Failed Franchise Attempts: What Went Wrong

Some movie franchises feel like they were built to last. Others? They crash and burn so hard you wonder how anyone greenlit them in the first place. We’ve all seen it: a movie with promise, a decent box office, and then-boom-three sequels in five years, all of them worse than the last. Fans walk away. Critics laugh. Studios lose millions. And no one talks about it anymore.

They Thought the First Movie Was a Hit-So They Made More

A lot of failed franchises start with a simple mistake: confusing box office numbers with quality. Just because a movie makes $200 million doesn’t mean it’s a story worth continuing. Take After (2019). It made over $100 million worldwide on a $10 million budget. The studio saw dollar signs and rushed out three sequels in under two years. The problem? Critics panned the acting, the script, and the pacing. Fans called it shallow. The sequels didn’t just underperform-they tanked. By the fourth film, audiences had already moved on. The franchise didn’t die because it was bad-it died because it was rushed.

Same thing happened with Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009). The first movie made $400 million. The sequel? It made $300 million. Sounds great, right? Except the second film had zero new ideas. It recycled the same plot, same jokes, same CGI animals doing slapstick. By the third movie, ticket sales dropped by 60%. The studio kept making them anyway-four total-because they thought fans would keep showing up. They didn’t.

They Changed the Core of What Made It Work

Franchises fail when they lose sight of what made the original special. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) tried to turn the monster into a cosmic hero with emotional arcs and human drama. But fans didn’t want a character study. They wanted giant creatures smashing cities. The movie got slammed for over-explaining Godzilla’s motives. The next film, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), fixed it by going back to basics: two monsters fight. Simple. Loud. Fun. The first sequel failed because it tried to be profound. The second succeeded because it remembered what it was.

Look at Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It wasn’t a box office failure-it made $1 billion. But it killed the spirit of the original trilogy. Fans didn’t hate it because it was bad. They hated it because it turned Jedi into bureaucrats, added annoying characters, and replaced mystery with exposition. The sequels that followed-Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith-were stuck trying to fix the damage. The damage was already done. The franchise never recovered its cultural momentum.

They Ignored the Audience’s Emotional Connection

People don’t follow franchises because of special effects. They follow them because of characters they care about. Transformers (2007) was a visual spectacle. But by the third movie, Dark of the Moon (2011), the robots had more screen time than the human characters. The plot? A mess. The dialogue? Cringe. The emotional stakes? Zero. Audiences didn’t care who won because they didn’t care about anyone on screen. The franchise kept making movies for five more years. Each one made less money than the last. Why? Because no one felt anything.

Compare that to John Wick. The first movie was lean, quiet, and brutal. The sequels didn’t add more explosions-they deepened Wick’s grief, his isolation, his code. The world expanded, but the heart stayed the same. That’s why people still show up. Franchises that ignore emotion don’t just fail-they become forgettable.

They Made Too Many Sequels Too Fast

Speed kills franchises. Shrek made $484 million in 2001. The sequel came out in 2004. Good. The third in 2007. Still okay. But then-Shrek Forever After in 2010. And then? Nothing for six years. The studio tried to revive it with a TV special in 2015 and a spin-off in 2017. It didn’t work. Why? Because the magic faded. They stretched the story too thin. By the time they came back, the audience had grown up. The jokes didn’t land. The characters felt tired.

Same with The Hangover. Three movies in six years. The first was a surprise hit. The second was funny. The third? A lazy rehash. The studio kept pushing because the first two made money. But audiences could tell they were running on fumes. The third movie made half what the second did. No one wanted to see Phil, Stu, and Alan get into trouble again. They’d already seen it.

They Didn’t Know When to Stop

Some franchises should’ve ended after one movie. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) was the sixth film in a series that started in 2002. The first movie had a decent premise: a virus turns people into zombies in a secret lab. By the sixth, Milla Jovovich was fighting laser-wielding zombies on the moon. The plot made no sense. The tone was absurd. The budget was $40 million. It made $120 million worldwide. But that wasn’t enough to justify continuing. The studio kept making them because they could-because they thought fans were still watching. They weren’t.

Look at Poltergeist. The original (1982) is a horror classic. The sequels? One was made for TV. Another was a direct-to-video mess. The third tried to reboot it with new actors and a new story. It flopped. Why? Because the original had something no sequel could replicate: a sense of dread, real fear, and emotional weight. The sequels were just cheap copies.

They Chased Trends Instead of Staying True

Franchises that try to be trendy die fast. Twilight (2008) rode the vampire romance wave. It made $400 million. The sequels followed the same formula. But by the time Breaking Dawn Part 2 came out in 2012, the trend was over. Teens had moved on to dystopian YA. The studio tried to keep the franchise alive with a TV series, a reboot, and even a musical. None of it worked. The moment you stop being authentic to your story, you become a product-and products get replaced.

Look at Fast & Furious. The first movie was about street racing and family. By the seventh, they were driving cars into space. The eighth had a villain who could control the weather. The ninth? A submarine chase. The tenth? A space mission. The franchise didn’t fail-it evolved. But it lost its identity. Fans who loved the original cars and street culture walked away. The new fans? They’re there for the spectacle, not the story. And spectacle doesn’t build loyalty.

What Separates the Survivors From the Failures

The franchises that last don’t just make more movies. They earn them. They listen. They protect the core. They know when to pause. James Bond has had 25 films over 60 years because they change actors, not the soul of the character. Indiana Jones came back after 30 years because the story had something left to say. Harry Potter ended on a high note-and the spin-offs built on that legacy, not tried to replace it.

Successful franchises treat sequels like chapters, not cash grabs. They ask: Does this story still matter? Do the characters still have room to grow? Are we giving fans something new-or just more of the same?

Franchises don’t die because they’re bad. They die because they’re lazy.