10 Delayed Sequels That Really Weren't Worth The Wait

By Scott Campbell /

7. The Odd Couple II (30 Years)

Neil Simon adapted his own play for the big screen, pairing Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as two divorced men with opposite personalities deciding to live together. A huge hit, The Odd Couple was one of the biggest domestic hits of the year, with the $44.5m gross equal to over $300m today. Simon also scored an Academy Award nomination for the script, while the movie, Lemmon and Matthau were all nominated for Golden Globes. A full 30 years later, The Odd Couple was finally given the sequel that nobody wanted, and it came very close to tarnishing the reputation of the original classic. The long-delayed sequel was probably greenlit as a direct result of the success that Lemmon and Matthau had enjoyed with the Grumpy Old Men movies, and marked an ignominious end to the duo's long-running screen partnership. A box office bomb, the Odd Couple II is an uninspired and incredibly disappointing follow-up, making audiences wonder just why they'd waited three decades to make something so bad.