10 Hit Movies That Somehow Never Got A Sequel

6. Inside Man

Con Air Cyrus The Virus
Universal Pictures

Spike Lee's most overtly commercial movie is also one of his best, an intelligent crime thriller directed with style, elevated by a brilliant cast that features Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe that turned out to be the biggest hit of the director's career.

The movie would go on to earn $184.4m at the box office against a budget of $45m, and a sequel was announced in November 2006 with all of the primary cast returning. Even Lee, a filmmaker not exactly known for working under the studio banner, signed on to direct and executive produce and seemed enthusiastic about the project.

After spending years in development hell, Inside Man 2 was quietly cancelled in 2011 after the filmmaker revealed that he couldn't secure the funding required to make the movie, which speaks to a larger problem within the movie business in recent years; Hollywood seems like they just don't want to make these kind of mid-budget R-rated genre pictures anymore, something either costs $10m or $100m and there's very little in between.

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