13 Movie Sequels That Shouldn't Have Been Made

Sometimes a film sets up something big. A sequel? A trilogy? A whole franchise? Whilst some movies have been successful in their attempt to create one or more strong and faithful successors, not everyone can competently create a Star Wars, Godfather, or MCU. Others start off promising, even brilliant, but push their luck and keep making sequels in an attempt to get some quick cash, such as Die Hard and anything starring Jason Statham; they're great, then suddenly they're not.

Some ill-fated sequels can be good (though only marginally) in their own right, but when compared to their counterparts are nothing short of terrible, even disrespectful.

For the following list, we're going to focus on those movie sequels that didn't quite make the cut into "Well, that was a good idea" territory. Be them follow ups you may have missed (lucky you) and sequels everyone knows and universally hates, every entry on this list has let audiences down at one point or another.

The worst part of some of them is that they weren't even the last ones. Sometimes, they were merely the start of something altogether more awful and traumatising. Since every entry of this list could have been a horror sequel - Jason X, Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, to name a few - we're steering clear of the genre entirely, and saving it for another day.

Some spoilers follow.

The first two Terminator films were fantastic pieces of cinema - daring, original, intense and compelling. It should have been then that Terminator: Rise of the Machines would follow suit and conclude a wonderful trilogy. Alas, this was not the case. With Linda Hamilton not wanting a part of it and Edward Furlong out of commission due to an unfortunate drug habit, the third Terminator was a disaster.

First of all, it was certified 12 in the UK, and watching it you can see why: the action is stale and predictable, the plot formulaic and boring. Secondly, the whole thing watches like one long chase interspersed with camp, cheesy dialogue. Kristanna Loken's T-X Terminator was a welcome addition to the franchise, but was not close to keeping the film afloat.

It should really, really have ended there, but six years later Terminator: Salvation hit cinema screens. It was a post-apocalyptic movie with plenty of violence (still predictable) and zero heart. Since then, the various string of follow-ups have made this once great franchise a series of dismal "successors", with each new film adding layers of complex and unnecessary backstory to a previously simple and affecting storyline.

It's clearly all about the money, as each installment has proven its salt when it comes to raking in some cash, and now the whole thing just feels like a brand of action flicks with incoherent arcs and characters who you forget as soon as the credits have finished rolling. And that really is a shame.