10 Awful Franchises That Proved Bad Movies Can Still Make Big Money
The best movies don't always make the most money, and some terrible ones have brought in billions.
The movie business has never exactly been regarded as the fairest game in town, and if it was then the best movies would be the ones that made the most money.
Obviously it doesn't work that way, and in an age where the franchise is now king, original projects and mid-budget movies have to work twice as hard to keep their heads above water to avoid sinking without a trace at the box office. There's a reason why so many of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers are taking their latest projects to streaming, because they're confident that people are a lot more likely to see it if they don't even have to leave home.
Some of the most lucrative franchises in the industry have earned the right to continue churning out sequels on a regular basis because they've built up years of audience goodwill through previous installments, meaning that fans are ready and willing to come back for another round.
However, there are also more than a few brands that have never been anything more than terrible, yet have somehow showed unexplainable staying power to continue hanging around and wringing every last penny out of either unsuspecting or gullible moviegoers despite never showing any signs of improvement at all.
10. Police Academy
The original Police Academy wasn't exactly a great movie to begin with, but it did turn out to be a huge hit with the intended target audience, and still endures to this day as something of a cult classic. It turned out that the first installment would be the benchmark, and the franchise would run itself headfirst into the ground in virtually no time at all.
Somehow, Warner Bros. managed to sh*t out six Police Academy movies between 1984 and 1989, with each one getting progressively worse. Mission to Moscow may have arrived following a five year hiatus from seeing the recruits on our screens, but it hardly saw the series come roaring back to cultural relevance.
In fact, it's almost impressive how the final four entries currently hold a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not a lot of movies get awarded such an unwanted score, never mind four in a row from the same franchise. Despite such a negative reception from critics, the seven Police Academy films still managed to earn over half a billion dollars at the box office for their troubles.