Woody Harrelson names the best sequel in cinema history

On December 26, 2024By Littum

(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)

Mon 16 Dec 2024 16:45 UK

There aren’t many actors who haven’t been able to resist the lure of blockbusters and franchises throughout their careers, which is fair enough when it comes to the closest thing to a guaranteed – and relatively easy – payday like anyone else. can hope to find. Woody Harrelson has been in a few, but he wouldn’t go out of his way to say that his sequels managed to improve on their predecessors.

A recognizable star with an accomplished filmography on stage, screen and television spanning more than 40 years, Harrelson was always going to be dusted off by the IP machine eventually. However, he has taken a typically Zen approach to his effects-heavy efforts, balancing his broad crowd-pleasers and stage-chewing shows of excess with smaller, more intimate and character-driven projects.

He was phenomenal in No Country for Old Men, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Messenger, The People vs Larry Flynt, Natural Born Killersand more, which helps excuse the risque wigs and lush ham he brought to the table in the empty-headed nonsense that Venom: Let there be carnagethe Zombieland duology, Solo: A Star Wars Storyand Now you see me series.

War for the Planet of the Apes however, is the closest Harrelson has ever come to doing serious acting in a big-budget production The Hunger Games it runs a close second. He has never played any character more often than the four times he embodied Haymitch Abernathy in the dystopian literary saga, going against his better judgment and general disinterest in returning to the well.

“It is a strange thing,” he thought Rama’s screen to sign a multi-picture contract. “Because it’s not that I don’t believe in sequels, because sometimes they’re great.” To illustrate his point, Harrelson dug deep into his memory banks to drag his most unexpected candidate to the pinnacle of cinema’s sequel obsession.

“What was that one? Tax! Baby 2 was better than Baby 1but it is rare,” he explained. “It’s so rare that the sequel is even as good as the original; therefore, I am ever so encouraged by the concept.” Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but call Pig in the city the superior talking pig flick? Come now.

The heartwarming original won an Oscar for its visual effects, earned six more nominations, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, and took in a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office. Pig in the city wasn’t bad, but not even Taxs producer, co-writer and Mad Max mastermind George Miller, who promoted himself to the director’s chair, could keep it from feeling like an inferior retread that flopped in theaters.

Harrelson clearly disagrees, but it’s a tough call Pig in the city the better of the two Tax movie, never mind that rarest of Hollywood unicorns: a sequel that surpasses the original in every way.

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