10 Recent Movies That Reignited A Dying Franchise
4. Alien: Romulus
Since the original film debuted as a relatively straightforward story about an alien attacking a crew in a small, confined space, the Alien franchise has grown exponentially, and not always in a good way.
Multiple sequels and spin-offs enjoyed varying successes, with the quality declining steadily as the years went on, but it was the prequels that really threatened to kill the franchise. Prometheus and Alien: Covenant threw up more questions than answers, and felt far from what made the original film so popular back in 1979. Covenant's box office performance was so poor that a prospective threequel was cancelled.
This may have been a blessing in disguise, though. Audiences may never get to see how that thread of the story tied up, leaving all those questions without answers, but instead they were given Alien: Romulus, a far fresher and more exciting take on the franchise as has been seen in years.
Like multiple entries on this list, Romulus benefitted from returning to what made the franchise great in the first place, namely a confined, character-driven story that was even able to withstand some questionable, misplaced fan service.