10 Movie Franchises That Were Robbed Of An Ending
Not every franchise gets its endgame.
Transcript
00:00As Tony Stark once said from Beyond the Grave, part of the journey is the end.
00:04Of course, how a story arrives there is equally, if not even more important than the conclusion,
00:10but that ending is crucial to its success. This is no different in the movie industry,
00:15whether you're talking about a standalone movie or a franchise, although in today's
00:19landscape it seems that almost everything will eventually be turned into a franchise.
00:23Even if that is the plan, however, things don't always pan out as anticipated.
00:28Whether it's because of box office and critical failings, over-ambition, behind-the-scenes issues
00:33or a combination of the above, many movie franchises don't get to reach their end.
00:38Is there anything more infuriating than getting invested in a story,
00:42only for it to be robbed of its conclusion with no closure?
00:46Whether for better or worse, in the end is debatable, but some franchises get quite far
00:50into their story before having the rug pulled from under them, while others barely even begin.
00:55And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:58here with 10 movie franchises that were robbed of an ending.
01:0210. King Arthur Legend of the Sword
01:05Planning is absolutely essential when it comes to building a movie franchise.
01:10Without it, a studio runs the risk of suffering exactly what the Star Wars sequels went through,
01:15three movies that were completely disconnected and seemingly going out of their way to reckon
01:19the others. However, you have to be sensible about these things.
01:23Franchises like the aforementioned Star Wars, the MCU and any drawing-from-a-book series with
01:28a pre-existing passionate fanbase can reasonably expect success, but King Arthur was none of these.
01:34Of course, it's a famous story, but it doesn't exactly have the die-hard fans of Harry Potter.
01:39This is why announcing a six-movie franchise before the first movie had even been released
01:45was incredibly risky, particularly when a leading man lacking the star power to put
01:50such a franchise on his back. As popular as Charlie Hunnam was as Jax Teller in Sons of
01:54Anarchy, he couldn't lift King Arthur above a disappointing and franchise-ending box office
02:00of $148 million worldwide. Unsurprisingly, any hope of sequels died with this bomb.
02:069. The Chronicles of Narnia
02:08The previous entry referenced movie franchises adapting popular source material,
02:13and while this would certainly help the longevity of such franchises in theory,
02:17this isn't always the case. Look no further than The Chronicles of Narnia.
02:22The seven books, written by C.S. Lewis and considered classics by many,
02:26were published throughout the 1950s and have retained audiences right up to the present day.
02:31The film series, however, was hampered by issues that stopped it from getting anywhere near the
02:36end of the source material. The first movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pulled in an
02:40impressive $745 million, but both sequels performed considerably worse, with numbers of just over
02:47$400 million each. This put the studio off producing any more movies for a while, though
02:53things were seemingly back on track for the fourth of seven planned movies to release.
02:57However, this hope was short-lived, not only because enough time had passed that the children
03:02were too old to return to their roles, but because Netflix purchased the rights. This effectively
03:07killed the franchise on the spot. Noise was then made about a potential series at the streaming
03:12giant, though nothing of note has been heard since.
03:158. Spider-Man
03:16There will always be a passionate debate among comic book movie fans as to which iteration of
03:21Spider-Man is the best. Of course, all have their own merits, though Tobey Maguire's version of
03:26Peter Parker has a certain advantage for being the original. From 2002 through to 2007, Sam Raimi
03:32brought his trilogy to life. People loved the first movie, the second is the best of the three,
03:37but the less said about the third, the better. It essentially spat in the face of everything
03:41that made the first two movies great, opting to shove as many over-the-top characters and
03:45stories down audiences' throats as possible. Even in spite of its poor reception, Spider-Man 3
03:51performed well at the box office, and a fourth movie was confirmed. It was even given a 2011
03:57release date. But unfortunately, in spite of reportedly bringing back the core cast,
04:01as well as John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway as Vulture and Black Cat respectively,
04:06Sam Raimi wasn't happy with the script. The acclaimed director ultimately left the project,
04:11ending Tobey Maguire's stint as Spider-Man and opening the door for another.
04:15Which leads us to…
04:16Number 7. The Amazing Spider-Man
04:19What was Tobey Maguire's loss turned out to be Andrew Garfield's gain,
04:23as The Amazing Spider-Man saw the English actor's suit-up as a very different Peter Parker.
04:28Though Mark Webb's movies typically weren't as well-received as Raimi's,
04:32there is still a lot of love for Andrew Garfield himself.
04:35Peter 3 was, to many, the MVP of Spider-Man No Way Home, bringing a great deal of depth
04:41and emotion to proceedings. But according to the Sony leak of 2014,
04:46which claimed he was let go for failing to show up to a press event in Brazil,
04:50he was the architect of his own downfall.
04:53The event in question reportedly would have seen the announcement of The Amazing Spider-Man 3,
04:58ironically a movie that fans want to see now more than ever, slated for a 2016 release.
05:04Instead, with Garfield fired and a second Spider-Man franchise dead in the water in seven
05:08years, Sony turned to Marvel Studios. This was truly the final nail in the coffin,
05:13as Tom Holland was brought in to play in the MCU, leaving The Amazing Spider-Man 3 on the shelf
05:19forever. There is a slim hope for fans that the popularity of Garfield in No Way Home could spark
05:24a return to the franchise, but for the time being, it doesn't seem particularly likely.
05:29Number 6. Divergent
05:31Things started off well for the Divergent series, but the movie franchise suffered largely at the
05:36hands of cinematic trends that it tried to exploit. The first of these trends was the
05:40world's obsession with young adult novels in the wake of The Hunger Games' success.
