Hollywood loves sequels, especially when they’re for lucrative movies that could be squeezed and squeezed until something awful, but still marketable pops out and flops straight into cinemas. Sequelizing isn’t always done with the integrity of the property or its fans in mind, which is why last year we got a completely unnecessary Taken 2, and sometimes it’s completely without reason or justification – as with the forthcoming Grown-Ups sequel.
But just occasionally, Hollywood can surprise us all, and events conspire to turn down some of the most ludicrous sequel pitches ever heard. Because, believe it or not, Hollywood sometimes does have a finger on the creative pulse, and the powers that be can occasionally recognise when something is even too much of a bad idea to be a cynical exercise in churning out money.
There is a special classification of ridiculousness that fits these special films, and we’re celebrating the very worst sequel ideas that almost came out and completely ruined great films and film franchises…
12. Indiana Jones & The Monkey King
Before Last Crusade was set in stone, a young Chris Columbus decided to turn his hand to the famous archeology adventure franchise, imagining a world in which Indy is approached by a zoologist and a 200-year-old pygmy who owes his long life to a magic peach pit to find the lost city of Sun Wu-Kung, the Monkey King.
The plot also had Nazis, a besotted stowaway called Betsy (in the Short Round role, but with a crush on Indy), a native called Scraggy Brier and a troop of Gorilla soldiers. Oh and it opens with Indy in a battle of wits with a Scottish ghost – what’s not to love?
Spielberg ultimately rejected the idea based on his dislike of the supernatural element, and George Lucas went back to trying to make a Holy Grail Indy film, which would eventually become by far the poorest of the three original movies.
It could be worse of course – we could have had Indiana Jones Vs The Saucer Men From Mars, the early attempts at having the archeologist face off against some extra-terrestrials – like Frank Darabont’s Indiana Jones and the City Of God, which featured someone getting turned into a tree frog.
Instead, happily we got Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was definitely better. No, wait, that’s not right at all…
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53 Comments
“George Lucas went back to trying to make a Holy Grail Indy film, which would eventually become by far the poorest of the three original movies”
really!!!
Maybe its just me but Last Crusade is far superior to Temple of Doom
No, it’s not just you. Last Crusade is vastly superior to Temple of Doom. I have no idea why some people love it.
LC is the best of the Indy sequels, hands down… and not because the others were so poor. Short Round and that screaming blonde do not belong in an Indy film. They’re the Jar Jar of the Indy films.
One more for the “Last Crusade is better than Temple” express…
yeah, last crusade > Temple
Also, whats the beetlejuice goes hawaaiin art from?
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm… in whose mind where is Last Crusade the poorest of the Indy films? Seriously? I can’t even understand that.
Another vote for Last Crusade being way better than Temple of Doom.
I’m glad that upon reading this I wasn’t the only one who was dismayed to find the comment about the Last Crusade as ridiculous as I did.
Oh and to bring some “facts” into the picture, Rotten Tomatoes scores:
Raiders of the Lost Arc at 95%
Last Crusade at 89%
Temple of Doom at 85%
Hang on their Hody – since when does opinion constitute “fact”?
Opinion became fact, Simon, when you said LC was by far the poorest of the sequels with no facts to back it up. Poorest according to who? Box office? No. Critics? No.
I had to laugh at the language of the comment too.
” which would eventually become BY FAR the poorest of the three”. By far, what a joke.
“George Lucas went back to trying to make a Holy Grail Indy film, which would eventually become by far the poorest of the three original movies”
“By far” is a bit hyperbolic isn’t it?
Personally, I think it’s just as good as Raiders.
I’m completely with you on this one. ‘Raiders’ beats all, but I still love ‘Last Crusade’. And honestly, I didn’t think ANY of the Indiana Jones films were BAD, even ‘Crystal Skull’. It was NOTHING compared to the others, but I thought it was still pretty good, other than the monkeys. ‘Temple of Doom’ was mostly despised because of the feast scene, but really, if you know what the intentions were, it’s not that bad. It was just an attempt at adding little bit of light-hearted goofiness to what they knew was a noticeably darker sequel. It’s the same thing with the Emo Peter montage in ‘Spider-Man 3′. Frankly, I still think both ‘Temple of Doom’ and ‘Spider-man 3′ are great, but they just don’t measure up to the other two.
It is just you.The last crusade was Raiders with a different(yet still christian)religious artifact.It’s the same damn movie! At least Temple switched things up a bit.
