10 Poorly Reviewed Movies That Deserve Another Chance At A Franchise

In recent years, it seems to be the ultimate goal of just about every studio in Hollywood to have their own blockbuster franchise. With the record-breaking success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and the bucketloads of cash that come with it), who can blame them?

While it may seem that striking gold on a franchise isn't an easy thing to do, it really shouldn't be that hard. After all, all of the most successful film series seem to have their roots in pre-existing source material. And whether it be books, comics, or '80s cartoons, there's no shortage of beloved stories to adapt (or reboot, in some cases) for the big screen.

But what happens when Hollywood takes that source material, churns out a mindless piece of unimpressive cinema, and expects the world to support a franchise? A whole lot of loose ends, that's what.

This is exactly the issue for every entry on this list. Each one of these awful movies stung its fanbase in a major way, but with a little bit of reworking, each could easily be made into the big-screen franchise that it deserves to be.

Rotten Tomatoes: 18%

Assassin's Creed was a movie with a lot of well-documented issues. Critics were generally unimpressed, and its underperformance at the box office led to the planned sequel being quickly (and quietly) cancelled.

While Assassin's Creed is far from the worst video game adaptation out there, a handful of strange creative choices were made which really did nothing to help the movie's standing among fans of Ubisoft's free-running conspiracy-fuelled history lessons.

The video game series boasts a number of exciting and interesting stories each based around a particular historical era and location, each with a host of interesting characters both real and fictional.

Except the movie decided not to use any of that. Instead, we were presented with a new story, mostly focused on the war between the Templars and the Assassins, and minimal screen time is dedicated to the historical aspects of the story.

Very little importance was assigned to the protagonist's genetic memories, which should have been the narrative link between past and present. The result was a movie that felt like a cheap knock-off of the Assassin's Creed video game franchise instead of a new and interesting part of the games' story.

It really wouldn't be hard to make an Assassin's Creed movie that fans love, it's just that this 2016 nightmare really wasn't it.