05:44Debuting in 2012 and finishing in 2015, The Hunger Games is up there with the best young
05:50adult film franchises, leading to adaptations like Divergent and The Maze Runner. However,
05:55the Divergent series never reached the same level as The Hunger Games, and by the time the third
06:00movie released in 2016, no one really cared anymore. The young adult trend had passed,
06:06as was made very clear by Allegiant's sub-$200 million global take. It was at this point that
06:12the studio decided to abandon ship, leaving regret over the decision to split the final movie in two.
06:18Allegiant Part 1 performed so poorly at the box office that the franchise was killed on the spot.
06:23Talk of a TV movie was put to bed pretty quickly, with none of the cast even remotely interested.
06:295. Eragon
06:31In the same way that Divergent was essentially born out of the mainstream audience's brief
06:36obsession with young adult novels, Eragon was a product of the fantasy movie craze of the early
06:412000s. Just three years removed from Return of the King came a movie in the same vein,
06:46albeit far inferior. Eragon, based on the incredibly popular children's book series,
06:51was cursed by the same trend that brought about its release. There was a massive call for fantasy
06:56movies of this ilk, but with the likes of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to compete
07:00against, there was never really much hope for the franchise. Of course, it didn't help that
07:05the movie was as poor as it was. Even without being mired in an oversaturated genre, Eragon
07:10gave critics and audiences little to hang onto. Even with a fairly decent cast, there was little
07:16to redeem it. Like The Chronicles of Narnia, the full Inheritance Cycle source material,
07:21which is the book series Eragon is part of, was never destined to make it to the big screen. Only
07:26the first book was adapted, at which point the studio saw fit to pull the plug, and it's hard
07:31to argue with that decision. 4. Hellboy
07:34There are plenty of reasons for a movie not to be made, and many on this list have focused on
07:38the likes of poor showings at the box office or seeing an actor fired. Hellboy 3, however,
07:43seemingly never got made simply because of Guillermo del Toro's ridiculous schedule.
07:48He and actor Ron Perlman created a Hellboy that earned itself a loyal army of fans.
07:53After The Golden Army released in 2008, such fans immediately looked to a third Hellboy movie,
07:59while the director didn't. Instead, Del Toro was hired to direct The Hobbit. Of course,
08:04this didn't work out, but upon leaving the project, it was Pacific Rim that the director went to,
08:08again putting off Hellboy 3. Incredibly, it wasn't until 2017 that the
08:14threequel was officially cancelled, and after the David Harbour reboot became one of the biggest
08:19cinematic bombs in recent memory, it's unlikely any movie studio will touch the Hellboy property
08:24any time soon. 3. Multiple DCEU franchises
08:28The DC Extended Universe has never been without its issues since its inception in 2013. Tonal
08:35shifts, no real direction, huge flops, and plenty of troubles off-screen meant the DCEU was something
08:41of a problem child. Recently, moves have been made to steady the ship and take what is now
08:45known as the DCU into a brighter future. Mega changes are coming, but some of the biggest
08:50have been the cancellation of franchises, and confirmation that certain characters will no
08:55longer be appearing under the new banner. For example, Wonder Woman 3 has been scrapped,
09:00not too surprising after a reception of Wonder Woman 1984, as has what was arguably the franchise's
09:06most exciting prospect. Dwayne Johnson has a knack for boosting failing franchises,
09:11and he gave his everything to Black Adam. Fans loved it, in particular the long-awaited return
09:16of Henry Cavill in the movie's post-credits scene, and the thought of seeing the two go toe-to-toe
09:22down the line was amazing. However, it's since been confirmed that neither Henry Cavill's Man
09:26of Steel nor Black Adam have a place in the DCU's immediate future.
09:312. Fantastic Four The Tim Story Fantastic
09:34Four movies from the mid-2000s were inoffensive yet uninspired, but by 2015 they would retroactively
09:41be made to look a hell of a lot better. The 2015 reboot, which boasted an impressive cast on paper,
09:47will always be in the conversation for the worst comic book movie of all time.
09:51Certainly, that is suggested by its abysmal 9% Rotten Tomatoes score. Its audience score
09:56isn't much better at 18%, even though Fox had such high hopes before its release.
10:01The Fantastic Four movies certainly never lived up to the property's potential from the source
10:06material, and so building a universe around them seemed like a good opportunity,
10:10but not with a dull, joyless opener like Fantastic Four.
10:14After Josh Trank's infamous bomb, the movie that should have kickstarted a new Fantastic
10:18Four franchise instead ended up killing it. It wasn't long after this that Marvel's first
10:23family returned home to Marvel Studios and the MCU, hopefully opening the door for a much better
10:29version of the team in the future. 1. The Dark Universe
10:33Like King Arthur Legend of the Sword, there are too many franchises that tried to jump on the
10:38bandwagon of the shared universe trend before laying any solid foundations. Arguably, no
10:43potential franchise rushed into things so quickly than The Dark Universe. This was to be the shared
10:48universe of universal monsters, kicking off with Tom Cruise-led reboot of The Mummy in 2017.
10:55Cruise was just one of the huge names attached to the new mega-franchise,
10:58with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man,
11:02and Javier Bardem as Frankenstein's monster. Universal were seemingly throwing everything
11:07at this new franchise, and would have needed nothing short of a complete and utter disaster
11:11to pull out after just one movie. Unfortunately, this is exactly what The Mummy was.
11:17With a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 15%, an audience score of 35%, and a mediocre box office
11:23take, even the director labelled the movie as both brutal and the worst failure of his life.
11:29It would seem that the studio also agreed.
11:32And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
11:36below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification
11:40bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various
11:43social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture,
11:47I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.