Can we avoid another summer of subpar sequels?

Last May, Captain America: Civil War stormed the box office and it looked like a summer full of big films. Then the bottom dropped out of the season with a slew of subpar sequels that weren’t embraced by audiences or critics.

A lacklustre 2016 was “a wake-up call to the studios that putting a number behind the title or calling it a sequel does not inoculate your movie from having a tough time,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore, says.

Last summer, just four of 14 cinematic followups made more than their immediate predecessor: Finding Dory ($486.3 million (U.S.)) , Civil War($ 408.1million), Jason Bourne ($162.4 million) and The Purge: Election Year ($79.2 million). The rest added up to a case of sequelitis run rampant.

Here are five lessons that Hollywood hopefully learned from last summer’s unimpressive returns: Don’t take too long to make a sequel Finding Dory made the most of its Pixar power, successfully following up Finding Nemo 13 years later. But not all longdormant series were that lucky: Independence Day: Resurgence bombed 20 years after its first movie.

That means the pressure’s on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Cars 3, both of which arrive six years after their last installments.

“I definitely think that the ship has sailed for some of these properties,” says Erik Davis, managing editor for Fandango.com and Movies.com.

That wasn’t the case for Jurassic World, which conquered Hollywood 14 years after its previous film. “But is Jurassic World the anomaly?” he says. “It very well may be.” Don’t rush things, either Some of last summer’s sequels were put out to make a quick buck and suffered, Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations, says. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, X-Men: Apocalypse and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising all came out two years after their hit predecessors and made significantly less money; in Turtles’ case, $109 million less. Avoid unnecessary sequels Some franchises make so much money they necessitate more movies, and then there’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War.

“Nobody wanted this, but there it was!” says Mike Ryan, senior writer for entertainment site Uproxx.com. “To me, it is the poster child for recent unnecessary sequels.”

Fans didn’t turn out for the second Turtles, another Alice, Now You See Me 2 and Ice Age: Collision Course: all films that followed $100-million-plus hits but fell far short of that mark. On the other hand, audiences are happily anticipating spending more time with the Guardians gang, Ryan says. Be bold and invest in characters The same old, same old didn’t help films last summer such as Collision Course, the fifth film in the Ice Age series, which has a growing cast of prehistoric animals but diminishing earnings. Then there was Neighbors 2, which tapped into a similar plot and cast as its predecessor.

“Sequels need to do something different. They need to think outside the box,” Davis says. 5. Make a good movie It seems like a simple and obvious goal, but many movies failed miserably last summer: nine sequels scored less than a 60-per-cent positive rating on review aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com, with six receiving less than 40-per-cent approval. Ouch.

“A lot of times there’s a disconnect between the critics and the audience, but last year they were pretty much lockstep in agreement as to what sequels were inferior,” Dergarabedian says. “You can’t hide a bad movie anymore. Social media is your best friend or your worst nightmare depending on if your movie has the goods.”

Crowds will have to wait and see, but at least this summer is promising: Furious, Guardians, Alien, Apes and Despicable Me 3 (June 30) all follow movies that made money and received positive reviews.

“If there’s anything studios can learn from last summer, it’s that you’ve got to keep up your side of the bargain with the audience who wants to go along for the ride,” Dergarabedian says.