Franchises are nothing to sniff at; their staying power is in debt to the people who are drawn to the story and characters enough to come back and watch their adventures over and over. That being said, there are some obvious franchises merely used to cash in and suffer for it.
I certainly didn't ask for a fourth
Pirates of the Caribbean, but that didn't stop it from making a bundle of money at the box office. The franchise currently sits at #5 on the list of the top grossing movie franchises of all time. Yet, what makes Johnny Depp's outings as a mascara-drunk pirate so endearing?
Honestly, what franchises were worth our time to begin with?
Obviously,
Harry Potter (which currently sits at the #1 standing on the list) had an eager fan-base before the films finished off; but the movies themselves were generally regarded as critical and commercial successes; and so, more films were bound to come about. The same (aside from previous publication) came about for the original Star Wars movies, not hitting a snag until the late 90s when George Lucas decided that he hated people and released
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
James Bond, cinema's longest running franchise (at 22/23 films) obviously has some great moments, but a few stinkers along the way as well.
Casino Royale represented a true return to form that reinterpreted the character for a modern day audience to wild success. But audiences worldwide were willing to give Bond a chance even though we were given some major failures all throughout Bond's history (like that treasure
Moonraker).
It was
recently announced that another
Rush Hour was currently in the mix, meaning that a sequel would probably appear sometime mid-summer in 2014. That's seven years away from its predecessor. However, that doesn't mean that it can't be successful, as
MIB:III seem to win over most people (not I) after an almost ten year hiatus.
But what about films that have a major issue in that they're merely exact duplicates of the first? Look at the
Lethal Weapon franchise (one of my favorites) or the
Scream franchise. Neither seem to cover new ground, yet both are about the same when it comes to box office pull and critical/commercial success.
Transformers seems to be in the same boat, promising more of the same (and to general distaste) but making lots of money doing so.
And of course, some are so left and right you never know what to expect (thank you, Mr. Burton, Schumacher, and Nolan). And there are some franchises that we'll never know how they would have turned out had they kept going. It seems odd after looking at
Transformers,
James Bond, and
X-Men why Raimi's
Spider-Man 4 wasn't given a bit more grace (and if not his vision, than another's, but keeping the same cast).
I pose the question to you: what franchises are you willing to forgive for their mistakes? What franchises would you like to see a return to form? What's your favorite moment in a franchise, and which franchise has been the most consistent? To check out where your favorite franchise stands globally, you can head over
here.