10 Flop Movies That Somehow Got Sequels

10. Death On The Nile

Though the first entry into Kenneth Branagh's big-screen Poirot franchise - 2017's Murder on the Orient Express - grossed an impressive $352.8 million against a sensible $55 million budget, sequel Death on the Nile didn't enjoy nearly the same success.

On a monstrous $100 million budget - largely due to its greater reliance on visual effects - it grossed just $137.3 million, making it a sure-fire flop.

However, context is key, and Death on the Nile was released in February 2022, when it had to deal with not only the ongoing impact of the pandemic but also the negative PR of abuse allegations recently levelled against one of its stars, Armie Hammer.

Given that older audiences have been especially slow to return to cinemas since the pandemic, and they're unquestionably one of the movie's prime demographics, it's easy to see why Nile performed so much worse than its predecessor.

Even so, that's a disastrous return-on-investment, and many analysts initially assumed that it would spell the end for Branagh's film series.

And yet, Disney evidently appreciated the many unfortunate factors working against it, and so decided to proceed with a third movie, A Haunting in Venice.

It's been widely assumed that Nile performed well on streaming, likely contributing to Disney's decision to greenlight the threequel, albeit with a sensibly smaller $60 million budget and lesser reliance on VFX.

And the gamble mostly paid off - Venice grossed $122.3 million globally. Not an amazing result, but a decent enough return on its budget, especially when you factor in the presumably massive VOD revenue. Whether a fourth film happens or not, though, is entirely up in the air.