10 Movie Franchises That Just Kept Getting Worse
Proof of the law of diminishing returns.
If there's one thing that Hollywood loves doing, it is wringing every last drop of profit out of a successful property. They figure that if audiences paid to see it once, they'll pay to see it again. And again. And probably again. Then they'll eventually reboot it and the cycle starts over. Such is life.
Sadly for audiences, the law of diminishing returns has been a constant problem with the franchise model of filmmaking in recent years, with little attempt made to try anything different when you can just play it safe and throw a bunch of familiar characters together in a new setting and hope that audiences give a sh*t. Oddly, the financial performances of these identikit movies seems to suggest they do. At least at first.
Bafflingly, some franchises like Transformers, Underworld, Twilight and Resident Evil were never even particularly good to begin with, but still ended up with at least five instalments each. Then there are the truly sad cases, when a great movie sees its reputation tarnished by a string of inferior sequels that benefit only the money men, leaving audiences across the world feeling nothing but disappointment.
10. The Chronicles Of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia franchise was never held in as much esteem as many of its peers in the big-budget fantasy genre and while it was never flat-out terrible, it did suffer from an alarmingly rapid descent into mediocrity that has seen a potential fourth entry stuck in development hell for the last six years.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe got the franchise off to a strong start, and did a solid job of world-building backed by some great effects and good work from the cast. Financially, the enduring popularity of the source material and a prime December release date combined for an impressive $745m worldwide and just like that, a new franchise was born. For a while at least.
However, audience interest quickly dissipated and follow-up Prince Caspian earned over $300m less than its predecessor. It didn't help that the sequels gradually deteriorated into banal storytelling that focused on CGI over character and spectacle over substance and after being dormant since 2010, it seems unlikely that there's much interest at all in the currently-developing Silver Chair.