With a remake, reboot, or sequel every week, it’s time to look at ten franchises that need to end…
Look at a coming soon list of mainstream movies across the next 12 months and you’ll notice something. The titles all seem familiar. We’ve been there and we’ve done it already. Sometimes for 10 movies no less.
Hollywood loves existing IPs, assuming a recognised property will naturally come with a pre-existing audience and this is not always the case. More often than not resurrecting an old franchise leads to box office failure. Even when a film strikes box office gold it almost always pales in comparison to the previous franchise high (usually those at the beginning of the whole shebang). Just because something makes money, doesn’t mean going back to the well is a sure-fire route to success.
How badly do audiences want a disposable photocopy of a classic movie? Sometimes it’s just a case that a franchise hits the downslope and maybe an exit would be sensible before the execs start wondering if they can send the characters into space yet (franchises set in space notwithstanding). Here are 10 franchises which need to call time…
Alien
With Alien: Romulus in cinemas doing good business it seems unlikely the bigwigs will want to call it a day. The overall consensus from fans and critics has been that the film is a good entry into the franchise more in keeping with the first three movies and righting a few of the bizarre wrongs from the previous film, Alien Covenant. It seems the opening half has great world-building and Fede Alvarez commendably opts for physical sets and creatures as much as possible, but the film succumbs to a third act with far too many fan service callbacks (which you would assume might be a studio insistence). Still, good not great seems to be the median verdict.
However, in the past two days, I’ve watched Alien and Aliens again. Two absolute masterpieces in their field. Ridley Scott’s original brilliantly realises a labyrinthine yet claustrophobic setting and puts in Earthy blue-collar characters who feel genuine, before giving them an incredible foe to contend with. It’s still exceptional and it holds up in every facet, including the stunning visuals.
Aliens is bigger, broader with more archetypal movie caricatures, with Ripley almost playing the straight person among these near comical grunts and the classic movie douchebag, Burke (Paul Reiser). On every technical aspect, it’s masterful, and there’s never, EVER been a CGI action sequence created that could compete with any of the big, all-in-camera set pieces Cameron constructs in Aliens. The finale is still gripping and visually astounding (in a “how in the hell did they do that?” kind of way).
So sure, audiences are mostly enjoying a good solid entry but the likelihood is, that the only way is down should they go again and being under the Disney wing, audiences will always debate whether to wait mere weeks for it to hit streaming. Let’s put the Xenomorph to rest now and consider Romulus ending on a high.
Terminator
When it comes to another franchise so distinctly marked by the DNA of James Cameron’s brilliance, Terminator is one that started from his own feverish nightmare (and perhaps a few sources of notable literary and televisual inspiration). After a visceral and relentless nightmare beautifully realised in the first classic film, Cameron went huge on the sequel going from B-picture horror to blockbuster action.
Sure, if you pick it apart there’s a certain cynicism to bringing a young John Connor to an unneeded sequel to attract younger audiences, but all that Hollywood shit gets pushed aside by the jaw-dropping set pieces and anchoring performance from Linda Hamilton.
In terms of action blockbusters, nothing since has been better than Terminator 2 for sheer thrills, scale and impressive visuals. There are awesome stunts and practical FX complimented by carefully rationed CGI which was ground-breaking and used superbly. Every sequel since has looked like a visual downgrade, lacking strong direction and strong performances, with dire box office results.
We’re getting an anime soon, which is a sensible segue away from live-action movies, but rumours still swirl of a potential reboot. That idea should be terminated promptly.
Indiana Jones
A recent birthday compelled me to re-watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again for the 7 millionth (rough estimate) time given it was no 1 at the box office when I was born. It’s perfection. Like Alien(s) and Terminator 1-2, Raiders is a movie from a time when visionary and perfectionist directors at their creative zenith were let loose to make great movies.
They weren’t making content, they were making movies to stand the test of time and not be forgotten by the time you exit the cinema screen as happened to me when watching Deadpool & Wolverine. Sure I vaguely recall having a good time and some laughs, but it just won’t stick. I watched Raiders the same day. The craft, the blocking, the storytelling, the characters, the music, the setups and payoffs, and the stakes, are all vastly superior. Maybe this is a bit unfair because Spielberg in his pomp was a class above most.
