Other forms: prequels
A prequel is a film telling what happened before the earlier one. Make a prequel, the prequel trilogy, a prequel series.
It has a built-in problem: the audience already knows how it ends, so the interest has to come from how rather than what. The word was made in the 1950s on the model of sequel, replacing the se- with pre-.
1nounprequelA story set before an earlier one.
“The prequel shows how the two heroes met, years before the first film begins.”
prequel is a story.
Coined on the model of sequel, replacing the first syllable with pre-, meaning before.
From pre- + quel, by analogy with sequel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA