10 Movie Franchises That Set The Bar Too High For Themselves

Your writer absolutely fell in love with Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo), Diego (Denis Leary) and that annoying little scruff-ball Scrat (director Chris Wedge) when Blue Sky Studios' Ice Age (2002) first wandered onto our screens.

Combining stunning animation with a ragtag bunch of engaging misfits made for a deeply enjoyable and surprisingly moving experience for both kids and the parents escorting them to the cinema.

Although it wasn't quite on par with the first ice cold hit, the sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown was still largely entertaining and the additions of Queen Latifah as Ellie and Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie were welcome ones.

Yet, the quality started to really dip once Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) hit cinemas, as the franchise started to lean more heavily on action set-pieces rather than the intimate personal relationships between the core characters which originally made us invest in the series.

That didn't matter to the studio, though, as the third entry reeled in $886 million. Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) followed that up with another critically poor yet financially solid entry, earning $877.2 million. However, Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) 'only' managed to bring in $408.6 million and scored the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of the entire series with a rotten 18% score.

It was always going to be a tough job to follow the vibrant and sweet first outing for Manny and co. But, instead of trying to match that first film's quality, the series instead opted to become a collection of gradually worsening cash grabs.