Nobody gave a damn about these "thrilling" cliffhanger endings.
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00:00Cliffhanger endings are generally intended to leave the audience desperate for more,
00:05to ensure they'll return for the next installment which continues the dangling narrative thread.
00:10When it's done well, like in Avengers Infinity War for example, it can truly capture the general
00:16public's imagination and generate surging hype for the next movie. But for every genuinely
00:22thrilling and shocking cliffhanger, there are many that simply don't make much of a dent with
00:27audiences. Sometimes a cliffhanger just doesn't hit how the filmmakers or studio intended,
00:33and the reaction from general viewers is total apathy, a simple lack of interest in what it's
00:38setting up. That's certainly true of these 10 movies, which whether good or not,
00:43all failed to deliver the satisfyingly tantalizing cliffhangers they thought they were.
00:49So I am Gareth here from WhatCulture.com and here are 10 Movie Cliffhangers Nobody Cared About.
00:5510. Baby Godzilla Hatches – Godzilla 1998
00:59Sony originally had very high hopes for Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla film,
01:04which they envisioned as the first entry into an epic blockbuster trilogy. Assuming it turned a
01:09hefty profit of course. To that end, Godzilla 98 ended up with a rather lousy setup for a sequel,
01:15where following Godzilla's death, a single one of its eggs is revealed to have survived in the ruins
01:20of Madison Square Garden. In the final shot, the egg hatches. What a shocker. As cliffhangers go,
01:27it's pretty damn lazy, basically suggesting that a sequel would restore the status quo with another
01:33Zilla running rampant. Perhaps had we seen a few surviving creatures hatch, hyping up a sequel with
01:38way more giant monsters, this might have better energized audiences. Instead, following Godzilla's
01:44underperformance at the box office, Sony opted not to proceed with a sequel. Instead, the storyline
01:50was picked up in the Godzilla animated series, which while better received by fans, struggled to
01:55find an audience due to competing with both Pokemon and Digimon. That is some fierce competition.
02:009. Stowaway Smith – The Matrix Reloaded If you're old enough to have seen The Matrix
02:05Reloaded in cinemas, you'll remember how feverish the excitement was. That the Wachowskis were back
02:11with a sequel to one of the greatest action films of all time. It ultimately fell short of most
02:16fans' expectations, yet even those who staunchly defend the movie won't have much positive to say
02:22about its absolute nothing burger of a cliffhanger sequel bait ending. At film's end, Neo unexpectedly
02:28manifests abilities in the real world, which he uses to destroy a fleet of incoming machines before
02:33falling into a coma. In the final scene, it's revealed that the rescue ship has taken aboard
02:38another survivor from the machine's attack, Bane, who earlier in the film became possessed by Agent
02:44Smith. And then, just before the end credits roll, a title card reads, To Be Concluded.
02:50Even though everybody knew a third Matrix film was mere months away from release when they went to
02:55watch Reloaded, they sure as hell didn't expect to be left with such a lackluster pair of reveals
03:00to tee up the trilogy-concluding entry. As such, it's perhaps little surprise that The Matrix
03:05Revolutions grossed barely half of what Reloaded did. Ouch.
03:09Michael Gets Broken Out of Prison – Halloween V The Revenge of Michael Myers
03:14Halloween V The Revenge of Michael Myers is a film that broke the audience's spirit early on,
03:19and basically never recovered from it. After Halloween IV ended with a genuinely tantalising
03:24cliffhanger which suggested that Michael Myers' niece Jamie Lloyd had inherited his killer
03:29instinct, the fifth film opened by basically negating it. The rest of the movie plays out
03:34rather dispiritingly, before Michael is captured by the police and set to be held in custody until
03:39his dying day. Except, of course, that doesn't happen. Instead, the movie ends when a mysterious
03:45man wearing all black breaks into the police station, murders all the cops and sets Michael
03:50free. Even with the genuine mystery of the man in black's identity, it was tough to give much
03:55of a damn about this cliffhanger after the previous movie's considerably more compelling one
03:59was a massive cop-out. And as it turned out, the sixth film's explanation – that a cult of druids
04:05were behind Michael's liberation – didn't exactly impress many fans anyway.