Still, Raiders was followed by two great, if respectively flawed, sequels that still sit well above all but a half per cent of modern tent pole films. Film-makers do lose their lustre in time and Spielberg’s blockbuster output isn’t as good as his continued more “mature” films like Bridge of Spies. So whether he does Crystal Skull or hands over the reigns for James Mangold to make Dial of Destiny for a House of mouse helmed fifth, the results are the same: Disappointment and likely the same result should they go again.
The box office failure of Dial of Destiny might have done the work, and perhaps the age of Harrison Ford now, but another trip with the whip to track whatever MacGuffin would be pointless. A reboot with a new actor? Totally egregious. Gather the whip, the fedora and all other accessories and place them in that big storage warehouse along with the Ark of the Covenant.
Mad Max
I seem to be in the minority, but for me, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was overlong, meandering and lifeless compared to the four films which preceded it (yes, even Beyond Thunderdome). It had its moments and it was technically impressive, but felt the least physical and earthy of the whole franchise given an increase in CGI and green screen sets. It felt oddly clean in fact.
The movie took way too long to get us to Anya Taylor-Joy only for her to feel somewhat bland in a role made so compelling by Charlize Theron and I love ATJ in every other thing she’s been in. Theron showed us the entire movie of Furiosa in her performance in Mad Max: Fury Road. We got it from her very limited dialogue in that layered portrayal.
The origin fascination which drives much of Hollywood gave us a two-and-a-half-hour chaptered opus which seemed to lack the drive and perpetual motion of Fury Road and never matched the previous films for set pieces. To add insult to injury, three people watched it in theatres and that may well be all she wrote. That may not dispel the urge in the studio or maybe even Miller to go back to the wasteland to see what Max is up to though.
John Wick
In recent times one of the better action franchises has been John Wick. The films with great world-building and the quiet enigma of Keanu Reeves in the lead, have stretched to four main films, an upcoming spinoff and a spinoff show.
We’ve now gone past the point of regression and one too many trips to the well. The simple tale of vengeance and gun-fu in the original was given unexpected sincerity thanks to Reeves’ quietly compelling performance before the world began to bloom into a comic book-esque elaborate world of traditions, inner circles and deadly assassins.
There are only so many times Wick can fall from great heights or soak up hails of bullets in his bulletproof tailored suit (that shark-jumping idea has been milked more times than a seasoned dairy cow, or Peter North).
Like so many modern blockbusters, particularly when a director approaches something like carte blanche, the films got progressively longer and John Wick: Chapter 4, though filled with some impressive moments had so many of its vignettes which felt redundant, whilst it was the presence of Donnie Yen which averted the film from becoming a chore.
Spinoffs almost always fall well short and it feels like Reeves has now run his course as the character. It’s ended on good will and another return could erode much of that.
The Crow
It was always doomed to fail from the first sequel onward. No one remembers the first batch of sequels, nor the one-season wonder show, Stairway to Heaven, but the original film from Alex Proyas was visionary. Regardless of the association with Brandon Lee’s untimely death, there’s no doubt that, had he lived, the film would still be a cult classic thanks to his charismatic and vulnerable performance.
Lee was a sensation placed into a world of unique visual style thanks to Proyas. The cast list was bolstered with a collection of excellent character actors as the Rogues Gallery, with Tony Todd, David Patrick Kelly, Bai Ling and particularly Michael Wincott all superb. Then the soundtrack on top; Perfection.
The long-awaited remake always felt doomed. As doomed as my diet faced with a box of Krispy Kremes beneath my nose. Despite Bill Skarsgard being such an interesting and engaging performer, he always felt miscast in a film that seemed styled on outdated noughties-era films like Hitman and Marky Mark’s Max Payne fiasco, from the guy who made a painfully conventional live-action version of Ghost in the Shell.
