With another year closing, it is a fine moment to look back at the movies that rose to the ranks of the year’s best and most lucrative. And looking at that context, majority of the big box office winners and losers come from franchises.
So, it is tough to swallow the fact that 2019 saw a lot of promising franchises that dwindled, whether it is because of the financial performance or the subsequent reception.
This list will look back at ten prominent movie franchises that failed within the year, yet had follow-up movies planned that might not get a push.
10 Rambo Franchise
Sylvester Stallone’s active career still proves that he would succumb to any film role to prove his comeback. While that worked for the Rocky franchise with the Creed movies, it does not work for this year’s belated follow-up to the Rambo franchise, Rambo: Last Blood.
While the movie’s box office performance is mildly successful for $91.5 million, the audience reception was not kind with a 27% critics score in Rotten Tomatoes and 26 in Metacritic. Particular criticisms took notice of the movie’s unintended xenophobic undertones, gratuitous gore and tired tropes. So, it might be best to set John Rambo aside.
9 The Conjuring Universe
Back in 2013, James Wan’s horror flick The Conjuring was a success in the box office that it soon spawned an equally successful sequel in 2016. Later, the universe expanded with the dreadful Annabelle and the improved follow-up Annabelle: Creation, centering on the Annabelle doll.
With the success of the main series and the spinoffs, the horror series released The Nun, centering on the possessed nun Valak, to stale results. That staleness became apparent this year with The Curse of La Llorona and Annabelle Comes Home with varying degrees of quality.
Thanks to that, the horror novelty may be lost.
8 Lego Franchise
Before it was released, people had strong doubts about The Lego Movie. Yet, everyone was blown away of how outstanding it is. Of course, with that unexpected surprise, a whole new cinematic universe was mapped out.
With the exception of The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Movie universe never attained the same level of success from the first movie. The Lego Ninjago Movie went to have a mediocre performance. And this year, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part underperformed from expectation. With the rights now with Universal Pictures, it is uncertain how the Lego movie franchise can move forward.
7 Hellboy Franchise
Rather than continue (and may conclude) Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy series with a third film, a reboot was commissioned with scraps of the intended third film, which soon become one of the most disappointing movies of 2019.
2019’s Hellboy was criticized for its jumpy tone, phoned-in performances, derivative set pieces and lack of affinity for its creation. The behind-the-scenes news (including the recasting of Ben Daimio) also did not help matters. And this highly negative reception hurt its box office chances.
Even though David Harbour is the only saving grace, this movie brought hell to a new, potential Hellboy franchise.
6 MonsterVerse
The idea of building up Godzilla’s and King Kong’s origin stories to their eventual clash is a neat one with the 2014 Godzilla movie and the 2017 Vietnam War-inspired thriller Kong: Skull Island. Both nearly had the same critical reception and box-office performance that the third film of the MonsterVerse would elevate the excitement more for the crossover event Godzilla vs. Kong.
However, as seen from this year’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, those expectations can come like a lead balloon. Because of its subpar performance and dull response, Godzilla vs. Kong was pushed to November 2020. Something is wrong.
5 Charlie’s Angels Franchise
Here is a franchise revival that no one ever asked for. While the idea for a more progressive take on the Charlie’s Angels seems neat on paper, on film, it only achieved the involvement of more women on and behind the camera. Even Elizabeth Banks heavily encouraged in news interviews for people to watch the 2019 revival.
And yet, it received a cold response from critics and a lack of interest from audiences, leading to a stale box office performance. So, it is kind of awkward to see a universal-building bit from its legion of cameos. Maybe try next time.
4 Terminator Franchise
The Terminator franchise after T2: Judgment Day had a complicated and muddled history. After James Cameron left the franchise, a couple of follow-ups attempt to continue the lore and fail. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a downgrade of the first two. Terminator Salvation was a bloated post-apocalyptic mess that is only known for Christian Bale’s meltdown. And Terminator Genisys was a lofty soft reboot that failed miserably.
So, Cameron returned with full creative control for the direct T2 sequel Terminator: Dark Fate. The end result was a massive box office flop that killed any faith for the franchise.
3 Men In Black Franchise
Here is another franchise that does need a follow-up after the movie wrapped up in the third time travel movie. Yet, the MIB franchise still pushed to go with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson in the buddy-cop roles in the same vein as Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
While the two gave their all, Men in Black: International was an unjustified spin-off that became stuck on its tired tropes and did not establish its own identity. The end result is a meandering franchise continuation that was the first Men in Black movie not to gross over $100 million domestically.
2 X-Men/Fox Franchise
It is truly heartbreaking to see a once glorious franchise that had to end in a thud. That became the Fox X-Men franchise on what went in their minds for Dark Phoenix. The second attempt to adapt the iconic Dark Phoenix comic line, the intended trilogy starter was a failure from the start. From rehiring Simon Kinberg to the writer-and-director’s chair to the grueling production process, the movie had to adjust with changing release dates till it got an untimely release on June 2019.
Sooner, Dark Phoenix became a massive flop and a dirge on critics’ list. With the back-and-forth release date pushing of The New Mutants left uncertain, the Fox X-Men franchise had suffered a big blow to audiences.
1 Star Wars Franchise
Back again in Disney for another crucial franchise. After the company released The Force Awakens, the Disney lineup of Star Wars movies show a lot of promise. Even with the subsequent mixed results of Rogue One and The Last Jedi, they are still massive billion-dollar hits.
But, the test of quality and reception came with the release of last year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, which became the first Star Wars movie to flop in the box office. Though, the breaking point came in part of this year’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which received mixed-to-negative reception and raised high doubts over the Disney-Star Wars movie franchise. (But not to worry about its TV shows in Disney+ with The Mandalorian.)
Thanks to them, the spinoff movies were set aside and a brand new Star Wars series of movies was put on hold. The force was not strong on this.
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