MovieChat Forums > Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011) Discussion > How to make a sequel and yet have only 1...

How to make a sequel and yet have only 1 character coming back

posted 13 years ago by destroyerwod

At first i was kinda worried... Only Max coming back? No Jake, no Ryan? I could had seen Ryan being from the good guy now.. i dunno. But then i saw that was a Michael Jay White movie, and since i LOVED Blood and Bone, i tought this could not be bad...

And it worked out, a LOT. I mean, you got White in the tole of the teacher, the guy is still in a tremendous condition, he play the roles perfectly, and all the guys in the students role play really good too. The role of Max is not "just to capitalize on the previous movie" as the characters of Jake clearly said he didnt care about the tournament, and the character of Ryan got beated, maybe he tought about something different now.

As for Justin... he plays the bad guy perfectly, a kid that has been kinda of a martyr, now taking care of himself, having the power taking everything from it, i could even see some kind of redemption in him.... eventually. After all, in the movie he didn't kill the black guy, he just beat him pretty bad, so he could get out in a couple years.

Anyway, this movie worked so well, as much as the first one back then, i loved the character, i loved the story, i think this is how you do a sequel not involving the main character. I mean we see Jake and Ryan going at it in the internet video, its not like they don't ignore the first movie story.

And they end really give a lot of opportunity for a Michael Jay White movie as the main character... in a way, if they decide to do it. I hope they do... You can have a good franchise even if the main character change in every movie.

I mean, in Undisputed, the main character for the sequel and the sequel after is the bad guy of the previous movie, and it worked like a charm. Actually in the Undisputed franchise, the least best movie is probably the first one, even if its very good, the sequel and the third one are the best, my personal favorite being the third one with Scott Adkins as Boyka...

So well, Never Back Down could be a very good franchise.