There are some great action films that become franchises, opening their worlds and telling new stories about the characters that audiences fall in love with. Some of those stories are so good at world-building that they deserve a prequel to show how the character was before those stories started, and how that society evolved. Here are 10 action movies that should get a prequel.

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Atomic Blonde proved Charlize Theron is an action star through and through. The story is an adaptation from a graphic novel called The Coldest City, that tells the adventure of Lorraine Broughton (Theron) going to Berlin after an MI6 agent is killed. As Theron told Variety: “You know nothing about this woman. It’s so rare that a woman gets that in a movie. A lot of critics had issues with that — that’s such old-school thinking. You don’t need to be emotionally manipulated to feel something for someone.”

A prequel about how Lorraine became this killing machine would be a very interesting one. We still don’t need the story and reasoning of why she became a spy, but it would be fun to see her become this efficient spy and killer. Even more exciting would be the idea of a woman spy in the late ’70s, a time when such a thing would be a rarity. Anya Taylor-Joy could play the young Lorraine Broughton, as she’s already playing a younger Charlize Theron in Furiosa, a prequel about her Mad Max: Fury Road character.

Minority Report (2002)
20th Century Fox

Minority Report is a sci-fi film that should get more love. Directed by Steven Spielberg, and with Tom Cruise in his movie star era, the movie tells a story about the Pre-Cogs and how their visions have created a Pre-crime squad. This prequel could be all about how they discovered the powers of the Pre-cogs and how the Pre-crime squad was created.

The concept is so outlandish that explaining it to the public, and creating laws around it, wouldn’t be the easiest of things to do. How did they test it, and who was the first person charged with a murder he or she hadn’t committed yet? Did the people in that society and the news accept it without a fight, or did they just accept it at face value? There are so many questions, and that’s why it’s such a great story, as all the ones that started in Philip K. Dick’s mind are.

Escape from New York (1981)
AVCO Embassy Pictures

Escape from New York is still talked about for two reasons; the incredible performance by Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, and the surprising, scary idea of Manhattan being a maximum security prison complex. There are two ways to go here for a prequel; either telling the origin story of Snake, and how the ex-soldier became this cocky antihero who robbed the Federal Reserve, making for a sci-fi action heist film, kind of like Ocean’s Eleven in a dystopian society.

Another way to go would be to show how New York becomes a prison, and why other cities like Los Angeles follow the same path. That film would show the before times, when the whole country went to hell, and how it’s decided why Manhattan is the first place to test the scary idea of big cities as maximum prisons.

The Purge (2013)
Universal Pictures

The Purge is a horror-action franchise with very big legs. What started as an action-horror film, now has five films, a TV series, and no signs of stopping. Although one film has already been a prequel, The First Purge, telling the story of the first time the Purge was tested in Staten Island, there should be an even earlier prequel. How does a country as bipartisan as the United States accept the idea of a Purge and make it law? What did the rest of the world think about it? How different was the original idea of what, in the end, became The Purge? The movie could be a political thriller, but could also be a response to all the crime and death the country is already having, and this decision is made to avoid so much more killing the rest of the year. There’s an interesting story there, one that audiences would pay to see.

Franchise creator James DeMonaco told CBR where the idea came from: “The crazy idea of a Purge night came from my wife. We were driving in Brooklyn, and there was a road rage incident, where I was driving with her, and we got cut off by this drunk driver. I got out, there were fists thrown, chaos, and cops. And she said to me… ‘Aw, I wish we all got one free one a year!’ And I knew what she meant. (…) it stayed with me for years.”

Inception (2010)
Warner. Bros

The best thing about Inception is how it creates this new, strange society where people are addicted to the world of dream-sharing. In the film, the dream-sharing technology has been used for a while, and we only know that it was created by the military as “Project Somnacin”.

A movie about how the technology was created and how it becomes used by everyone would be an incredible sci-fi movie. What were the real intentions of the military? Who discovered limbo? Were there some movements against the technology, as they feared the military would have access to their dreams and minds? There are a lot of questions to answer about this world, and that would make for a different film, one that would complement the original one, while telling much more about that world.

