Second Takes

The first collection of essays devoted to the phenomenon of the film sequel.

Sequels, serials, and remakes have been a staple of cinema since the very beginning, and recent years have seen the emergence of dynamic and progressive variations of these multi-film franchises. Taking a broad range of sequels as case studies, from the Godfather movies to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Second Takes confronts the complications posed by film sequels and their aftermaths, proposing new critical approaches to what has become a dominant industrial mode of Hollywood cinema. The contributors explore the sequel's investments in repetition, difference, continuation, and retroactivity, and particularly those attitudes and approaches toward the sequel that hold it up as a kind of figurehead of Hollywood's commercial imperatives. An invaluable resource to the film student, critic, and fan, Second Takes offers new ways of looking at the film sequel's industrial, aesthetic, cultural, political, and theoretical contexts.

Carolyn Jess-Cooke is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. She is the author of Shakespeare on Film: Such Things as Dreams Are Made Of and Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood, and the coeditor (with Melissa Croteau) of Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Destruction and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations. Constantine Verevis is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, and the author of Film Remakes.