10 Flop Movies That Somehow Got Sequels

2002's gloriously dumb spy actioner xXx quite perfectly drifted off the success of The Fast and the Furious the year prior, its unpretentious brand of high-octane thrills filling a void created by the increasingly moldy, goofy shenanigans of the James Bond franchise.

The original film turned in an impressive $277.4 million against a $88.3 million budget, seemingly cementing Vin Diesel's burgeoning box office might.

A sequel was quickly greenlit, yet Diesel ended up dropping out of the project due to scripting issues, resulting in his protagonist Xander Cage being killed off-screen and the film retooled as a star vehicle for new lead Ice Cube.

The resulting slop, 2005's xXx: State of the Union, grossed an embarrassing $71.1 million on a massive $113 million budget - barely 25% of what the first film made, on a much higher price tag no less.

State of the Union's rejection by audiences seemingly killed the franchise - that is until 2017 when Diesel, at the peak of his Fast and Furious fame, decided to return for threequel xXx: Return of Xander Cage.

Produced on a more sensible $85 million budget and leaning more overtly into the cartoonish action of Diesel's most famous franchise, it netted an impressive $346.1 million worldwide - almost as much as the first two films combined.

Though a fourth film was quickly put into development, Diesel's ongoing work on the Fast franchise has kept it from coming to fruition so far.