04:10Abraham Lincoln Planet of the Apes 2001
04:14If you were unlucky enough to watch Tim Burton's ill-fated 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes in the
04:19cinema, you might recall how you could hear a pin drop when that hysterical head-scratch of a final
04:24scene played out. After Captain Leo Davidson travels back through the electromagnetic storm
04:29in an attempt to get home, he crash-lands in Washington, D.C., and finds that the Lincoln
04:34Memorial has been replaced with a statue commemorating General Thade. Moreover, the
04:39cops, firefighters and news reporters who quickly arrive on the scene are all apes. What the hell.
04:45While it's understandable that Burton and company didn't want to merely rehash the original 1968
04:50film's widely-known twist – that the ape planet was Earth all along – er, spoilers, I guess – this
04:56sequel-teasing cliffhanger proved so head-smackingly ridiculous that it killed most interest in
05:01another movie altogether. Hilariously, Burton himself explained in the film's DVD commentary
05:06that the cliffhanger wasn't really supposed to make any sense, but simply drop enough of a WTF
05:11bomb that it would leave audiences curious to know what the hell happened. Evidently,
05:15the gambit didn't quite pay off, as despite turning a decent profit, both Burton and Fox
05:20swore off a sequel, putting the franchise on ice until 2011's reboot Rise of the Planet of the
05:26Apes. Can you remember another ending that made you audibly ask, WTF just happened? Let us know
05:31down below in the comments section, my friends! 6. Mr. Sinister Is Coming – X-Men Apocalypse
05:37Despite being the penultimate mainline X-Men movie, X-Men Apocalypse was actually intended
05:42to set up a whole new era of X-Men films prior to Disney's acquisition of Fox. The post-credits
05:47scene showed a fleet of men in black suits raiding William Stryker's Weapon X facility
05:52and retrieving samples, before a closing shot of a briefcase reads Essex Corp.
05:57First and foremost, this meant absolutely nothing to non-comic book fans, who wouldn't in any way
06:02appreciate that this was teeing up Nathaniel Essex, aka Mr. Sinister, to be the X-Men series'
06:08next big bad. Secondly, given that this movie had literally just spent 144 minutes ruining one of
06:14the most iconic comic villains of all time, Apocalypse, why the hell would anyone be
06:18excited that the same creatives were adapting Mr. Sinister next? The most damning proof that
06:23nobody cared, though, X-Men Apocalypse underperformed at the box office, and follow-up
06:28Dark Phoenix, which ultimately didn't feature Mr. Sinister anyway, was an outright flop,
06:33effectively sealing the franchise's fate. 5. Daisy's Sequel Bait – Super Mario Bros
06:39Super Mario Bros. may not be a very good movie, and certainly not a good adaptation of its
06:44video game namesake, but it gets points for its creative production design and generally bonkers
06:49throw-everything-at-the-wall filmmaking. That doesn't mean that its hilariously optimistic
06:53cliffhanger ending in any way got audiences, young or old, hyped for a potential sequel,
06:59though. The final scene sees Princess Daisy rock up to Mario and Luigi's apartment,
07:04totting a large gun and burned clothes, before insisting she needs their help,
07:08and that they're not gonna believe what she's been through. Mario and Luigi quickly grab their
07:12wares, but before Daisy can explain what's up, the movie abruptly ends. Cliffhangers intended
07:17to set up sequels generally need to give audiences a little more than just this. Show them how the
07:23stakes are gonna be raised for a sequel, or give them a glimpse of a new world or even the next
07:27movie's antagonist. Instead, Super Mario Bros. basically gave viewers close to nothing, and so
07:32it's little surprise that few were enthused to see what happened next. 4. Let the Games Begin –
07:38Dracula Untold Shortly before Dracula Untold's release,
07:42the film reportedly underwent reshoots to retroactively fashion it as the first entry
07:46into Universal's new Dark Universe, a cinematic universe set to feature the studio's most iconic
07:52monsters, like the Mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein and the Invisible Man. Despite this, Universal
07:58denied claims that Dracula Untold was the series' launching pad, perhaps in part because said
08:03reshoots resulted in such a lacklustre, unimpressive set-up for future stories.