Pretty much everyone I know thinks Last Crusade is the superior sequel, myself included. Maybe it’s a regional thing?
I totally agree. To me Last Crusade is the best of the four films. Mainly due to the excellence of Sean Connery as Hnery Jones Snr
Whoever wrote that atrocity ought to be hung.
Last Crusade is the best Indy movie. Period.
For Alien 3, from what I remember over the years is that “wooden” space station has been taken out of context. I read articles and statements saying it was a forest planet/moon where the station was on. Like a Endor. Not a Monastery station built from wood.
If you’d got a copy of Alien 3 directors cut, there’s a whole documentary on the ‘wooden spacestation’ and why it failed at concept…
I’ve been following the progress of JP4 for about 8 years now and can’t wait for the final product. I have high expectations that it will be nothing other than a huge piece of sh*t but looking forward to seeing it.
Jurassic Park 3D is going to be the nuts.
‘Illuminous’? Really?! Does no-one at WC proof-read these articles? The content is cool but the writers are some of the worst I’ve ever read.
Your beef needs elaboration. Is your gripe with loud and garish colours or is there some deeper meaning to this outburst?
Also, check yo’ self befo’ yo’ wreck yo’ self. ‘No one’ does not require hyphenation. Although a small error, as I am aware that there has been a trend in recent years to include the hyphen, it is still grammatically incorrect. For you to comment on another persons writing, it is always best to make sure that your own is perfect.
It would make it easier to take you seriously.
Oh snap.
What exactly is wrong with the word illuminous? It’s the English spelling.
Wow. The problem is that the word that the author was looking for is “luminous” not “illuminous”. Look it up. Yes you could make an argument for “illuminous”, but the word commonly used in this metaphorical context is “luminous” which makes “illuminous” look like a typo.
I don’t think the two David’s version of Jedi is the craziest pitches that ever were. Technically they didn’t even get a chance to pitch their ideas from what I can understand. I know Alien 3 had some screwed up ideas during its development stage.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade featured 1) a return of Nazis 2) a glimpse of a young Indy that led to an excellent TV series 3) the casting of the only man who could play Indy’s father, and 4) the world’s ultimate artifact quest (how else should you “end” a series than by going after the Holy Grail?).
I’ll never understand why some people don’t like the movie, as there are numerous, numerous, numerous other pluses to it. I can respect if a person individually decides he/she doesn’t like it (though I wouldn’t understand that feeling), but I don’t respect any blanket claim that it’s “bad”.
Oh, and the movie included an ancient crusader knight who uttered one of the grand lines in movie history: “he chose…poorly”. Awesome…
I just re-watched it for the first time in several years…and, sad to say, Indy III has a TON of plot holes and a lot of reaaaallly bad directing choices. Do the pluses outweigh the minuses? Sure. But you gotta take off the rose-colored glasses and watch it again.
These sound absolutely awful but make for a great list. Dude Where’s My Car was set to get a sequel but luckily never made it to script. The title says it all: Seriously Dude Where Is my Car? Cringe.
There is some wild stuff in that Gladiator 2 script. Out of morbid curiosity I would have liked to have seen the final product.
return of the jedi was first called revenge of the jedi but lucus him self changed it cause he relized a true jedi would never take revenge..
Gladiator 2 actually sounds fun. That the original actually got Oscar love baffles me, because it is so silly and stupid.
But the eternal warrior cursed by the gods to fight for centuries? That’s a great concept.
The idea of Maximus throughout history sounds like a decent one, but, with the Holy Roman Empire being the first Reich and we know the third, we’d end up with Maximus vs. Hitler.
Started reading this with great excitement only to come across your wildly outrageous and pretentious slandering of ‘Last Crusade’. Read no further.
How can it be “pretentious slandering” when I said it wasn’t the best of the trilogy? Pretentious slandering would be to say the whole series was unworthy of note, and I’d rather spend my time rewatching Battleship Potemkin. I love Indy, I just don’t love Last Crusade as much as you clearly do.
you would be right simon, except you said it was the “by far the poorest of the trilogy” im kind of indifferent since as a kid i like temple, but watching it as an adult, makes me cringe everytime i hear “we’re crashing!!!!!”. however the only indy film to not suck was Raiders. that movie had everything, the 3 that followed sucked mokey king balls.
