The first collection of essays devoted to the phenomenon of the film sequel.

She thought her life was over, but it hadn't even started . . . When Margot Delacroix dies at forty-two years old, she is sent back to earth as a guardian angel - to herself. Renamed Ruth, she is forced by divine mandate to re-experience and record her biggest mistakes and fiercest regrets from the beginning of her life to her untimely death. Forced from the moment of her birth to witness the cogs of fate and the stuttering engine of free will, Ruth sets out to change the course of her life, and, ultimately, to prevent her premature death. When she realises that the reasons behind her teenage son's descent into drugs and murder lay within her own actions as Margot, she makes a pact with a demon - she will give up her place in Heaven in exchange for the opportunity to save her son from his fate. But the changes she makes result in consequences no one could expect...

This collection of essays examines the ways in which recent Shakespeare films portray anxieties of an impending global wasteland, technological alienation, spiritual destruction, and the effects of globalization. Films covered include ""Titus"", William Shakespeare's ""Romeo & Juliet"", Almereyda's ""Hamlet"", ""Revengers Tragedy"", ""Twelfth Night"", ""The Passion of the Christ"", Radford's ""The Merchant of Venice"", ""The Lion King"", and Godard's ""King Lear"", among others that directly adapt or reference Shakespeare. Essays chart the apocalyptic mise-en-scenes, disorienting imagery, and topsy-turvy plots of these films, using apocalypse as a theoretical and thematic lens.

The film sequel has been much maligned in popular culture as a vampirish corporative exercise in profit-making and narrative regurgitation. Drawing upon a wide range of filmic examples from early cinema to the twenty-first century, this exciting new volume reveals the increasing popularity of, and experimentation with, film sequels as a central dynamic of Hollywood cinema. Now creeping into world cinemas and independent film festivals, the sequel is persistently employed as a vehicle for cross-cultural dialogue and as a structure by which memories and cultural narratives can be circulated across geographical and historical locations. This book aims to account for some of the major critical contexts within which sequelisation operates by exploring sequel production beyond box office figures. Its account ranges from sequels in recent mainstream cinema, art-house and 'indie' sequels, non-Hollywood sequels, the effects of the domestic market on sequelisation, and the impact of the video game industry on Hollywood. The book: *Situates the sequel within its industrial, cultural, theoretical and global contexts.* Offers an essential resource for students and critics interested in film and literary studies, adaptation, critical theory and cultural studies. *Provides the first study of film sequels in world cinemas and independent film-making.