10 Movie Franchises That Can't Be Good Again (And Exactly Why)
8. The Dark Universe
Most of the franchises on this list are guilty of overextending their reach, letting their once fresh idea be drawn out until it's a shadow of its origins. However, no franchise quite does the complete opposite, thrusting its sequel-heavy itinerary in horror fan's faces before even the first had been released, like The Dark Universe does.
Like many others who met similar fates, The Dark Universe looked to the success of Marvel Studios The Avengers and attempted to span their own shared-cinematic universe, without capitalising on the reasons that The Avengers paid off as well as it did: An effective build-up.
The potential that The Dark Universe promised was unparalleled within the horror genre and we've seen many sequels try to spawn long-lasting franchises, but never really a shared-universe of this scale. The promise of a modern take on cherished icons such as Dracula, Frankenstein and The Invisible Man made for this to be an exciting project. However, the whole thing quickly revealed itself as just an incredibly rushed project, and 2017's dud, The Mummy, was the final nail in the sarcophagus.
With such underwhelming retellings of horror's most beloved characters, it's saddening to realise that one of the greatest shared-universe concepts has been pronounced dead on arrival before we got to see its payoff.