Looking at sequels in movies; Branding with numerals?

While I have still been looking at the ins and outs of branding, I thought about a twist of branding that seems much different and less blatant than a “rebranding” logo such as Gap. In the entertainment business, such as movies, music, and video games, entertainment companies can “brand” their product however they want. Some might make their ideas totally separate, or they might link different release together, or even do sequels. I think sequels can be very successful depending on how well the first release performed in the “box office” of course. Most people can assume that if the first release was successful, most people will try out the sequel.

Now, narrowing “entertainment” down to the movie business, I wanted to look further into sequels, and how this “branding” has happened recently. Particularly, I am going to look at the Iron Man and Iron Man 2 movie series. In an article from Advertising Age called "Sequel Branding, Part Deux: Return of the Numeral" Christ Thilk analyzes how the Iron Man series has brought back the numerals in sequels, such as the “2” in Iron Man 2. Apparently, and I never thought about this, but numeral have been non-existent in movies for the past couple of year. Meaning, movies have decided to utilize sub-titles when releasing new movies that are connected to earlier titles. However, for the Iron Man series, they decided to keep the brand strong, be a little different, and use numerals, in hopes that the success of the original Iron Man film would bring success to the sequel. In this case, I think the creators of the series did a great job of simply leaving the sequel with the numeral 2, just because it is more easily recognizable and the success of the original can only help the sales to the sequel Iron Man 2.