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

7. Underworld

Underworld 5
Screen Gems

Underworld was like Resident Evil, but somehow even worse, which goes some way to explaining both the consistently low quality and inexplicable popularity of the leather-clad fantasy franchise that somehow managed to spawn five movies in the space of thirteen years.

There wasn't a single remarkable, notable or even memorable thing about the franchise from the very beginning, it was just kind of... there. The average budget was around $40m and the average box office return was $107.9m, which made them all relatively profitable enterprises.

On the other side of the coin, the average Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores for the entire franchise were 25% and 36 respectively, and with such a low bar being set the fact that the series earned almost $540m worldwide isn't without merit, given how each new entry was greeted with little more than an apathetic shrug.

Contributor

I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.