10 Movie Franchises That Wasted Their Perfect Ending

10. Halloween

It'd be a massive understatement to simply say that the Halloween series has had its ups and downs, yet while many might argue that the franchise has offered few worthwhile entries beyond John Carpenter's 1978 original and David Gordon Green's 2018 sequel, Halloween did navigate a fitting end-point almost 25 years ago.

After years of bewilderingly awful sequels, the seventh movie, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, finally pulled the trigger on what appeared to be the unambiguous demise of Michael Myers (Chris Durand) at the hands of franchise heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

The movie ends in spectacular, fist-pumping fashion when, following a prolonged fight, Laurie swiftly decapitates Michael with an axe. His head rolls to the floor, Laurie takes some breaths of relief, and we abruptly cut to the credits. The End.

This felt like such a perfect, no-bulls**t ending for the series, but horror being horror, Michael Myers was never going to stay dead forever.

And this being before the concept of a reboot was popularised, the producers instead opted to retcon Michael's death for the sequel, Halloween: Resurrection, revealing that Myers had switched places with a poor paramedic at the last minute, meaning Laurie had killed an innocent man.

To make matters worse, Michael then killed Laurie off, in turn ruining the franchise for a solid 15 years until David Gordon Green finally brought it back to decency.

At least when Halloween Ends soon releases, there's a good chance it actually gives the Laurie/Michael saga a definitive ending, before Universal reboots it sometime in the future of course.