Script used to remix Letterboxd and TMDB data for https://letterboxd.com/erunion/list/franchise-sequels-that-were-released-head/

index.js

const fetch = require('node-fetch');
const cheerio = require('cheerio');
const path = require('path');
const token = '<TMDB API KEY>';

const args = process.argv.slice(2);
const year = args.length ? args[0] : undefined;

if (!year) {
  console.error(`USAGE: node ${path.basename(process.argv[1])} <YEAR>`);
  process.exit();
}

(async () => {
  console.log(`👨‍🏭 fetching letterboxd sequels for ${year}`)
  const movies = [];
  const url = `https://letterboxd.com/jlalibs/list/big-list-of-movie-sequels-franchises/year/${year}/by/release-earliest/`;
  await fetch(url).then(res => res.text()).then(res => {
    const $ = cheerio.load(res);

    $('div.film-poster img.image').each((i, elem) => {
      movies.push($(elem).attr('alt'));
    });
  });

  movies.sort();
  console.log(movies, '\n')

  console.log(`👨‍🏭 searching tmdb`)

  await Promise.all(
    movies.map(movie => {
      if (!movie.length) return;

      // https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/search/search-movies
      const url = `https://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?${[
        `api_key=${token}`,
        `query=${encodeURIComponent(movie)}`,
      ].filter(q => q != false).join('&')}`;

      return fetch(url).then(res => res.json()).then(json => {
        if (!('results' in json)) {
          return;
        }

        const table = {};
        json.results.forEach(res => {
          if (res.release_date === undefined) {
            return;
          } else if (year && !new RegExp(`^${year}-(.+)`).test(res.release_date)) {
            return;
          } else if (res.release_date === `${year}-01-01`) {
            // Excluding any sequels that have a January 1st release date as that seems to generally be the default
            // date in TMDB if there's no specific month or day. There might be some false positives getting filtered
            // out because of this but it seems extremely likely.
            return;
          } else if (!movies.includes(res.title)) {
            return;
          }

          if (!(res.release_date in table)) {
            table[res.release_date] = [];
          }

          table[res.release_date].push(res.title)
        });

        return table;
      });
    })
  )
  .then(res => res.filter(r => r !== undefined))
  .then(res => {
    const grouped = {};

    res.forEach(data => {
      Object.keys(data).forEach(date => {
        if (!(date in grouped)) {
          grouped[date] = [];
        }

        grouped[date] = [
          ...new Set(
            grouped[date].concat(data[date])
          )
        ]
      })
    })

    return grouped;
  })
  .then(res => {
    return Object.keys(res).sort().reduce((obj, key) => {
      obj[key] = res[key];
      return obj;
    }, {});
  })
  .then(res => {
    console.log(res, '\n');

    let showAlert = true;
    Object.keys(res).forEach(date => {
      if (res[date].length > 1) {
        if (showAlert) {
          console.log('-- 🚨 COMPETING SEQUELS FOUND 🚨 -- ', '\n');
        }

        console.log(date, res[date]);
        showAlert = false;
      }
    });
  })
})();

package.json

{
  "dependencies": {
    "cheerio": "^1.0.0-rc.5",
    "node-fetch": "^2.6.1"
  }
}