10 Movie Franchises That Will Be Remembered For The Wrong Reasons

4. As The Franchise That Screwed The Mandarin - Iron Man

It's probably a good thing that Iron Man, the central character in the franchise of the same name, gets to leave his own franchise on occasion to head-line another franchise entirely. Why? Pretty much because Iron Man - as a solo entity - has proven itself to be something of a mixed bag. The general consensus seems to be: "Iron Man is good, Iron Man 2 is bad, and Iron Man 3 is okay." The Avengers? Well, great. Still, Iron Man - as a franchise - seems to have left Marvel fans with a sour taste in their mouths, and that's mainly due to the way that it treated the character of the Mandarin over the course of the third (and possibly final) movie. The "twist" that poised Ben Kingsley as a mere decoy and gave us Guy Pearce as the true Mandarin looks to be an unforgivable one in retrospect. But it's a shame to hate it all because of that.