10 Franchises That Peaked With The First Movie

Anthony Hopkins' Academy Award-winning portrayal of Hannibal Lecter instantly entered the public consciousness and ascended to iconic status, but by the time it came to playing the character for a third time in Red Dragon over a decade later, Hopkins had come dangerously close to self-parody.

The Silence of the Lambs is a classic, an intense psychological thriller that won the 'Big Five' Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Adapted Screenplay. And they probably should have left it at that. However, with critical acclaim, $272.7m at the box office and more source novels to adapt, a franchise was predictably born. It just took them a while.

Over a decade later, Hopkins returned as cinema's most notorious Chianti enthusiast in the hugely-anticipated and massively underwhelming Hannibal, which succeeded on a visual level if not a narrative one despite the presence of Ridley Scott behind the camera and an A-list cast.

Striking while the iron was hot (or tepid, if critical reaction to Hannibal told us anything), just a year later Hopkins returned in Red Dragon, which was a prequel despite the fact the actor looks noticeably older than he did in The Silence of the Lambs. Another A-list cast was assembled but the results were almost exactly the same as before; a serviceable-if-lukewarm sequel.

With Hopkins now retired from cinematic cannibalism, the franchise ultimately went out with a whimper thanks to Hannibal Rising, a completely pointless and critically-bashed prequel/origin story that definitively proved that the series had well and truly run its course.