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

1. It's A Product Of Its Time - Indiana Jones

Chris Pratt would be inspired casting as Indiana Jones. There's no one out there who has that balance of cool confidence and serious yet comic timing perfected quite like Star Lord (Bradley Cooper certainly doesn't), making him a shoe-in for the role. Unfortunately, whatever Indy movie he ends up being in (no aliens please) is doomed to failure on an even more fundamental issue - the entire notion of more Indiana Jones is idiotic.

Now let's not get any wires crossed here - Raiders Of The Lost Ark is a masterpiece, not just of blockbuster cinema, but of the whole medium in general, and its two immediate sequels are both fun romps. But they work because of when they were made, both in terms of movie-making trends and cultural applicability, and are hardly transferable to the 21st Century.

When Harrison Ford first wore the fedora the world was still reeling from the revelation Darth Vader is Luke's father and Steven Spielberg was known just as the guy who did Jaws. Now an unironic action hero in a throwback to action serials is both antiquated and unfitting of the high-scale adventure employed by most blockbusters that a remake would be shoe-horned into.

You see, Indiana Jones may exist in the 1930s, but he's intrinsically eighties. The movies mark a significant change in Hollwood's approach and, despite not having many of the decade's more garish elements, its success come from the period's style, while Indy himself goes up against villains who hadn't been fully assimilated into history books at that point (the older generation had clear memories of World War II). A modern Indy can either reboot in the thirties, a time too far removed from our present, or maintain the time difference Bond-style, which would lead to a Cold War (and thus immediately less fun) story. Neither of those is a delectable prospect.

The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull partially proved this point, showing how the adventures don't work transplanted to a new time period, nor in the modern blockbuster landscape, although those faults have been dismissed in favour of inter-dimensional baddies and Harrison Ford being too old (which are both big faults, but miss the bigger point). And thus another one is inevitably doomed.

Which other franchises are never going to reclaim former glory? And why? Join the discussion down in the comments.