This article explores the rise of the Hollywood sequel in the 1970s and 1980s, analysing contemporary industrial and popular discourses surrounding the sequel, sequelisation, and film seriality. Drawing on recent sequel scholarship as well as a wide range of film examples and paratexts, it examines how industry insiders, trade papers, and film critics tried to make sense of the burgeoning sequel trend. The ensuing discourses and cultural practices, this article argues, not only shaped the contexts of sequel production and reception at the time but also played into the movies' serialisation strategies and their increasingly self-referential manoeuvres.