Related: Is Inception the Last Real Big-Budget Art Film?

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix was a game-changing film, that action movies are still inspired by today. Especially in its incredible fight scenes. That film is all about Neo (Keanu Reeves), and how he will be the chosen one that will save humanity, but many ideas in the film deserve their own movies. The story of how the war between robots and humans started would be sci-fi heaven, as many movies have used the consequences of that idea (including The Terminator), but not many have shown how the machines started gaining autonomy, and started fighting their creators.

Another way to go would be to show the origin story of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), how he left the Matrix world, learned what was really happening, and discovered he wasn’t the chosen one, but he would help him save the human race. That arc, which was only hinted at by the original films, would make for a great movie, using some spectacular fight scenes this franchise always has, but telling a different story in this universe.

Mission: Impossible (1996)
Paramount Pictures

Mission: Impossible has been an incredibly successful franchise that started in 1996. In that first movie, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is already part of the team, and has great camaraderie with them (before they all get killed). In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, it’s implied that the character started as some kind of thief or outlaw, and that Gabriel (Esai Morales) killed his first love.

That story would make for a very interesting film, while also giving the franchise a different flavor, as Ethan would have to use more of his smarts and less of his crazy stunts to help save the world. The fact that the film would be in the late ’80s/early ’90s would also give the film a more analog vibe, creating a story that was more about old-school spying, something that always works in film.

John Wick (2014)
Lionsgate

The John Wick franchise was a surprising one, as when the first film was released, no one knew how successful it would become. A way to keep telling the story of this incredible universe, where assassins have their own hotels, would be to look to the past instead of the future.

In the films, we’ve seen enough instances of deadly characters telling stories of Wick (Keanu Reeves) before his retirement, so there’s a lot of material there to use. The easiest idea would be to show the night that earned him his freedom, so he could spend his life with Helen (Bridget Monyahan). To do so, Tarasov told him he could only get his freedom if he completed the impossible task of killing all his enemies in one single night; a great plot for a prequel. Another way to go would be to show how Wick got to New York, and trained with The Director (Anjelica Huston), met Winston (Ian McShane), and became the killer we know. That story could end with the Baba-Yaga meeting his future wife.

Kill Bill (2003)
Miramax Films

As with any Quentin Tarantino film, Kill Bill plays with time and shows us some moments of The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) and Bill’s (David Carradine) past, but not enough. Both characters are so charismatic, and there’s such a vivid world created, that it would be possible to do a prequel trilogy in this universe that would make the original double film about revenge even more heartbreaking.

A movie about how Bill learned martial arts and made a name for himself as an assassin could be the story of a great antihero, and could end when he decides to create a female killer squad, and meets The Bride. The other two prequel films would be about the Deadly Viper Squad, showing how each of them was hired, and how they became an incredibly deadly team, with some homages to Charlie’s Angels and other similar shows. These new films would not diminish the original stories, but would give them even more weight, as every time The Bride got revenge on one of her old teammates, audiences would know everything about the good times they had spent together.

Related: Here’s 10 of Quentin Tarantino’s Best Movie Characters, Ranked

Die Hard (1988)
20th Century Fox

The greatest thing about the original Die Hard was how a regular cop got in an incredibly big mess trying to save his wife, and did something that looked impossible; that with resourcefulness and some smart tricks, you can beat a band of mercenaries. The saga has had many movies, and Willis is now not medically able to keep playing the character, so the greatest solution would be to make a prequel about his younger days in the force.

The story should be smaller in scale so that it doesn’t diminish the original film, but it could show how John McClane was always a special cop, who noticed and did things differently than every other New York cop. This idea isn’t new, as a few years ago, a new project was announced that would show a younger McClane, before he met Hans Gruber and knew to always wear shoes to his missions, but it was scrapped. That kind of project could still work, and recasting the character and telling stories of an early ’80s New York cop, would give the franchise a new flavor, while still having the McClane audiences fell in love with.