10 Awful Franchises That Proved Bad Movies Can Still Make Big Money

Horror has always been a low-risk/high-reward model of filmmaking, but the studio must have been rubbing their hands in glee when Paranormal Activity became one of the most profitable movies ever made when it burst out of nowhere to earn over $190m at the box office on a budget of just $15,000.

In the blink of an eye a new annual horror franchise was born, with a further five installments arriving between 2010 and 2015 that suffered from an alarming drop in terms of both quality and box office returns, which isn't exactly surprising when 95% of the total runtime across all six movies featured a static camera picking up low-resolution footage of absolutely nothing.

Still, fans of the genre have more than shown that they're willing to fall for the same trick over and over again, and the Paranormal Activity franchise has so far amassed over $890m in takings from combined production costs of just $28m. With those kind of profit margins, it's little wonder a seventh movie is set to hit theaters next year.