08:07The film's tacked-on present-day epilogue sees Vlad, aka Dracula, meet up with a woman, Mina,
08:13who bears a strong resemblance to his dead wife, Marina. The master vampire who first turned Vlad
08:18into a vampire is then revealed to be watching them, and as they walk away, the master vampire
08:23quips, let the games begin. Evidently, the ending placed Vlad in the present day in order to set up
08:29his future interactions with the other monsters in the Dark Universe, with the master vampire
08:33possibly acting as the Nick Fury-esque link between them all. Audiences were more confused
08:38than interested though, and so Universal decided to relaunch the Dark Universe with Tom Cruise's
08:44The Mummy a few years later, which similarly failed to strike a chord with viewers.
08:51Quintessa Lives – Transformers The Last Knight Transformers The Last Night may not have been a
08:55billion-dollar mega-hit like its predecessor, but it still grossed over $600 million worldwide,
09:01meaning that a hell of a lot of people went to see it. And so, why is it that not a single
09:05solitary soul can remember how it ended? Michael Bay's final Transformers film
09:10concluded with a few teases for the planned sixth entry, namely Decepticon leader Megatron
09:15still being at large, and the Cybertronian sorceress Quintessa having taken the guise
09:20of a human woman, to continue her quest to destroy Earth. Audiences simply couldn't be
09:24compelled to give a damn, and so following the film's fair box office underperformance,
09:29the decision was made to sack off the sixth film and rejig the series with Bumblebee,
09:34which operated as a prequel to the original 2007 Transformers. With the upcoming Transformers Rise
09:39of the Beast also taking place before the first Bayformers movie, it's safe to say that The Last
09:44Knight's cliffhanger received a vocal vote of no confidence from just about everybody.
09:49The End? Flash Gordon
09:51Though you've probably seen Flash Gordon, do you remember that it ends with a blatant setup
09:56for a sequel? Don't feel bad if you don't, because it's a completely forgettable non-entity
10:00of a sequel tease. After the evil Ming the Merciless is killed and the day is saved,
10:05we cut back to Ming's magic power ring, which is picked up by a hand wearing a black glove,
10:10all while Ming's signature laugh rings out and The End appears on screen.
10:15Again, it's perhaps the least interesting part of a thoroughly entertaining unapologetically
10:20camp space opera, enough that many forget the cliffhanger even happens at all. More to the
10:24point, audiences of its era clearly weren't enamoured much, given that Flash Gordon
10:28underperformed at the global box office, and only solidified itself as a cult classic in
10:33the years that followed. And given that any prospect of a sequel had dried up long before
10:37the movie became a home video hit, the sequel tease again fell upon deaf ears.
10:421. Dom and Little B's Ambiguous Fates – Fast X
10:46The generally middling reception to the most recent Fast and the Furious movie,
10:50Fast X or Fast 10 or whatever it is, was topped off by the mesmerizingly cheeky manner in which
10:55it ended. Or rather, didn't end. After Dom rescues his son, Little B, from villain Dante Reyes,
11:01he's forced to drive off the edge of a dam in order to avoid two remote-controlled trucks
11:06from crashing into him at the top. Dom's car eventually hits the water at the bottom,
11:10and both father and son manage to escape to the surface, mostly unscathed. But at that moment,
11:15Dante then blows up the dam, leaving the fates of Dom and Little B apparently uncertain moments
11:20before the end credits roll. Needless to say, the series has such comically low stakes for
11:25its characters – who can be constantly resurrected without consequence or logic – that
11:30it's near impossible to be even remotely concerned for Dom or his son. We know they're fine, so
11:34what's the point? To hammer home the utter listlessness of this cliffhanger, the film's
11:39final scene immediately afterwards brings Giselle back from the dead. Again, compounding that death
11:44means absolutely nothing in these movies. Because the audience isn't worried for Dom or Little B,
11:49and few will give much of a damn that Giselle is back either, the whole ending falls laughably
11:54flat. At least Hobbs is back though, right? Yeah, miss that goatee.
11:58And that's our list! Know of any other movie cliffhangers nobody cared about? Well,
12:02let us know all about them in the comments section right down below, and don't forget to like,
12:05share and click that subscribe button while you're down there. Also, if you're a fan of this
12:09sort of cliffhanging stuff, then please head on over to WhatCulture.com and find some more
12:13fantastic articles just like the one this video you're watching right now is based on.
12:17I've been Gareth from WhatCulture.com, cheers for watching this particular video today. Hopefully
12:21I'll see your faces rather soon, but in the meantime, just be good to yourself. Bye!