Not long ago, I discussed the idea of “movie kangaroos” in relation to Marvel. There’s a movie out right now whose poster suggests another kind of movie kangaroo…Scream VI.
The “VI” is hidden inside the end of the “M” in SCREAM, making its “concrete letters” look bloodstained on one end. (The concrete’s also a visual hint to the movie’s New York setting.)
You’d think this kind of “sequel number in the title” marketing would be more popular in American films, especially since you sometimes catch Arabic numerals inserted into the body of movie titles, officially or unofficially: 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fan4stic, Se7en. Roman-numeral movies aren’t as big as they were in the 1980s and early 2000s, but you still see a Creed III now and then.
Are there any films with their sequel numbers hiding joey-style in the rest of their titles? Yes, there are a few, although none of them are exactly famous: Kamilla and the Thief II, Magic Silver II, The Terror Within II, and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II. Titanic II looks like a sequel, but is actually an original (and terrible) film about a 21st-century boat. Return of the Living Dead Part II, and a few others like it, are disqualified because of the “Part” in the title.
Of the film franchise titles that consistently use Roman numerals for sequels, none containing three “i’s” got to III. Mission: Impossible did so inconsistently, using a “III” after using the Arabic “2.” And that’s about it. No franchise containing a “v” ever got to IV, let alone V. No film franchise containing an “x” got to IX or X.
Clearly, this situation calls for correction. Jennifer Lopez is doing her part by marrying Ben Affleck and signaling that she’s interested in Gigli II. Would that be a good movie? Doubtful. Would it be a well-known movie? Definitely.
But what’s the best-known movie that contains a “II” in its non-sequel title? Using IMDb ratings as our metric, we get an unsurprising answer: Titanic. Therefore, a true Titanic II sequel would be the best-known film that could hide its number inside its title. Using the same system—which does tend to skew toward recent movies—here are the next ten potential sequels with this property:
Titanic II
The Banshees of Inisherin III
Knives Out IV
Avatar V
Elvis VI
Silver Linings Playbook VII
Driving Miss Daisy VIII
The Matrix IX
X X
Taxi Driver XI, XII
Well, I’ve done my part. Get on it, Hollywood.
Oh, now I see...I thought it was "3," since the first sequel was "2." Interesting inconsistency!
What about "Mission: Impossible III"?