It's the 22nd day of the 2nd month in 2022, and it's a TUESDAY (pronounced 'two-sday'), so that's pretty neat. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I'm ranking the two greatest film franchises that consist of only two films - these days that is pretty rare, as so many franchises get treated to a multitude of sequels. Even classic two-act series like Men In Black and Bill & Ted got their third instalments, decades after the original two. And to make matters worse, most cases where a film has only one sequel are cases where the part II is just terrible, as I'm sure anyone who saw Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) will tell you. Still, I found a few good ones. Also, since I wanted to make two lists to celebrate 'twosday', I'll also be sharing my Top 2 favorite TV shows that only ran for two seasons.
Here are my honorable mentions:
2-movie franchises: Blade Runner, Hot Shots, Kill Bill, National Treasure, Wayne's World.
2-season shows: The Punisher, Star Trek: The Animated Series.
#2 in Movie Franchises: It
Between Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games and The Hobbit, the modern trend of splitting a book into two or more parts has become quite the polarizing phenomenon. Some fans of the books argue that splitting the source material into multiple movies is a much better option than leaving many of the books' best parts out, while others argue that making several movies out of one book is just about milking the source material to make more money. In my opinion, it can go either way depending on the case, and one of the best reasonings to split a book into two films was Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King's 1200-page masterpiece It.
Whereas the book jumps back and forth between the two timelines, one where the main characters are children and one where they have grown up and return to face the music 27 years later, the cinematic adaptation did the smart move on focusing on the child narrative in the first film and the '27 years later' setting in the second one. This made for two very different films that still feel cohesive enough to work as a whole.
#2 in TV Shows: The End of the F**king World
For many shows, a run of exactly two seasons doesn't work - if there's enough material for more than one season, there's likely enough for three or more. But Netflix's British dark-comedy-drama The End of the F**king World was an instance where two seasons was the perfect length for the story at hand.
The season 1 finale was big and dramatic enough to work as a series finale, but it did end ambiguously enough that a second season felt like an apt addition. The ending of the second season had even more closure for the main character archs, proving that a third season was definitely not needed. It's nice when a series knows to quit while they're ahead.
#1 in Movie Franchises: Jump Street
I know, I know. Hardly any film enthusiast would choose the Jump Street series as their favorite two-film series. After all, they're high school / college comedy films loosely based on the 1987-1991 TV series. But - and bear with me here - they're absolutely amazing high school / comedy films loosely based on the 1987-1991 TV series.
Seriously, 2012's 21 Jump Street and 2014's 22 Jump Street are pretty much perfect within their own genre. When you're looking for a fun comedy film to watch on an airplane or a Sunday night, not to mention comfort films to watch while sick in bed, you can't do any better than these two gems. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have impeccable chemistry together in their amusing roles, and the hysterical supporting performances by Ice Cube, Jake Johnson and other masters of the trade are the icing on the cake. Great jokes, wholesome moments and infinite re-watch value ensue.
#1 in TV Shows: Rome
Apparently, the original plan for HBO's woefully underrated historical drama Rome was to do more seasons, but after being preliminarily warned that they might get cancelled due to low viewership, the writers amped up the pace to stuff everything they had planned into the second season. They did a surprisingly good job with this, as I only found out about this fact afterwards and it startled me, as the second season was so good that it didn't feel rushed or forced in any way. It's too bad that we never got to see the full vision of Rome's writers come to fruition, but what we got is still an excellent piece of television.
In the course of two seasons, we follow the power struggles of the Caesar era in an intriguing manner. The series is mostly very historically accurate, and the few liberties they have taken from real events are very well-reasoned in the opinion of this history buff.
Thank you for reading! I'm posting this week's 'main' post two days from now - see you then!
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