10. The Last Airbender (2010)
Though M. Night Shyamalan's box office grosses have been inconsistent in the latter part of his career, he has had a penchant for turning a profit on fantastical, supernatural fare, and so he should have been able to knock an adaptation of Nickelodeon's cartoon
Avatar: The Last Airbender out of the park. This first film, adapting only the first series of the show which ran for a total of three, was intended as the first part of a trilogy. Of course, it was also released in 3D, but to Paramount Pictures' credit, they had the balls to place it up against
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on its opening weekend. With a $150m budget, the film ended up grossing $319m, not a figure that in of itself screams "danger", though not one that exactly shouts "franchise", either. Curiously, it is Paramount who ended up pulling the film from theatres after the overwhelmingly negative critical reception - earning a horrendous 6% on Rotten Tomatoes - emerged. While one might expect that the studio would want to milk the film as long as possible, we can assume that the cost of distributing it over this period was not worth it, and given the ire from both critics and audiences alike, it was thought best to cut their losses and move on. It would seem that a permanent stopper has been put in any chances of an Avatar franchise, for no word has come out on a sequel in almost two years, with M. Night Shyamalan declaring that while he has an outline written for a second film, he doesn't really know whether it is going to move forward. Studios tend to want to strike while the iron is hot with properties they have faith in, so the further distance we gain from this catastrophe, the better.