Today’s Exactly100: Why the Sequel is Almost Always Weaker

Success writes its own demise. The sequel loses aberrancy. The cat is out of the bag, be it a movie or a sustaining ad. After the shock of the aberrant— as all originals are— people tend to want to join in, to add themselves into the next iteration. There will be attempts to modify, augment, improve on what worked, and in doing so, the act itself— the many fingers in the pie— encumbers the basic idea, handicaps its engine, and dissipates or squanders whatever strength it had.

You must always stay the hand, managing the compulsion to tamper with success. /Vincent R. Pozon