Has sequel become a dirty word in Hollywood? Sure seems that way, as producers, directors and studios bend over backwards to frame follow-up films in more, well, “creative” ways. After all, a sequel sounds boring — like something we’ve already seen, just with a racially diverse child sidekick added and a “5” tacked onto the title. Here’s what the new crop of terms secretly mean. Remake It’s everything you loved about the original, only with actors we poached from the CW and many more CG monsters. Reboot We’d really like to piggyback on the success of the first film, but it’s unfortunately been too long since it came out to sell you a straight sequel (especially for millennials, who, like, weren’t even born when the first “Robocop” film came out, you guys). But we’re out of ideas for anything original, so . . . Spiritual Successor J.J. Abrams rolled out this hilariously pretentious term to describe “10 Cloverfield Lane,” and the definition appears to be: Has no direct connection to the original movie, but we hope it at least comes up in the same Google searches. Reimagining The people behind “Terminator Genisys” struggled to find a marketing department-approved term to describe the warmed-over rehash of catchphrases and time-travel gobbledygook that was the 2015 dud. “Reimagining” is what emerged, as in imagine what would have happened if they’d just killed the franchise after the last two terrible films. Spinoff We asked the iconic star that you loved from the franchise back, but he was way too expensive. Also, he’s in rehab. So, instead, enjoy this new adventure featuring the third lead.
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