Prequels, more often than not, exist only as a method to make more money off something that was already successful without it.

Movies such as <i>Oz the Great</i> and <i>Powerful</i>, <i>X-Men Origins: Wolverine</i>, and <i>Annabelle: Creation</i> all rode on the coattails of successful movies and ultimately let them down. Usually, prequels don’t end up getting all the information right, as with <i>Annabelle: Creation</i> when the creators didn’t pull from any of the real-life events associated with the doll.

They can also leave the audience with more questions than they answered. One prime example is the <i>Star Wars</i> prequels, Episodes I through III. The information in the prequels often clashed with the original trilogy and brought up new things that could never be answered, because the future of the story was already set in stone.

Suzanne Collins, the author of <i>The Hunger Games</i> trilogy, recently announced she will release a prequel to the internationally known series in 2020. She is already in talks with Lionsgate about making a movie based on the book, according to BBC News.

<i>The Hunger Games</i> films have earned nearly $3 billion at the worldwide box office, so it makes sense that the company would want to jump on the prequel as soon as possible. But with almost no information about the yet-unnamed novel out, how would they know that this is a worthwhile venture? The short answer: It will make money.

Hopefully, this prequel will live up to the original trilogy, which I really enjoy. But my hopes aren’t high.

The whole point of a prequel, in my mind, is to answer questions and feature new stories that the audience didn’t get to experience with the original works. It’s a tossup with every prequel that comes out whether they will meet that goal, and most of the time, they fall short.