8. Red Dragon
Why The Franchise Failed: A loss of pacing, making Hannibal the centre of the story.
How It Re-Succeeded: Reusing Silence Of The Lambs' old formula, putting Hannibal back in prison. In a weird instance of Brett Ratner improving a franchise (more on that kettle of fish in a moment), Red Dragon managed to ape the Academy Awards-dominating Silence Of The Lambs to great success. Weirder still, Ratner managed what the far-more-acclaimed Ridley Scott couldn't pulling off the original's sense of intense dread. But before I explain this, lets back up to Hannibal. The sequel to the much-loved Lambs, the film couldn't get the original band back together but still managed to make some intriguing additions it swapped out Jodie Foster for Julianne Moore, and Ridley Scott replaced Jonathan Demme in the director's chair. We were prepared for something which might not live up to its predecessor's mighty legacy, but would still be an interesting work of quality. However, what we got was a meandering film which lacked all urgency and managed to turn one of cinema's most terrifying prospects into an eccentric, loveable anti-hero. In Lambs, Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter could chill the blood with just a stare, but while he kept his violent edge in the sequel, he became more of a doddering, cannibalistic uncle, all twinkly and avuncular. Unsurprisingly for a film bearing his name, the whole enterprise wallowed in him, giving him too many monologues with too little to do. It was a shame, because when it got going, Hannibal could really freak you out Gary Oldman was a tremendous villain and some scenes, like the brain-eating and Florence disemboweling, were excellent. Red Dragon managed to re-establish the sense of awful macabre its predecessor had lost, and did it in a very simple way. Namely, it discovered that less was more, sticking Lecter back behind bars and back in the role of story facilitator rather than story centre-piece. Sure, he was still vital to the plot, but having him absent for great swathes of time in favour of Ralph Fiennes' tremendously unsettling Tooth Fairy was a masterstroke, lending real weight to the scenes where he did show up and re-establishing that chained animal mentality. So strangely, in nailing these vital story beats Ratner managed to give a film franchise a proper send-off, and that's the first and last time I'll probably ever write those foreign-sounding words.