So let’s sum up the whole Ocean’s movie experience while keeping in mind that it was a remake to begin with, and a pretty good remake despite what fans of the Sinatra-led original would probably state. George Clooney and Brad Pitt were the perfect front men to create a specialized group of thieves that would go on to rob, not one, not two, but three casinos in one night. The fact that all three casinos lumped their money into one big vault was fortuitous until one had the chance to see the layout of the vault and all the safety precautions that were in place to guard it. Still, after Danny and Rusty spearheaded the heist with help from their buddy and mentor Reuben and gathered their crew, it turned into an elaborate stage show that resulted in the antagonist, Terry Benedict, losing big and vowing to get revenge on the group. The second movie was all about stealing something valuable enough to pay back Benedict after he’d been tipped off as to where each of the group had holed up.
Of course, the Night Fox, who tipped Benedict off, was fully intent on letting Ocean’s group be killed when they didn’t retrieve the money or an item worth enough to pay Benedict off. The second movie wasn’t horrible but it did feel like it deviated from the first since it became more of a circus with a great deal of sleight of hand that was finally revealed near the end. The third movie went back to Las Vegas and up against Al Pacino’s character, Willy Bank. Bank was the target since he’d tricked Reuben of his intended partnership and left him with next to nothing, which resulted in Reuben suffering a heart attack. Of course the guys took that personally and decided to teach Bank a lesson he’d never forget, as during a soft opening Bank lost half a billion dollars to his gamblers thanks to a few carefully rigged games courtesy of Ocean and his associates.
Now, getting to the point of why another Ocean’s sequel would be a horrible idea, it’s largely because Bernie Mac and Carl Reiner are no longer around, as both men passed away after the movies, and both have very prominent roles in the group. To be fair, every person in the group carries a great deal of importance, but without two of the more noticeable actors, it’s kind of hard to justify going forward. Don Cheadle apparently thinks it would work, but while fans might think the same, there are still a lot of people that don’t think it would since the whole crew is vital to these movies. Even Ocean’s 8 with its all-female cast was supposed to be something special, and despite its financial success it turned out to be a snooze-fest. Some people liked it, obviously not everyone did, but the fact is that no matter how much the movie tried to be like Ocean’s 11, and it did, it fell flat in a lot of different ways. It does feel as though another movie might limp along and work off of the actors that are still there, but if any attempt were to be made to replace Frank or Saul, Mac and Reiner’s respective characters, one can easily imagine that a lot of fans would have a serious issue with this.
As of now, it doesn’t sound as though there’s anything being developed. This is an idea at the current moment and not a fully conceptualized plan to make another Ocean’s movie, but if anything does happen one can guess that it will be big news since people will want to know about this. Making another movie when it feels as though the current end to the story feels like it was nicely wrapped up and put away feels like a bad idea since too many movies have been given this treatment over the years and to be quite honest it’s ruined the experience in a lot of ways since taking a story that’s already been concluded and given a great way to exit stage left is kind of like eating that last bite of chocolate cake when your stomach is already gurgling a warning that it can’t take anymore.
Ocean’s 11 probably should have stopped after the first movie, but whenever it feels that there’s more money to be made, of course one studio or another will trudge forward and make certain that they’ll keep pumping out sequels until people aren’t paying attention any longer. Even then it’s likely that a studio might figure that one more movie just to make sure there’s no interest is a safe enough venture. Sequels don’t always suck, to be honest, but there are times when one has to finally say ‘enough’ and have done with it.
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