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

4. He Has Weak Stories - Spider-Man

When Spider-Man hit in 2002, bringing a superhero to the screen at all was impressive. Doing it faithfully, or using a film to dramatise a much loved arc was a pipe-dream. Heck, Sam Raimi and co. made a massive deal about how they sort of adapted Spider-Man No More for five minutes in Spider-Man 2 - that's how rare comic adherence was.

Over a decade later and things are very different: Marvel are slowly building to Infinity War while also paying off major arcs such as Civil War and The Winter Soldier; X-Men are now all about realising their famed stories (Days Of Future Past, Apocalypse) with the ever rotating cast; DC are leaning heavily on the comic lore (bits of The Dark Knight Returns and New 52), making an epic Crisis storyline all but inevitable.

And this leaves Peter Parker in a bit of a pickle; he doesn't really have any adventures fans are champing at the bit for. Oh sure, he has some brilliant villains, but the epic story arcs that jump to mind are either total messes (the nonsensical Clone Saga and fan-despised One More Day) or rely too heavily on characters currently tied up with different studios (Civil War) and thus have no hope at working on screen.

Spidey was for a long time Marvel's most popular hero (until Robert Downey, Jr. moved into Tony Stark's Malibu mansion), but mainly because his down-trodden, yet secretly strong character resonated with the audience. In a world where Guardians Of The Galaxy reigns and The Avengers are mainstream, that just doesn't cut it.