- Photo 1:
- Amazon Prime
- Photo 2:
- Hulu
- Photo 3:
- Universal Pictures
Prequels Set The Longest Before The Main Story
For most films and TV shows, pulling off a prequel can be a tricky feat, and often involves simply detailing the younger years of your original main characters or some unique fan favorite side character whose mysterious background is ripe for exploration. Other times, however, filmmakers find themselves in rich, expansive fictional universes filled with storytelling opportunities that have decades, centuries, or even millennia worth of worldbuilding.
From the generations-spanning machinations and civil wars of Westeros to the mind-blowing temporal expanse of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth to the million-year saga of the transforming robotic lifeforms of the planet Cybertron, this list takes a look at some of the prequel films and TV shows that take place a surprisingly long time before the stories that inspired them.
What's It A Prequel To: Transformers (2007)
How Early Does It Take Place: According to the producer of the Transformers franchise, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the 2024 animated film Transformers One is set 300 million years before the events of Michael Bay's first Transformers film.
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Dune: Prophecy
What's It A Prequel To: Dune (2021)
How Early Does It Take Place: This HBO prequel series is set a full 10,000 years before director Denis Villeneuve's acclaimed Dune and Dune: Part II.
What's It A Prequel To: Game of Thrones
How Early Does It Take Place: HBO's House of the Dragon series covers a lot of territory and a wide span of time, but given the very clear timeline established in J.R.R. Martin's source material, the beginning of the first season of House of the Dragon is set around 200 years before the start of Game of Thrones, and unfolds over decades.
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What's It A Prequel To: Predator (1987)
How Early Does It Take Place: Director Dan Trachtenberg's nail-biting 2022 horror thriller Prey follows a young Comanche woman (Amber Midthunder) as battles the terrifying predator hunter in 1712 in the American Great Plains, 268 years before the events of the iconic original film.
What's It A Prequel To: The Mummy Returns (2001)
How Early Does It Take Place: The Mummy Returns, which is set in 1933, introduced audiences to the CGI nightmare known as the Scorpion King. When the Scorpion King (Dwyane Johnson) got his own origin story spin-off film in 2002, it was set in the distant past, when he was still human. The film takes place in 3077 BC, putting it at 5,010 years before The Mummy Returns.
What's It A Prequel To: Alien (1979)
How Early Does It Take Place: The poorly received 2004 action horror flick Alien vs. Predator is set in the contemporaneous year of 2004, placing it admittedly 17 years after the original Predator, but 118 years before the events of Ridley Scott's original Alien.
