9 Movie Franchises That Awkwardly Continued When Their Stars Bailed

6. The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990)

NeverEnding Story People like to make jokes about the title "The NeverEnding Story," saying things like: "If it's never-ending, how come the movie ends?", when really we should be thankful for the fact that this series has come to an end - it should have stopped at the original movie, to be entirely honest, given that they recast original main character Barret Oliver for the second movie and replaced him with Jonathan Brandis. All dignity went out of the window. Yes, for some reason, when it came to making the follow-up to what is now considered to be something of a children's classic, the producers decided that they would go in a different direction entirely - one that not a single other person really wanted it to go in. So what we got was a sequel that felt nothing like The Never-Ending Story in any way - the effects, the characters, the tone, the writing... all cheap and awkward looking.
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