We have heard of movie remakes, prequels and sequels, each one represents continuation or an interpretation of a particular storyline that captures the attention of the audience and gives them an opportunity to identify and relate to the movie.

The entertainment industry, be it Hollywood or Bollywood has been around for a long time, movies are a reflection of the time when they were made, the attitude, behaviour, the dialogues, the dressing sense etc. are a sign of the times when a movie was made.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many remakes and sequels of movies, although remakes and sequels are two different concepts, they have some things in common.

Box office returns are important in the making of a sequel, they assume that a movie was financially successful, they go ahead and make a sequel, regardless of the opinion of the audience.

There are exceptions, but in most cases sequels maybe successful for the movie makers, they do not meet the audience expectations because the sequel does not add anything new to the story, the dialogues are not memorable and it relies too much on special effects.

Movie sequels are made so that audience learn more about the characters in the movie, unfortunately most sequels do nothing to help the audience understand the motives of the characters in the movie and they fail at the box office.

The problem with making a sequel depending upon the movie genre, is the focus on one central character, it is about the battle between good and evil, there is no effort made to tell the audience why people behave the way they do.

Movie makers underestimate the intelligence of the viewers, they think that that by adding violence and computer generated images, the audience will be excited and they will make a profit.

The reality is that the audience is looking for value for money entertainment, if a movie has the right balance of plot and action, the movie has a better chance of being a hit.

When sequels are made, it is all about the genre and the type of audience, we cannot expect a children's movie to be liked by adults and an adults movie to be watched by children.

Let us take an example of a successful sequel, everyone has heard of Terminator 2, it is one of the best sequels of all time because it is a science fiction story that we can relate to, the movie is 30 years old and yet we watch it today.

Another sequel was Jaws 2, this is one of the worst sequels ever made because the original was a horror story about a killer shark whereas the sequel was made without a proper story and it felt like a waste of time and money for the viewer.

In recent times, there have been movies sequels in Bollywood, they are not as common as the number of sequels that are made by Hollywood, in some cases there are too many sequels which shows that the movie makers do not understand the audience viewing habits.