8 Film Franchises That Became Victims Of Their Own Popularity

3. Alien Traded A Compelling Story For Continued Existence

Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien is an absolute triumph of film-making, blending horror and sci-fi in a way never quite mastered before. The sequel, James Cameron's Aliens, managed to take the setting, characters and eponymous alien species and make a completely different kind of movie, yet one that was equally as good in other ways. But, after that, the franchise was consumed by itself and its rabid popularity.

The problem (if you can call it that) is that the first two entries in the franchise had absolutely fantastic stories. Though both were very distinct, they each crafted a narrative that suited the horror or action genre respectively, something that couldn't just be rushed out production line style. But boy did Fox try. For a start, Alien 3 was unsure which genre exactly it wanted to stick to, at times flicking back and forth between the tone of both its predecessors. On top of that, the film mistook the moments of shock in the previous films (the chest-burster or stowaway Xenomorph in Alien, the huge queen in Aliens) as primarily important, opting to alienate fans by killing off Bishop, Newt and Hicks (as well as Ripley herself) in order to try and recreate something similar. When it came to Alien: Resurrection, then, the film's fate was already sealed. Some incredibly baffling decisions in Alien 3 stripped the franchise of many fan favourite characters, thus forcing a cloning narrative. The story had become a convoluted mess, resulting in the studio eventually ditching plot altogether for the Alien Vs. Predator disasters.