Although often lambasted for being too simple, some blockbuster series require hours of effort to get the correct chronology straight. With reboots the current favoured blockbuster production method in Hollywood, to see a franchise make it to more than three iterations without a complete do over is a rare occurrence. Whats even rarer is to see one make it that far without one director or another messing with the order of the series. Prequels, late in the day sequels, heavily homaging reimaginings; they all mess with the order of a series, leaving us all perplexed as to where the latest entry is meant to fit. Sometimes you have resort to drawing complex maps on napkins, feeling more obsessive than Bruce Willis in Looper (no mean feat), only to give up and pray for a reboot. Well fear not. Like on very current entry on this list we're here to save the day. To get rid of the mind bending horror, heres eight franchises that over the entries have become a tangled mess. Get your brain ready for some (often unnecessarily so) twists and turns...
8. Marvel's Cinematic Universe
When it comes to blockbuster order, Marvels Cinematic Universe seems to be a rather easy one to grasp. Each film comes after the other, right? And for the most part thats how it works. First theres the wartime antics of Captain America, then the original Iron Man followed by its sequel, halfway through which Thor kicks off, segueing into The Avengers and Phase 2. But as the eagle eyed of you will have noticed theres an often forgotten entry weve omitted there. While all the other (more popular films) are going on, The Incredible Hulk is slowly unfolding in the background. At the end of Iron Man 2, when Tonys in some sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. base, we can clearly see the aftermath of the campus battle from the midpoint of Hulk playing out on a TV screen. With flashbacks dating back to five years before Iron Man and an ending supposed to come after the end of Thor, the least official Marvel film ends up making any comprehensive timeline a job that will take years to complete. That incident aside, its truly shocking that with the gradual development of the world by numerous directors, things are still so tight.