10 Movie Sequels That Changed Their Franchise's Genre

The original Purge movie was railed by both critics and audiences for taking the insanely creative high concept idea of a world wherein crime is legal for one day per year, and using it as little more than the basis for a run of the mill killer-in-the-house horror movie that just patches the hole of why the family doesn't just call the police. A hole that, if you ask Alfred Hitchcock doesn't need to be filled as badly as pedantic nitpickers would lead you to believe.

But the film was successful all the same, which guaranteed a sequel.

Now, any director would be in the right in thinking they won the argument via this success and just stay the course for following entries. But writer and director James DeMonaco, refreshingly, saw the criticisms being thrown at the films, took it in stride, and instead shifted gears in order to tell the story he still wanted to tell in a better way.

So a franchise that started out as a wasted bit of horror potential, turned into a proudly political action thriller franchise with horror elements. And judging by critical reception and box office numbers, this adaptation to criticism has more than paid off.