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

6. Its Brand Is Far Too Old - The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The most important phrase in Hollywood moment (aside from "How can we copy Marvel?") is "brand recognition". Why bother coming up with a new idea when you can just ride an audience's goodwill towards an old one? Even if the film doesn't really fit the brand parameters (Roland Emmerich's Godzilla, Ang Lee's Hulk), just slap on the name and reap in the cash.

And it works. For all the widespread bemoaning of sequels and reboots, audiences are much happier forking over cash to something safe and familiar. Of course, the logic of this breaks down when you mistake "brand recognition" for "existed at some point in history".

The Lone Ranger is a prime example of this - while it was a proven brand back in the sixties, due to the pesky passage of time it was only really known to those much older than the movie's target audience, and mucked with the source so much (what the hell happened to Tonto?) that there was little to appeal to the younger few who had heard "Hi Ho Silver" uttered before.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. repeated The Lone Ranger's mistake, even going as far as casting John Reid himself, Armie Hammer, as one of the leads. Based on a British TV known only fleetingly to modern audiences for its odd name (although thanks to Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. acronym titles are now pretty vogue), you could argue that with Hammer, Henry Cavill and Alicia Vikander being directed by Guy Ritchie this is actually a very modern spy story, but that just begs the question, "Why base it on U.N.C.L.E. in the first place?"