20 Great Movie Franchises That Became Unwatchable

Ghostbusters is one of those 1980s classics that both needed absolutely no further sequels after so many decades, and that was all but guaranteed one when legacy sequels began to grow more and more popular. To the surprise of nobody, the magic was not recaptured.

In all honesty, even the first sequel from 1989 paled in comparison to the classic original, but it was still entertaining enough. It turned the franchise into a happy duology, but 27 years later, the pull was too strong. In 2016, the Ghostbusters was revisited in the same vein as Ocean's Eight was two years later, with an all-female lead cast.

The reboot of such a beloved property as Ghostbusters was always going to be a hard sell, but this outing was received particularly badly. However, even when the original timeline was continued in 2021, led by Paul Rudd of all people, things didn't get much better. 

Frozen Empire followed and was utterly joyless. Better CGI and the return of Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Ackroyd weren't enough to inspire anything better than another by-the-numbers legacy sequel; one that was a disappointment at the box office, to boot.