8 Once-Popular Movie Franchises (That Will Never Work Again)

8. It Only Appeals To A Fragment Of The Population - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The problem with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn't that April O'Neil was involved in the turtle's backstory, or that Megan Fox wasn't right as that the once-plucky reporter, or that Splinter died, or that the heroes looked goofy, or that Shredder was a mute villain (in a last minute change to avoid him being white). The real problem was that so many people thought these were the deplorable film's issues.

Taking these as major negatives treats the whole enterprise with an air of sincerity it doesn't deserve. On a base level, the idea is dumb. The heroes are teenage, mutant, ninja turtles. Each element of that is so stupid that it would only ever work with children, and only ever really succeed in the mainstream at a time when teenagers, mutants and ninjas were totally cool - the late eighties and early nineties.

You see, whereas people of all ages recognise the cultural significance of Star Wars or The Lord Of The Rings, TMNT is only important to a thin slice of the populace - namely those who were aged between five and ten in 1989. And as these kids have grown up to now be a major vocal voice in the media, something they remember as being rad and epic (regrettably their words) is dragged from their rose-tinted memories into the real world. TMNT isn't some sacred cow that needs to be brought back every five or so years for a new generation of kids to experience - it's a period curio that shouldn't have advanced any further than Battletoads.

Of course, when it first crawled into life Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a gritty comic mocking then-current medium trends, but to think that justifies a self-serious take thirty years later misses that the whole idea was originally a one-off joke.