8 Movie Franchises That Should Have Quit While They Were Ahead

When It Should Have Quit: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

The Lord Of The Rings is a giant of not just the fantasy genre, but of cinema in general. A massive trilogy shot back-to-back that outshone Harry Potter at the box office and won the most Oscars ever (tied with Titanic and Ben-Hur), it changed the face of blockbuster cinema, leading to countless imitators and attempts to distil the formula. The Hobbit, in contrast, is a forgettably stunning waste of potential, at best another one of of those sloppy imitators, that showcased a massive drop-off in audience potential as it slogged on. And, unlike Star Wars, there's no real possibility of a late-in-the-day sequel trilogy to save this one.

As a series, The Middle-Earth Legend (as called in the trailers for The Battle Of The Five Armies) isn't that great; it's one-half classic, one-half dud, but without any effort could have been just the former. Leaving The Hobbit out completely (because its one important relation to The Lord Of The Rings is dramatised in those movies) or having just one film could have ensured this franchise remained an eternal success and that Peter Jackson, despite the overlong fanboy freak-out King Kong and tonal mess The Lovely Bones, could have ridden until the end of his career.

But because Frodo and co. loomed so large, the project was made so big that the only way to return a profit was to stretch it over three entries, a choice that predicates everything else wrong with the trilogy.