10 Costly Mistakes That Doomed Great Movie Franchises

Honestly, what did Fox have against fans of this face-hugging franchise, eh?

The minute viewers found themselves growing attached to one of the various badass, compelling, or charismatic figures seen battling against various Xenomorphs in the galaxy, the studio and filmmakers behind a number of the increasingly infuriating follow-ups to Aliens opted to murder them - most of the time off-screen!

After becoming two of the most celebrated members of the team fighting through the acid-dribbling aliens in James Cameron's first Alien sequel, Hicks and Newt were unceremoniously killed off in David Fincher's Alien 3, with that call being one of the main reasons fans were left feeling let down by the threequel.

Having to then witness Ellen Ripley, the iconic hero of the franchise, fall to her death after learning she was carrying an Alien Queen embryo only added to the suffering.

This directly fed into the baffling call to have Ripley then return as a human-Xenomorph clone in the flop that was Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien: Resurrection.

And after all of that, the man who started this whole thing, Ridley Scott, then decided to come along and repeat those same franchise-wrecking mistakes when it came time to follow-up his fascinating Prometheus movie, murdering that film's compelling lead Elizabeth Shaw off-screen in the time between that flick and Alien: Covenant.

Sure enough, fans once again despised having to watch another beloved character bite the dust too soon, and Covenant became yet another divisive, under-performer at the box office for the franchise.