10 Movie Franchises We Never Want To See Rebooted Again
Some franchises should just save themselves the trouble and head out to pasture.
For years, Hollywood has been constantly accused of an alarming lack of originality when it comes to their big-budget output, and they haven't really presented much evidence to make us think otherwise.
Fresh concepts and brave new ideas are a rarity in the modern blockbuster marketplace, with the studios playing it increasingly safe and relying on franchises and properties that have a built-in following, leading to a flood of sequels, remakes, reboots, re-imaginings and the latest fad, the 'legacyquel' that claims to further a story but instead often just relies on familiar characters and iconography to cash in on the nostalgia crowd.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while hoping for different results each time, and there are plenty of big-name franchises out there that have been subjected to this approach, and have been rebooted so many times at this point that we just don't care anymore.
10. Die Hard
If you want to split hairs and say that the Die Hard franchise has never technically been rebooted, then think back to how much the fourth installment changed who John McClane was as a character.
In the first three movies, McClane was an ordinary guy who found himself dealing with extraordinary circumstances, who had to scratch and claw his way through whatever situation he found himself in, barely making it out of the other side alive. By the time Live Free or Die Hard arrived after a twelve-year hiatus, he returned as just another generic action hero.
Now able to take down fighter jets with his bare hands and drop in a one-liner for good measure, the series doubled down on the new and seemingly invulnerable McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard by making him a globe-trotting man of action who could resolve potential international crises armed with just bullets and a wooden sidekick.
The latter two movies strayed so far from what made McClane a cinematic icon in the first place that there's no real need for us to see him again in any shape or form. With Disney now in control of the franchise following their takeover of Fox, it's now doubtful that we will.