15 Great Film Franchises Ruined By Too Many Sequels And Remakes

Film Count: 5 (6th on the way)

The first Die Hard sequel was still decent, the story being incredibly similar to the first and quite circumstantial, but it's Hollywood so you can give it a pass. It's when Bruce Willis kept coming back decades later to reprise the role that problems were really throwing themselves at the fan. Badass everyman John McClane had his heroic moments in the sun as a cop stuck in the 'wrong-place-wrong-time' situation.

Once is a tale, twice is coincidence, three times you could call very unlucky.

However, when you end up chasing after your estranged son through Russia and Chernobyl(!) fighting off some crazed European terrorists, then you might be pushing the story arc of your everyday New York cop just getting caught out.

I'll let Michael Scott from The Office explain it:

"Here's the thing about Die Hard 4. Die Hard one, the original, John McClane was just this normal guy. You know, he's just a normal New York City cop, who gets his feet cut, and gets beat up. But he's an everyday guy. In Die Hard 4, he is jumping a motorcycle into a helicopter. In air. You know? He's invincible. It just sort of lost what Die Hard was."

We can only hope that a rumoured 6th film, titled Die Hard: Year One, can somehow save the series.