6 Movie Franchises That Were Saved By A Reboot (And 6 That Were Doomed)

The Planet of the Apes franchise has certainly suffered through its fair share of ups and downs over the years. The iconic Academy Award-winning 1968 original is one of the most influential sci-fi movies ever made, one that went on to spawn four sequels of wildly varying quality and two television shows (one live-action and one animated), all between 1970 and 1975.

After that, the brand became mired in development hell before Tim Burton's cack-handed reboot in 2001, which despite earning almost $375m at the box office and boasting some impressive prosthetic effects is still best remembered for its laughable sequel-baiting ending. Even Burton said on the movie's DVD commentary that the ending wasn't supposed to make sense, which is certainly a strange thing to admit.

After such an inconsistent history, it would be fair to assume that when relative newcomer Rupert Wyatt was set to direct a Planet of the Apes reboot with James Franco in the lead human role a decade later, not many people thought that it was going to turn out to be the launching point for one of cinema's all-time great trilogies. And yet it was just that.

The combination of photo-real CGI perfectly complimenting Andy Serkis' stunning performance as Caesar, Matt Reeves taking over behind the camera to increase both the nuance and complexity of the story and some large-scale action turned the rejuvenated Apes franchise into a critical and commercial darling, and an almost-impossible task to follow when the series is inevitably rebooted yet again at some point in the future.