Dec 14 2011
8 Movies That Were Supposed to Start Franchises but Sucked
I would imagine that when you’re a producer or director there’s always the hope and expectation that your movie turns out to be a huge success, gets critical acclaim, and lines you up to be big time for years.
Unfortunately it rarely works out that way. One way to achieve that success is by creating a movie that will lend itself to sequels and/or prequels.
I’m sure these movies had high expectations to start franchises but they wound up sucking in the end…
Thanks to Listal for these movie picks
Supergirl (1984)
I think everyone was somewhat excited at the prospects of Supergirl. Also, this was Helen Slater’s chance to be a big star. Unfortunately when you make a really crappy movie the prospects for another just don’t work out. You never what will happen now. I could see Kate Beckinsale or somebody like that reprising this role but I guess they’re kind of busy on Man of Steel.
Howard the Duck (1986)
The reason I bring this up is because of George Lucas. It’s hard to believe that he was attached to something this crappy. Something tells me that Lucas might have needed some cash.
The Shadow (1994)
When this movie came up did you know what The Shadow was? Neither did I. Turns out it was a comic book. Personally I think this might have been a case of bad timing. The 90s weren’t great time for comic book movies. And now? Now it’s too much. But frankly this movie was terrible so I don’t think it ever had a chance.
Godzilla (1998)
It was big, it was bad, it was horrible. The monster itself just looked like shit. I think everyone was expecting the old school Godzilla and we got a virtual dinosaur that turned out to be female and annoyed us. And the whole baby Godzillas lent itself to absolutely nothing.
Even More Uncoachable Stuff
- The Funniest Jim Carrey Movies Of All Time
- What is This World Coming To – Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake Suing Over Gay Allegations With Hulk Hogan
- 12 People Dressed as Batman Characters
- The Rankings Report: Top Ten Hottest Females in Movies Based on Comics
- Sexy Girls Dressed as Video Game Characters
Howard the Duck is an awesome movie!
There weren’t any aliens in Wild Wild West either…
Funny thing is there are way worst movies now on there second and third film, Men in Black, and the God awful Ghostrider for example. Cowboys and Aliens was good.
Entertaining, maybe. But Cowboys and Aliens, “good?” No.
Agree with you on most of these, except about Jake Gyllenhaal (he carried Donnie Darko all right!). For me, these ranged from so-so (Prince of Persia, both the Hulks, Jumper) to flawed (The Shadow) to outright awful (Supergirl.)
If Man Of Steel is a hit, they should give Supergal a reboot.
I’m actually tickled that Fantastic Four’s not on this list, since it got a sequel. But I hope they do a better job with the up-and-coming one.
The Incredible Hulk wasn’t a failed movie franchise, its one of Marvel’s phase one movies, leading up to the avengers. All they did was change the actor from Edward Norton to Mark Ruffolo.
Who in their right mind would pick Kate Beckinsale for Supergirl??? This isn’t the early 90s. Supergirl is basically a teenage superhero. That’s like picking Hugh Jackman to play a college version of Spider-Man, or Jon Hamm to play Robin.
As for The Incredible Hulk, it is a failed franchise. Although The Hulk has been carried over to The Avengers, the actual attempts to make The Hulk into it’s own franchise have failed. The fact that they’re still not sold on another Hulk movie is evidence of that. If there ever is another Hulk movie it will be as a result of The Avengers ability to build a franchise, not Hulk or Incredible Hulk.
No mention of Remo Williams? It actually had a subtitle of “The adventure begins” and a tag line of “look out, James Bond”.
What about those god awful AVP movies? Not only that franchise failed miserably, it nearly killed both Alien and Predator franchises.
The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton was amazing (Though I wish the studio would have let him do his version so he could have been in The Avengers)…Prince of Persia and jumper were also good movies.