As of right now, 2011 will see the likes of 27 sequels. And who knows how many subsequent announcements there are to come.
If you think that sounds like a lot of sequels, you’d be correct. In the past decade, the year with the second place record for most sequels was 2003, but that year still saw four fewer follow-ups than we’ll see this year. And as Moviefone points out, 27 is almost a fifth of all wide-released movies in a given year.
(More on TIME.com: See the times when sequels are better than the originals)
What’s worse is that of those 27 sequels, we’ll be seeing five part fours (Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Scream 4, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part One)), five part fives (Fast Five, Final Destination 5, Puss in Boots, X-Men: First Class, and Winnie the Pooh), two part sevens (The Muppets, Rise of the Apes) and one part eight (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2).
(More on TIME.com: See the worst superhero sequels)
Bad enough that we have to suffer Hollywood’s apparent unoriginality, but four, five, seven and eight versions of it? That’s almost insulting. (via Moviefone)