Ranking 9 Biggest Two-Part Movies From Worst To Best
Splitting a film can go either way...
Now that the entire planet has seen Infinity War, audiences are left to ponder how the second half of the story will wrap things up next year. Will it capitalize on plot points in exciting and thrilling ways that make revisits to Infinity War even more rewarding? Or will it squander the potential of its first part and leave audiences feeling disappointed?
In the last decade-or-so, it has become increasingly popular for franchises to split one story into two films. A huge part of this is the commercial incentive because two films equal twice the money, in a producer's mind. Lots of the time, this move is reserved for when a franchise is wrapping up and wants to give itself a fond farewell in the form of a two-part conclusion.
This gained particularly potent popularity with YA literary adaptions. But occasionally these splits do make artistic sense as well, and actually, enhance the story being told.
Which of these two Infinity War will wind up being, remains to be seen, but looking back through the past of two-part films may offer some insight. These are the blockbusters whose stories were apparently so big they apparently needed two films, but plenty of them didn't even deserve one.
9. Divergent: Allegiant
In what has to be the worst and most embarrassing case of splitting one story in half to produce two films in cinematic history, the struggling Divergent series was unable to even complete its story.
Taking cues from the success of franchises such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games (we'll get there), the producers behind the Divergent films opted to split the final book of the series into two separate films. However, the first part of this grand finale was such a complete and total disaster at the box office. Thus the planned follow-up, Divergent: Ascendant, was permanently shelved.
What audiences were left with was half of a story, that was just build-up, without a second half to ever capitalize on it. On top of that, Allegiant was made from the barest story possible. The final book in the series barely has enough material to fill one film, much less two of them. So the producers were really stretching to try and make it into two films, and the result is that this film is full of moments just there to pad the runtime up to feature length.