12 Movie Franchises You Didn't Realise Were Still Going

10. Home Alone

The Films You Know: The outrageously entertaining original Home Alone starred Macaulay Culkin as a resourceful young kid who, after being accidentally left at home by his forgetful parents, fends off two boneheaded thieves, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), with a series of brutal and hilarious traps. Despite mixed critical notices the first movie was a monster box office hit, and has become a sure staple of the Christmas movie genre. The preposterous sequel, Lost in New York, was shot out just two years later, and despite being an insanely cynical rehash of the original idea, it was still a lot of fun, and a considerable financial success. You are probably also aware of the existence of a third film, Home Alone 3, released five years after the second film. The original idea was to feature Culkin's Kevin McCallister as a teenager, though he wasn't interested in acting at the time, so this concept was scrapped and the third movie decided to focus on a new character, Alex Pruitt. Despite Roger Ebert infamously declaring it to be better than the first two films, it was widely panned, though did make over double its budget at the box office. The Films You Don't: But it didn't stop there. In 2002, Home Alone 4 was released straight to TV, with the strange decision being made to bring Kevin McCallister back, but recasting him with a new kid, Mike Weinberg. The movie rightly bombed with critics, resulting in a planned TV series being cancelled, and there was a period shortly after release where you couldn't go into an Argos store without them trying to give you a free copy of the DVD. Despite this failure, a fifth film (also straight to TV), Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, was released in 2012, and strangely enough starred talented actors such as Malcolm McDowell, Ed Asner, Debi Mazar and Jodelle Ferland. If that terrible cover art (pictured above) isn't enough to give you an aneurysm, the film surely would be: again, it was rinsed by critics.