It’s been a long standing of policy (at least in a theory a friend and I have) is that there is a natural progression of movies as they slide down the scale of good quality. Once a movie fails to offer anything fresh and interesting and it’s a long running franchise they always end up taking it to the streets, which they did in Rocky V. There was all this talk about Rocky taking hte fighting to the streets, and the result was very poor — making it the worst Rocky ever made.
They question is once you have taken something to the streets where do you go from there? Well the next progression we have come up with is going “in space”. The Muppets did it (well), the Leprechaun did it, Jason did it in Jason X (Jason did take it to the streets though first in Jason Takes Manhattan).
The next step is vague though, we could follow Jason and go to Hell — but then so few movies actually go to Hell — it’s actually a pity since Hell makes some great visuals. Movie makes don’t want to pay for the special effects required to make an adequate Hell (Though I’m waiting for Saw XXIV — Saw in Hell). The next proper transition while going down this train of gimmicky plot lines is to go “to the hood”. The Leprechaun shows us that not only can you go to the hood, you can also go back to the hood.
Of course you could also take a movie and make a franchise out of it that no relation to the original at all.
Any thoughts on where you go after going back to the hood?