Third films are often really bad. Director Christopher Nolan has expressed his fear of the third film and asked how many good third movies are there? There are some good third films in franchises like goldfinger and the bourne ultimatum but almost no good third comicbook movies. Why is this exactly?
Are audiences getting tired of the same character or is there something else. Generally there are films like the matrix or shrek where the first movie was brilliant but then the sequel is a step down and the third movie is even worse. Superhero movie have been generally good in the first sequel (ie spider man 2, the dark knight, blade 2 and x men 2), usually two exceeds one, but the third movie is terrible.
I believe that the reason for this is that something is changed or a decision is forced on the director. In X men 3 the cast was the same but there were new writers and a director. This changes everything. Brian Singer had a clear version of where the x men franchise was going and even if x1 and x2 had different writers he took complete control of x men 2 and changed the script to kill Jean Grey in hopes of resurrecting her in a future movie. In spider man 3 the studio said that he had to introduce venom while maintaining the story he originally concieved, the result was a muddled film, not quite knowing where it wanted to go and I am convinced that if Sam Raimi was left alone we would have got a better film.
As I look to the future I can't help but think the dark knight rises will be different, there has been no change implemented upon the production and I also regard iron man 3 to be similar, there may be a new director but marvel studios know their stuff.
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