9. Indiana Jones (1981-2007)
Originally... George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's first three Indiana Jones movies acted as a tribute to the B-grade movie serials that they grew up watching as kids. Indiana Jones, the series' hero, travelled around the world in a variety of adventures that saw him trying to recover lost artifacts. These were classic adventure movies, through and through, albeit that they had a neat fantasy/religious edge.
So What Changed? Given that the fourth movie, the unfortunately titled
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, shifted the action to the '50s, George Lucas decided that the series should take a turn into a genre that was more popular at that time: sci-fi. Instead of having Indy caught up with another "ancient artifact" audiences were familiar with, Lucas forced a plot on Steven Spielberg that involved aliens and UFOS, pulling cinema's most famous archeologist into places that didn't feel quite right.
Did It Pay Off? Aliens and Indiana Jones? A seriously mis-guided attempt to transform a franchise that was working perfectly as it was,
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - like
Phantom Menace before it - emerged as a kind of laughing stock and disappointed Indy fans everywhere.