Movie Duologies-A Rare Breed

Movie trilogies are a dime a dozen, but movie duologies are a much rarer breed. They’re so rare that it’s pretty easy for me to list the ones that I’m aware of without having to look them up.

Kill Bill Vol. 1/Kill Bill Vol. 2
Young Guns/Young Guns II
Escape From New York/Escape From L.A.
Gremlins/Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure/Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (A duology for the time being.)
48 Hours/Another 48 Hours
Home Alone/Home Alone 2 (Technically, not a duology, as there were two additional films produced with different actors that went straight to video.)
Speed/Speed 2: Cruise Control

Though not a duology, Halloween and Halloween II would have made for a very good duology if the series had stopped there.

Rarer still are duologies that are planned to be duologies in advance. Of the films listed, only Kill Bill seems to be a duology that was planned to be a duology in advance.

There are many others. Feel free to add any that come to mind.

 

National Treasure 1&2. Not great cinema but I’m surprised Nic Cage didn’t make it a trilogy.

 

Godfather I/Godfather II

 

Those truly were a duology for 16 years till Coppola had financial troubles. Of course, many trilogies are essentially "duologies" plus one trip to the well too many.

 

The Hustler / The Color of Money

 

Cat People / Curse of the Cat People

 

It wasn't. It was planned and produced to be one film. Harvey Weinstein himself supposedly suggested Tarentino split it in half because an early cut ran over three hours. Tarantino agreed after realizing he wouldn't have to lose footage to have it released that way.

 

True Grit/Rooster Cogburn

 

Ah, you learn something new everyday. Thank you for that.

 

Lord of the Rings (1978) was supposed to have a sequel to cover the rest of the book trilogy. This never came to pass and I was disappointed.

When the 2001-2003 trilogy assisted by CGI was released it kind of made the sequel to the 1978 animated movie somewhat moot.

 

House and House II.

 

Weirdly, the Rankin-Bass Hobbit/Return of the King is sort of a duology, though they were made for TV. Of course Return doesn't make much sense without Bakshi's LOTR's being viewed in the middle.

 

Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000

 

Superman, Superman II

Any charitable film fan has no recollection of any more Superman films released after the first two...ever.

 

Dune

Face it - is there anybody ever came out of David Lynch's version, who didn't think they'd just sat through two whole movies...?

 

@JozefK, I was aware of the apparent inconsistency, but my use of “rare” and “rarer” are relative to the number of trilogies that exist. A large number of something can exist but can be small next to a much larger number. There are eight million people in New York City. That’s a lot of people but a relatively small number compared to the seven billion people on the planet.

 

Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Too bad they never made any more of those movies.

 

Blade Runner currently is, though it may not stay that way.

 

Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sanjuro

 

2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

 

“The Vampire” and “The Vampire’s Coffin” (a 1950s Mexican horror film duology).

 

I have to ask. How old were you when you saw Jedi? And did you feel differently about it then? I’m of the opinion that how a film makes you feel when you first see it has to count for something, regardless of whether or not your feelings have changed over the years. I saw it in the theater in 1983, and it blew my ten-year-old self away. I guess my example isn’t the best, as I’m still a fan of the film. However, it’s my least favorite of the original trilogy, whereas I’m pretty sure it was my favorite back in ‘83.

 

I was 13 when it came out and I liked it well enough at the time. You may have been like this too, but I remember just being caught up in the idea of it. We stood in line for hours to get our tickets, I pored over magazines looking for any little bit of information about the story, and since this was the year after so many great science fiction films -- 1982 -- it felt like this was going to be some kind of pinnacle. But over the years I became less and less enamored of Jedi and began seeing its weaknesses. It has a lot of good individual elements but for me it doesn't work as a whole like the first two.