RE: Gump & Co.: What you might not be aware of is that the ORIGINAL Forest Gump book was JUST as poorly written as its sequel. I read about 10 pages of the sequel out of curiosity after suffering through the original following the release of the film. It took QUITE an eye to discover a good movie in this awful book. Same can be said about the original Who Framed Roger Rabbit? novel and its sequel book.
While Last Crusade may be better written, it was not as much fun as Temple of Doom.
As a kid, Temple was by far my favorite so it still holds a special place in my heart over the others.
Indy was awesome and funny, Super scary, evil villain who tears out hearts, the effects were crazy for the time and Willie and Short Round…wait…let’s just forget about those two, okay?
Thankfully Batman Triumphant was never made, I couldn’t take another movie featuring “Bat nipples.”
Temple of Doom is my fave of the Indy films. Am I the only one to think that I.J. and the monkey king sounded F’in awesome. I just wish Crystal Skull was never made or as I refure to it as I.J. And the big disappointment. I also like my friend I. J. And the kingdom of the crystal shard.
1. Raiders – none of the other films even touched this one, this movie literally defined the character and rules of the franchise
2. Last Crusade – River Phoenix + Sean Connery + Harrison Ford = effing awesome, plus the Nazis, Sallah and Marcus are all back, what more do you need? Great villains. Great soundtrack. This one’s blows Temple away in almost every regard.
3. Temple – not enough travel, has a tag-along kid and is burdened by the whining and screaming blonde baggage known as Willie. Seriously, why was she even in this movie? Overall it’s way too cartoony and serves up some really bad lines like “yes, I understand its power now” and “Indy, I love you!!!” The cart chase is cool though.
4. Kingdom – the accent-dropping Cate Blanchett was just meh, Karen Allen apparently forgot how to act since Raiders, John Hurt was completely underutilized, Indy seemed dazed and confused for much of the film and the MacGuffin was so-so. The best part of this movie was Shia LaBeouf, the only person who remembered to act. Also, CG bugs not nearly as creepy as real ones.
Pretty agree with you down the line. Except:
1. Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s son – That rankles just as much as Winona Ryder as Amanda, Spock’s mother in the ST reboot.
2. I didn’t like the treatment of Sallah and Marcus in Last Crusade. They were foppish sidekicks instead of being capable men as they were in the Raiders, especially Sallah.
Agreed, Last Crusade is far from being the weakest film. It’s clear in my mind that Raiders is the best, but there are certain elements which make Last Crusade a contender for that top spot even.
Actually, Beetlejuice 2 was recently picked up again and Burton is trying to redo the script into something that could be watchable.
Time for an edit Simon Last Crusade was clearly not, ahem … “clearly”the worst of the original Indy trio.
The Temple of Doom is uneven yes, but when it’s good it’s great.
Nothing was ever (and has ever) topped Raiders but from a screenwriter’s prespective in 1981/82
Given Lucas’s story treatment what would you do? You can’t have another strong willed female lead- that’s been done perfectly with Marion. So you have annoying, pampered fish-out-of-water female lead, it works. Short Round is the most non-irksome kid character I’ve seen in a movie and it was intereasting to introduce more of Indiana’s global companions.
I’ll always defend The Temple of Doom- a great big budget B movie.
The last Lucasfilm with balls.
You forget the Disney’s toy story 2, and Disney’s Toy story 3…
that when buzz is recalled to tokio.
where is superman lives?
You’re crazy, Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian would’ve been epic!
And the Wooden Planet idea in Alien 3? That would’ve made a way better movie than the godawful thing that became Alien3. Fincher’s a great director but that movie blew.
Wow. How did you become a writer/blogger?? A few grammar faults and your opinions suck by having no facts to back them up. Batman & robin made its money, only falling short 20 million from batman returns.
Last crusade is vastly superior to temple of doom, which was just a rush job to get a sequel out.
Jurassic park 3 was a fun movie, gladiator 2 is a very fun script that is full of action and a great story to boot( the brilliant opening of wolverine uses a passage of the script).
You really don’t seem to know anything about these sequels that nearly came to be.
Most the if these have scripts and treatments that you can read online. Find them, read them, then come back and say sorry for a pathetic excuse of an opinion piece.
‘…then forced to rescue his bride to be when she is rescued by the Nazis to make pro-Nazi propaganda films…’
Shouldn’t that read:
“…when she is kidnapped by the Nazis…”
LMAO! The very first movie on this list and it has such a polarizing comment(and I KNEW most people would not agree with it) that I can’t help but think it was intentionally said just to stir up the comment section. Seriously, Last Crusade is GOOD! Period.