10 Movie Franchises That Just Kept Getting Worse

Die Hard will always be remembered as one of, if not the, greatest action movies ever made. John McTiernan's original is so good that it has retained its reputation as an eminently watchable all-time classic even as Bruce Willis makes a conscious attempt to run the franchise into the ground.

Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2 took the classic sequel route of doing the same thing again, except bigger and more expensive, and crafted an entertaining enough spectacle. McTiernan returned for the sorely underrated Die Hard With a Vengeance, that gave the series a shot in the arm by turning it into a buddy picture and capped off one of the great action trilogies. Or so we thought; it was after the series lay dormant for a decade that things really went to sh*t.

Die Hard 4.0 is a decent enough action flick, but it is not a Die Hard movie. John McClane is no longer a relatable everyman, but a superhero that can fell fighter jets with his bare hands and destroy helicopters by throwing cars at them. The fifth instalment just sucks on almost every level from the script to the cast and direction, marking a sad nadir for one of Hollywood's greatest action heroes

And just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, along comes Len Wiseman to reveal Die Hard: Year One, a prequel following a young McClane in 1979. No. Just no.