For years and years, Hollywood didn’t do much in the way of sequels. Certain successful movies had them, like Going My Way which had The Bells of St. Mary’s, but most successful movies, from Gone with the Wind to Casablanca, never had their producers opting for a continuation of the story. Instead, Hollywood did series, lots of them. From the low budget variety of Flash Gordon and Roy Rogers to mid-budget serials like Torchy Blane or Boston Blackie, to the high end stuff like The Thin Man series, Hollywood preferred to take successful characters, like Nick and Nora Charles, and string them through a series of adventures. Other successful series included James Bond, a series that continues to this day, and Sherlock Holmes, also continuing but not as a part of an original series, simply as a still successful character in many different incarnations. In the seventies and eighties, Hollywood figured out that slapping a “2″, “II”, or “Part II” after a successful movie’s title and retreading the same basic story could bring in millions. Other movies built story arcs around trilogies, like Star Wars or, later, Lord of the Rings. But the expanded universe, the notion of taking multiple characters from the same basic story, and giving them each their own life and background, outside the main movie, is something that has only recently (by recently, I mean last several decades and including novels of popular film works) has really taken off. When Marvel releases something like The Avengers, the audience has already seen the back story of the main characters because each one of them got their own movies before that and will get others after it. It’s a way of doing multiple sequels, in a way, without risk of tying everything to the main story. If Hollywood had come up with this idea sooner, there’s more than a few expanded universes I would have liked to have seen.
Starting off the list is Casablanca, a movie whose expanded universe seems an absolute natural. To be fair, Hollywood has toyed with the idea of this almost as soon as the original movie was done, doing radio shows of Rick and his dealings in Casablanca after the events of the movie and, a few years later, even putting together a television show with the same general idea. But I’m talking about an expanded universe, not a continuation of the same story. I’m talking about Captain Louis “Louie” Renault getting his own damn movie and origin story. I want to know where that guy came from, what circumstances led him to his position and, after the “beautiful friendship” had been cemented, what exactly did he do for the next three years of the war? Then there’s Signor Ferrari, the great character played by Sydney Greenstreet. How exactly did he end up in Casablanca and what great side stories would his part of the expanded universe provide? Sam is a character seemingly joined at the hip to Rick but how did he end up that way? Why had he decided to work as an entertainer in a bar in Casablanca instead of Paris, New York, or London? How complicated is his relationship with Rick? Has he ever been married, in love, with anyone at all? Finally, there’s Ilsa and Victor whose post-movie stories could be quite interesting to say the least but I’d also be okay with back stories for just about anyone in that cafe, quite frankly, including the young woman who shouts, “Viva la France” at the end of the triumphant rendition of La Marseillaise.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the 1954 movie based on the Jules Verne classic, has actually done a bit of an expanded universe but in a haphazard sort of a way. That is to say, the character of Captain Nemo has appeared in more than a few movies, before and after, my favorite of which, outside of the original classic, is his appearance in Mysterious Island, played by Herbert Lom, in 1961. But the main characters, from Ned Land, Professor Pierre Aronnax and his assistant Conseil, to the characters from Mysterious Island, including Captain Cyrus Harding, could have their own before and after stories, too. Okay, maybe the Professor himself isn’t very interesting, but he could be a side character in other Nemo driven stories, since Nemo never really dies as far as Hollywood is concerned.
Now how about throwing a western into the mix? The Wild Bunch is a personal favorite. I’ve written about it here at TCM extensively (if you don’t believe, go here and you’ll find several articles, trivia, and quote compilations by me alone on the movie, so, yeah, me and The Wild Bunch kind of go back a ways). Now, of course, I know that Sam Peckinpah had no interest in franchising anything and I’m suggesting he would or should have. I’m just dreaming here and the short flashback bursts we get in the main movie are more than enough to whet my appetite for more. I would have loved a whole series of Pike Bishop movies alone, plus other stand alone movies with Dutch Engstrom, Deke Thornton, and even Lyle Gorch, but maybe a lot of this also has to do with the fact that William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, and Warren Oates are four of my personal favorites ever. But who cares if that’s the reason. Bottom line: If I could go back in time and create an entire expanded universe of movies starring those actors centered around those characters, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
And there are so many others. The Searchers? Hell yeah! Now, I don’t actually ever want a backstory for Ethan (his mystery is a big part of what makes the movie work) but I’d love to see a series of movies afterwards featuring new stories with him and Rev. Captain Samuel Johnston Clayton, played by Ward Bond. Also, a stand alone backstory for him would be just fine by me. Or how about a complete universe of the characters in All About Eve? A couple of movies about Addison DeWitt outside of the main story line here would have been a hoot and that last minute character, Phoebe (Barbara Bates), actually was briefly considered as a character that would take the movie series forward. We could even find out a little more about Thelma Ritter’s Birdie and Marilyn Monroe’s Miss Casswell. Marilyn could have turned her into the next Phoebe, I bet.
It’s fun to think about expanded universes that don’t only apply to modern day special effects franchises. People have been doing it for years, from imagining a whole backstory for the Wicked Witch of the West to wondering just what else was going on with those two childhood friend of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. And Hollywood has created so many great movies that gives us only a tantalizing glimpse of characters so exciting and interesting, most of us would gladly welcome a little more story devoted to them. If that means creating entirely new movies just about their characters, so be it. Expand the universe, I say, and let the backstories run free.