10 Movie Franchises That Died In 2016

2016 has been a fascinating year for cinema, especially in the blockbuster realm, where arguably more big-budget tentpoles than ever fell short of financial expectations, as such destroying any prospect of yet another movie.

While Disney animation, Marvel, DC and Star Wars will likely rule the box office roost until the end of the time, these movie, mostly entries into iconic or long-running franchises, completely derailed their own respective gravy trains and ensured that they're going away for a long, long time (if not forever).

With home video platforms like Netflix making the cost of a cinema ticket decidedly less appealing, it's safe to say that studios need to think more carefully about how they spend their budgets from now on.

Hopefully this won't result in risk-averse studios just pumping out more generically safe blockbusters than ever before, but that honestly seems like the probable result.

Here are 10 movie franchises that died in 2016...

The Franchise: Lewis Carroll's iconic creations were adapted to the big screen with 2010's hugely successful live-action effort, grossing an impressive $1.025 billion worldwide. And of course, that's the sort of money that guarantees a sequel.

How It Died: This year's Alice Through the Looking Glass, meanwhile, was a catastrophic failure at the box office, scoring just $299.4 million. How can a movie fall so short of its prior glory?

You can argue that it was released at least a few years too late, that Johnny Depp's domestic abuse scandal sank it PR-wise, that nobody needed a sequel, or that it was marketed horribly.

It's probably a combination of all these factors, and while the movie didn't lose money (especially with home video sales factored in), it did badly enough that Disney won't be pursuing anymore Alice movies.