’s by the Crown or by this Skynet bastard!”
Austin Powers: No Time to Shag
Austin Powers’ time-travelling days or over… or so he believes. Now firmly retired, he spends his days in a quiet English village that feels stuck in its own time warp, playing in the local cricket team, with his only ‘mission’ figuring out who’s putting their trash in his recycling bin.
Then one day he gets a summons from an unlikely source. Dr. Evil is now redeemed and is now E, the head of the British Secret Service, and the world once again needs Austin’s help. Now Austin must travel back to 1995 and the events of the first movie to team up with his younger (digitally de-aged) self to set things right. But will the younger Austin ever “be-have!” – and can the older Austin shake off the cobwebs and get his groove back?
E.T. Invasion… Earth!
For Earth, it’s been four decades since E.T. phoned home. For him, just weeks. On returning to his home world E.T. is interrogated about his treatment on this mysterious planet, with his warlike people concluding from his story of being experimented on and persecuted that this dangerous planet must be invaded and subdued.
E.T. flees back to Earth to warn his friends, discovering they’re all now decades older due to time dilation. His only useful ally is Drew Barrymore’s Gertrude, who was inspired by her childhood experience to become a military analyst on alien affairs. Together they prepare the world for an all-out interstellar war, with E.T. split between his allegiance to his own people and his friends on Earth. Can he find a way to make peace between the two planets?
Producers with fat wallets — you know where to find me.