10 Movie Endings That KILLED Franchises For Good

The unexpected longevity of the Tremors franchise sure is something alright. After Kevin Bacon decided to only stick around for the 1990 original, protagonist duties fell to the late, great Fred Ward, who himself bailed after the second film.

Then, the protagonist role shifted to Burt Gummer (Michael Gross), the eccentric survivalist and conspiracy theorist introduced in the first Tremors.

Against all odds, the series actually managed to survive past its two original heroes exiting, largely due to Gross' thoroughly entertaining performance as fan favourite character Gummer.

Gummer ultimately became the face of the franchise, enough that a seventh film, Tremors: Shrieker Island, was released in 2020. However, Shrieker Island also categorically closed the lid on the series, by killing Gummer off in an act of self-sacrifice at movie's end.

The fact that Tremors survived decades longer than anyone expected it to is, frankly, a miracle, but with the franchise's long-standing stalwart now dead, there's very little commercial prospect of an eighth Tremors.

One can assume the home video grosses dried up enough that Universal decided to put the series out to pasture in the most ultimate way possible.