10 Movie Franchises That Set The Bar Too High For Themselves

It's been a long old road for X-Men movie fans, one full of numerous ups and downs.

For a while things were looking pretty good for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, as both X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003) set the standard in terms of what could be achieved when adapting comic book storylines into big screen epics.

Many still class X2 as one of the finest the genre has ever seen. It's critical acclaim made 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand one of the most anticipated superhero movies ever at the time.

Sadly, the altering of directors from Bryan Singer to Brett Ratner meant that the trilogy-ending flick failed to stick the landing. Instead of a satisfying conclusion to Logan, Xavier and the gangs journey, we got a clunky stab at the beloved Dark Phoenix comic storyline.

Then, the franchise was amazingly revitalised by both Matthew Vaughn's First Class (2011) and a returning Singer's Days of Future Past (2014).

Proving that lightening can indeed strike twice in a franchise, however, the best film since X2 set the bar too high for what was to come. Singer's Apocalypse (2016) and Simon Kinberg's Dark Phoenix (2019) both sh*t the bed and forced a complete reboot of the series for its inevitable MCU debut.