Over the last several years, major motion picture networks such as Disney have remade classic films as a means to profit from their known popularity. Netflix, it appears, is beginning to hop onto the bandwagon.

Set to release on Jan. 1, 2021, “We Can Be Heroes” is the long awaited sequel to, in my opinion, one of the most well-known movies to Generation Z, “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl”. Despite its release in a month, not much is known about the film. The official synopsis provided by Netflix simply describes the film as the children of superheroes around the world coming together to stop an alien invasion after their parents were kidnapped. 

One of the biggest concerns surrounding “We Can Be Heroes” is whether or not it will live up to the expectations required by the success of its prequel. “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl” is arguably one of the most prized movies of Generation Z. However, that is the only generation it was popular with after its initial release in 2005. 

With the wacky characters and CGI settings similar to “Spy Kids”, another film franchise directed by Robert Rodriguez, it was clearly made to attract a young audience. However, with much of Generation Z now grown up 15 years later, it begs the question, who will be interested in this movie? 

One strategy that producers have possibly used is not naming the movie the obvious choice of “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 2”. Considering the extremely large time gap between the prequel and sequel, it makes sense that producers may have wanted to have this film originally appear as a stand alone film, only having true fans of the original movie realize that it is a sequel. 

Moving back to the original question of whether or not this movie will live up to its former, there is some true concern with this question. Sequels are often known for not being as good as their prequels. For example, there was some controversy surrounding the release of “Frozen 2”, which many critics claimed did not live up to the former glory of “Frozen”. With any announcement of a sequel, many people question whether or not it will “ruin”, per se, the original movie itself. 

To fully answer this question, however, we can only wait and see.