The "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" Rule about sequels

At the end of “Basic Instinct,” did you ask yourself, “Gee, I wonder what happens next?” I know I didn’t. My thought was, “Gee, I hope my friend’s mom doesn’t catch us watching this.”

“Basic Instinct 2” died at the box office last weekend, grossing just $3.2 million. That’s about one-fourth of Sharon Stone’s salary for reprising her star-making turn as sexy seductress Catherine Tramell. Talk about money well spent.

Why did “Basic Instinct 2” fail? Reviews so toxic they need to be buried for 100 million years surely contributed to the debacle. But the biggest problem with “Basic Instinct 2” is timeliness.

If it had come out in 1996, four years after the original, “Basic Instinct 2” could have been the love child of “Battlefield Earth” and “Gigli” and still done good business. The movie was still fresh in everybody’s minds, Sharon Stone was still a sex symbol, and viewers didn’t have another 10 years of perspective on a silly erotic thriller that now plays like an unintentional comedy.

Sequels must come out within five years of the original (or most recent sequel) to get the public excited. This is known as the “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” Rule, named after the Swayze-less sequel to “Dirty Dancing” that came out 17 years after the original and grossed the equivalent of bus fare for a dozen people.

Even if you bring back the original stars, the magic dissipates after five years. Handsome men grow haggard, beautiful women get beefy, and the rancid stench of “Why the heck are they doing this?” grows stronger.

The textbook example is “The Godfather Part III.” Nobody will argue with “The Godfather Part II,” which came out just two years after the first “Godfather” and is more continuation than sequel. “The Godfather Part III,” however, came out 16 years after “The Godfather Part II” and ended up being the Fredo of the trilogy. Personally, I think “The Godfather Part III” is a pretty good movie, especially if you don’t compare it to the first two films. (Any movie blows compared to the first two “Godfathers.”) But the big gap between sequels ruined “The Godfather Part III” before they even started filming.

The same can be said of “Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace,” released 16 years after the previous “Star Wars” movie, “The Return of the Jedi.” There’s no question “The Phantom Menace” is a step down from the first three films, which came out in well-spaced three-year intervals. (I write this knowing “Star Wars” fan boys already are scrambling to their computers to write long e-mails telling me otherwise.)

So, Hollywood, beware of the untimely sequel. Or else more films will suffer the unfortunate fate of “Basic Instinct 2,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “Caddyshack II,” “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd” and, my personal favorite, “The Next Karate Kid.”