OldBoy

I'm watching the abortion known as Mission:Impossible II. I know it was financially very successful so this is perhaps a bad example of what I'm looking for, but it is tonally a bad sequel in this franchise. Just not the right director in Woo for this particular project. However, it took awhile and the franchise still thrives.

I think Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was also a reviled sequel but still the franchise lives on.

So what other franchises survived a dismal sequel?

Troy Stiffler

Some people like Fast and Furious 2, 3 and 4. But now way thought 5, 6, 7 would come back and be smash hits.

Michael Corvin

Final Destination. 3 & 4 were cinematic abortions, but 5 was a brilliant return to form. So instead of hoping the franchise to die, I'm curious if they could pull off a 6.

TomOpus

Jurassic Park/World

Double_Oh_7

MI:2 was a big disappointment.

Nick Danger

People hated Halloween III, Season of the Witch.

kgrogers1979

I think a better question would be what franchise hasn't survived a bad sequel. I can't think of any franchise where every single movie in it has been good.

Daytripper

Probably a bad example, but, "Exorcist III" (?) By no means a great film. And no where near the classic "The Exorcist". But it didn't have the box-office, awards or reviews as the original. But "III" (technically the real sequel to the original) has some pretty great acting, moments and scares for the series.

Jay G.

Maybe the ones that ended on a bad sequel? Godfather 4 was never made:
http://www.mtv.com/news/1576410/fran...-godfather-iv/



Star Trek has survived numerous bad sequels, but the original cast, Next Gen cast, and by some people's opinions, the new cast.

Star Wars survived the prequels.

Bond films have been a mix of good/bad films over the years.


In many cases, the bad sequel only shelves further films for a while, until the stink dissipates a bit and they can "reboot" the franchise.

For example, Indy IV looked like they were setting up Shia LaBeouf to take over the franchise, but that didn't materialize. But Disney is interested in doing another Indiana Jones movie.

devilshalo

X-Men. Survived a bad sequel (X3) and a not so great spin off (Wolverine Origins).

Jay G.

I thought of a good example for this. See, the issue is that when a franchise ends, you sometimes can't tell if it was because the last film sucked, or other reasons. For example, why no Lethal Weapon 5? Is it because the director/actors were tired of the films, or because 4 didn't make enough money?

But The Chronicles of Narnia is a clear example of something that was supposed to be a film franchise adapting all the novels, but they stopped after the 3rd film under-performed.... wait, looking up Wikipedia, it looks like the 4th film is being made.. currently 5 years after the last one. Man, that whole film series had had a rocky production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ch..._(film_series)


I also have to admire the tenacity of the Atlas Shrugged trilogy. The first film bombed, so the 2nd was produced on a reduced budget, then did even worse, so the 3rd film was so low budget that scenes of "Congressional hearings" looked like they were shot in a high school gym. But by golly, they finished the trilogy.

Numanoid

Good point. Another question would be what movie series had a follow-up to a bad entry do better than the bad one? Usually, a stinker will mean a reduced box office take for the next one, but sometimes that isn't true.

DJariya

The Rocky franchise survived Rocky V, which was the lowest grossing movie in the series.

Rocky Balboa was a box office hit and brought more satisfying closure to the series and now there's the spinoff Creed coming out later this year.

Mike86

I think the Back to the Future Trilogy is a good example where all the films were overall good and well received. I know some might say the sequels aren't as good as the original, but I think all three films are solid. Plus that's a case where the franchise ended on its own terms not because of a shitty final installment.

Troy Stiffler

The Saw, Elm Street and Jason franchises were ... persistent.

Groucho

Star Wars it seems.

Hokeyboy

Part II was positively reviled in 1989. Terrible reviews and unsatisfied audiences. It only got more positively recognized after III came out, and years later.

fumanstan

MI2 wasn't that much worse critically then the first movie. And Final Destination 3 (which I enjoyed) wasn't far off from #2 as well so I'd hardly call it a cinematic abortion. 4 on the other hand is probably a better example ratings wise compared to the rest of the series.

Fast and the Furious franchise and X-Men are pretty good examples relative to the rest of the movies in their respective franchises.

Hokeyboy

The first Mission: Impossible was a box office hit but it wasn't close to a slam dunk. Critics were mixed and audiences were mostly puzzled by or indifferent to it.

hdnmickey

Toy Story. Even the shorts and holiday TV offerings have been excellent.

DJariya

M:I 2 made over $546M worldwide, which is the second highest grossing movie of the series. It was hardly a box office bomb. Sure not everyone liked it or John Woo's style of directing, but it was hardly a disappointment financially or abomination.

DJariya

The Saw? It's just Saw

Actually the series was planned for 8 movies. But, Part 6 was such a box office disaster that Lionsgate killed Part 8 and asked the writers to wrap everything up in Part 7.

jacob_b

Part 2 made like $4 million more than Part 3, however Part 2 had a way bigger budget. Looks like the license had expired. No idea why they didn't pump them out since $400+ million is nothing to sneeze over. It's kind of like the Pirates series. Sure the movies may not have had good reviews, but it still made millions upon millions of dollars.

jacob_b

So kind of like Paranormal Activity in that there were supposed to be more but ended up cutting it short and just pissing everything away? Still pissed that the guy in the first one showed up in the last movie when the people behind the first says the doctor wasn't ever going to be apart of it.

Obi-Wanma

Yeah, I didn't hate part 3. If nothing else, it still has some fun, creative kills, which is the main thing I like about the series. 4 just isn't good on any level though.