Sequel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A sequel is a work in literature, film, or other media that portrays events following those of a previous work.
In many cases, the sequel continues elements of the original story, often with the same characters and settings. A sequel can lead to a series, in which key elements appear in a number of stories. Although the difference between more than one sequel and a series is somewhat arbitrary, it is clear that some media franchises have enough sequels to become series, whether originally planned as such or not.
Sequels are attractive to creators and to publishers because there is less risk involved in returning to a story with known popularity rather than developing new and untested characters and settings. Audiences are sometimes eager for more stories about popular characters or settings, making the production of sequels financially appealing.
If the main character dies at the end of the first work, a new character (perhaps a son or daughter, or a supporting character) may take up the role in the sequel. In other cases, the main character is simply brought back, or determined not to have died, or simply replaced by a new character.
In movies sequels are quite common. Sometimes sequels have unrelated titles (such as The Jewel of the Nile, the sequel to Romancing the Stone or The Dark Knight, sequel to Batman Begins) but sometimes only a number is added to the original's title (e.g. Lethal Weapon 2, Spider-Man 3). Subtitles are also frequent (e.g. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York').
