10 Sequels That Ruined Great Movie Endings

3. X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Back in 2018, rumours swirled that Fox - in anticipation of the Disney merger - would cut their losses and bury X-Men: Dark Phoenix (along with New Mutants). That didn't happen of course, but after it came out, a lot of fans wondered whether it might have been the better decision.

Dark Phoenix is watchable, but it's a jumbled mess of ideas, poor execution, and not in any way a satisfying climax to this decades-old superhero franchise.

However, it was made even worse because it essentially served as an unnecessary follow-up to Logan, which perfectly tied off the story.

Sure, that movie was set in an adjacent universe from the main series, but that doesn't mean it still didn't function within the context of those previous films. Arguably the best X-Men movie Fox has produced, Logan was mature and melancholic, acting as a heartbreaking, yet hopeful, send-off for one of the most iconic characters in the genre.

The X-Men movie timeline is wild, and even though it's never clear how much it was connected to the previous films, Logan still honours their legacy and rewards an audience's investment. Dark Phoenix doesn't actively undermine that ending, but it merely existing sours the legacy, and stopped it going out with a bang.