To: Newly Promoted President of Production at Major Hollywood Studio From: The Mainstream Moviegoing Audience of America Congratulations on your new job! After years of suffering through labyrinthine lunch orders, death-defying dry cleaning runs and post-orgy organization duty, you’ve climbed to the top of the Hollywood mountain and can greenlight any movie you want! Sorry about your first day on the job, though. Having the Chairman of your parent company enter your newly feng shuied office, plop an energy drink on your desk and ask, “How can we make this into a five-picture franchise?” is probably not what you had in mind when dreaming of cinematic glory. But don’t panic. You can still produce your King’s Speeches, Social Networks and Black Swans, first you just need to feed the multi-national corporate beast by stuffing it full of sequels! The good news is that with a record 27 sequels scheduled to open this year (including a unprecedented collection of “Part IV’s”) the beast is hungrier than ever! The goal of a sequel is primordial in its simplicity: make enough money to make another sequel. Unfortunately, come December 31 many of these 27 titles will most likely have failed to deliver, forcing studios to impatiently wait decades instead of mere years to “reboot” the franchise. Those decision makers who shepherded the ill-begotten cinematic spawn will be forced to live in Hollywood exile, roaming a desolate world of canceled Centurion cards, dollar menu deals and martini’s made with McCormick’s gin instead of Bombay Sapphire.  To help avoid this dark fate, we, the mainstream moviegoing audience of America, have decided to present you with a reference guide to potentially lethal sequel symptoms. We have also compiled a list of the twelve most deadly sequels of all time. The...