Cult classic cinema has a more ephemeral appeal than its more mainstream counterparts, a midnight movie may not have the staying power to match its initial appeal. One series that may be looking down the barrel of a vastly different cinema landscape is The Boondock Saints, which recently announced a long-awaited follow up.

Writer and director Troy Duffy is returning to the series after 12 years of complete silence, alongside original stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus. The upcoming third entry is said to feature revamped action, new threats and a deeper storyline after all these years.

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The Boondock Saints came out in 1999 and, due to a variety of cultural and historical factors, flopped at the box office. The film is about two Irish brothers, Conner and Murphy MacManus who take it upon themselves to violently purge Boston of evil. They go about this by systematically hunting and killing gang members, criminals and anyone else they happen to see doing harm. The pair believe themselves to be called by God to bring justice to the world, one slow-motion action scene at a time. The first film was notable for its structure, following a borderline superhuman detective who pieces together the action scenes after they happen, allowing the audience to experience it in flashback. The unique presentation, evocative stylistic choices and engaging action scenes made the film a DVD hit years after its initial release. Two decades after the first film, a sequel attempted to recapture the eventual glory.

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Released in 2009, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, was vastly more successful than its predecessor, despite its quality. While the first film has a certain amateurish charm, the second is more or less a complete retread with less compelling characters. The dumb, pointless or cruel elements of the first film, which are inarguably terrible but less intrusive the first time around, are amplified in the sequel.

The first film is a very simple story, so simple that a sequel has very few directions to take the plot in that don't feel essentially identical. Fans don't want to see the brothers do anything but drink, smoke, deliver snarky dialogue in thick Irish accents and kill nondescript gang members, so of course that's all they do. Though the average audience didn't care for All Saints Day, fans already sold on the franchise got basically exactly what they wanted, and even twelve years later, still cry out for a new entry.

The first Boondock Saints released the same year as The Matrix, a film that shares a surprising amount of stylistic DNA and which went on to dominate the action cinema landscape. The era was defined by The Matrix, with films like the Blade trilogy or Equilibrium showcasing the particular leather-clad, synth-scored, slow-motion action vibe. The Boondock Saints was out of step with that tradition, but not terribly so. The sequel was born into a very different world, released one year after Iron Man, the first step of the all-consuming monolith that became the MCU. All Saints Day felt like a relic of a bygone age back then, so taking another shot over a decade later feels like a pretty tough sell.

Today's action cinema landscape is defined by two primary forces: the superhero movie universes and the John Wick franchise. The MCU and DCEU both exist as sprawling multiverses made up of hundreds of characters and theoretically infinite narrative depth, while the rapidly expanding Wick franchise is a fast-paced action epic that has slowly unveiled its complex world. The Boondock Saints is a bad candidate for either model, the first two were more personal stories with a comfortably small scale. Expanding the franchise outward to mimic the existing action landscape would be a massive mistake, people already have the MCU and John Wick, so any attempt at parity would be a waste of time. So this indie film franchise would have to find its own path in a very different world, while contending with its more outdated elements.

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Fans who haven't looked back at the franchise in a while are encouraged to keep it that way, The Boondock Saints did not age well, nor did its sequel. These films are casually misogynist, shamelessly racist, crudely sanctimonious, bizarrely sacriligeous, deeply homophobic and flawed from the premise on upward. Fixing the ignorant elements of the films would be a welcome change, abandoning the overall frat boy energy could open up new fanbases, but the basic premise is still difficult. In the modern era, people feel a bit less comfortable with armed vigilante justice, look no further than Bruce Willis' ill-fated attempt to revive Death Wish. Something about removing the layer of abstraction present in superhero stories and stripping it down to normal people "fighting crime" by murdering criminals with weapons any person could reasonably acquire does not capture the imagination in a positive way today.

A third Boondock Saints seems to be on its way, against all odds and most better judgment. If the series can overcome its niche appeal, its outdated sensibilites, its inability to fit in, its complete lack of social consciousness and its entire premise, perhaps this long silent series can find its place.

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