10 Sequels That Stupidly Changed The Main Character

The Original: Wall Street is a bit like The Silence Of The Lambs, in that it was a movie whose villain became the biggest thing about it. The protagonist is Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox, who gets ensnared by Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko, before eventually turning snitch and bringing his empire down. The big distinction between the two is that, compared to Hannibal, Gordon Gekko was even more lauded; everyone knows that eating human flesh isn't a good idea, but many people found a genuine allure in the high flying banking lifestyle and chased it.

The Sequel: Also like The Silence Of The Lambs, the sequel bumped the former villain up to leading man status. Again though, it went further, trying to unashamedly retrofit Gordon into a redemptive hero role (something that actually came out of that obliviously positive reaction to Gekko and his "greed is good" ethos) and also bringing in a new, Bud Fox-esque character played by Shia LaBeouf (which should tell you all you need to know).

What burns so much is that Sheen actually does reprise his role for a short cameo, only for Fox and Gekko to act like old pals reminiscing about the good old days, rather than bitter rivals who destroyed each other's lives.