2024’s The Crow felt a sure bet to be terrible, lived up to that and the box office reflected exactly how much audience anticipation there was to see this. Had they re-released the original wide, it would have made double easily and it’s a great movie. It’s time to let Eric Draven rest, but as Hellboy (post-Guillermo del Toro) has shown, even box-office disasters don’t always put the studios off.
Star Wars
Star Wars has been oversaturated to the point of exhaustion by Disney. For me, who grew up on the Original Trilogy, I’ve found the whole thing tiresome since the dire Prequels and yet somehow, it’s all managed to get even worse.
The odd anomaly aside, like Andor and The Mandalorian, Star Wars has become a chore to watch and it feels like young audiences aren’t getting attached to the lore as Disney would like. Like trying to kill a fly by emptying a fully loaded mini-gun, Disney just keeps firing in the hope of getting the result they want.
Fast and Furious
After 10 films and more on the way, the once counter-culture cult phenomenon is beginning to look like a mid-life crisis fever dream. Vin Diesel is getting too old for this shit. Sure, it’s not as bad as playing a 50-year-old extreme sports punk as he did in XXX 3, but grunting out “family” intermittently whilst his support cast steals the limelight is no longer luring audiences like it once did.
The whole thing started silly (but with a dash of sincerity) and has gotten ever more ridiculous to the point it makes The Avengers look like The Battle of Algiers.
With the tragic loss of Paul Walker, the franchise has rolled downhill at speed having lost the straight anchor, the one who always gave these films a semblance of heart.
Mission: Impossible
I love Tom Cruise and his continuing commitment to doing crazy stunts. Mission: Impossible – Fallout was superb. Top Gun: Maverick was also unexpectedly brilliant. So when the latest instalment of Ethan Hunt’s misadventures hit screens last year to underwhelming box office a red flag emerged.
The film was still quite fun but these have always been built on a simple MacGuffin chase formula that works best as relatively simple. That chase, far from complex became a bit too convoluted and decidedly less interesting by venturing into AI as an antagonist.
Meanwhile, after the seat-gripping brilliance of Maverick’s set plays and the stunts and crunching fight work of Fallout, nothing in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning really came close and there was a distinct rise in CGI embellishments that soured some of the great stunts Cruise is still doing (the motorcycle jump on screen doesn’t look half as impressive as the behind the scenes version).
Even at effectively half a film, Dead Reckoning still felt excessively long, meandering much like Furiosa and John Wick: Chapter 4. Maybe Ethan Hunt should refuse another mission after the upcoming resolution.
Jurassic Park
When Jurassic Park came out it was a real game changer. Growing up it was probably the first mass pop cultural event movie that I was in the cinema for. It was huge and it was epic and genuinely stunning.
Among the visionary effects, you had interesting characters and the masterful hand of Spielberg to build tension and tease us through half a movie of intrigue before properly introducing the might of the T-Rex and the beady-eyed threat of the Raptors.
No creature feature since has done this half as well, and Spielberg ought to know, having made a shark movie that thousands have copied and yet only he has made one that was above competent (a masterpiece in fact).
What’s more with every development in CGI, it inevitably means that more possibilities mean more effects shots, longer effects shots, to the point the dinos become a whole lot less impressive than how Spielberg structured and constructed his set pieces and how he placed those CGI shots among the animatronics used.
Just because CGI can perform any camera movement you can think of on a visual backdrop of limitless possibilities, and similarly, the creatures doesn’t mean it’ll be better. I’d go as far as to say every sequel after The Lost World has looked horrible in comparison to the original film. Firing CGI dinos at the screen like a toddler tossing a box of rice krispies around the damn room (my daughter never did that…I swear…). We get it, and do Gen Z kids like dinosaurs that much? Dwindling interest suggests not. There’s another on the way with Jurassic World Rebirth but let’s see if they learned any lessons from the superb Godzilla Minus One on how to make this kind of film.
Honourable Mentions: Predator, Bond, Bad Boys, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Rocky/Creed, The Evil Dead, Ghostbusters, Thor
Which franchises have run their course? Do you want to see more original movies? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
