10 Movie Franchises Ruined By One Dumb Decision

2. Killing Newt, Hicks & Ripley - Alien

Regardless of which one you prefer, the first two Alien movies are absolute masterworks and compliment one another wonderfully.

Then Fox decided they weren't done with the cash cow - not by a long shot - and produced a third film, which turned out to be one of the most infamously doomed, troubled productions of the 1990s.

But the film's biggest misstep was the decision to dispense with the series' three most beloved characters: Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) were killed off-screen in Alien 3's opening sequence, while the movie ended with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) committing suicide to ensure Weyland-Yutani didn't gain custody of the xenomorph Queen embryo.

In addition to being an unsatisfying end for all three characters, this crashed the franchise headlong into a creative brick wall, resulting in the fourth film, Alien Resurrection, taking the fan fic-baiting approach of serving up a Ripley clone because, screw it, why not?

A desperate series of cash-ins then followed, namely two Alien vs Predator movies and two muddled attempts to fill in the backstory blanks, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, all of which seemingly confirmed that there wasn't anywhere compelling left for the series to go.

Though Weaver very nearly reprised the role of Ripley in a fifth Neill Blomkamp-directed Alien film which would pretend Alien 3 never existed, Fox ultimately cancelled the project in favour of an Alien: Covenant sequel, which itself has been cancelled due to Covenant's underwhelming box office.

When you actively piss off the fanbase and produce a glut of sequels they're totally indifferent to, it's unsurprising that the property becomes box office poison.