Not every franchise gets its endgame.
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00:00As Tony Stark once said from beyond the grave, part of the journey is the end.
00:04Of course, how a story arrives there is equally, if not even more important than the conclusion,
00:10but that ending is crucial to its success.
00:13This is no different in the movie industry, whether you're talking about a standalone movie or a franchise,
00:18although in today's landscape it seems that almost everything will eventually be turned into a franchise.
00:23Even if that is the plan, however, things don't always pan out as anticipated.
00:27Whether it's because of box office and critical failings, over-ambition, behind-the-scenes issues,
00:33or a combination of the above, many movie franchises don't get to reach their end.
00:38Is there anything more infuriating than getting invested in a story only for it to be robbed of its conclusion with no closure?
00:46Whether for better or worse, in the end is debatable,
00:48but some franchises get quite far into their story before having the rug pulled from under them,
00:53while others barely even begin.
00:55And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:59here with 10 movie franchises that were robbed of an ending.
01:02Number 10. King Arthur Legend of the Sword
01:05Planning is absolutely essential when it comes to building a movie franchise.
01:10Without it, a studio runs the risk of suffering exactly what the Star Wars sequels went through.
01:15Three movies that were completely disconnected and seemingly going out of their way to retcon the others.
01:20However, you have to be sensible about these things.
01:23Franchises like the aforementioned Star Wars, the MCU, and any drawing from a book series
01:28with a pre-existing, passionate fanbase can reasonably expect success.
01:32But King Arthur was none of these.
01:34Of course, it's a famous story, but it doesn't exactly have the die-hard fans of Harry Potter.
01:39This is why announcing a six-movie franchise before the first movie had even been released was incredibly risky,
01:46particularly with a leading man lacking the star power to put such a franchise on his back.
01:51As popular as Charlie Hunnam was as Jack's teller in Sons of Anarchy,
01:55he couldn't lift King Arthur above a disappointing and franchise-ending box office of $148 million worldwide.
02:03Unsurprisingly, any hope of sequels died with this bomb.
02:06Number 9. The Chronicles of Narnia
02:08The previous entry referenced movie franchises adapting popular source material,
02:13and while this would certainly help the longevity of such franchises in theory,
02:17this isn't always the case.
02:19Look no further than The Chronicles of Narnia.
02:22The seven books written by C.S. Lewis and considered classics by many
02:26were published throughout the 1950s and have retained audiences right up to the present day.
02:31The film series, however, was hampered by issues that stopped it from getting anywhere near the end of the source material.
02:37The first movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pulled in an impressive $745 million,
02:43but both sequels performed considerably worse, with numbers of just over $400 million each.
02:49This put the studio off producing any more movies for a while,
02:52though things were seemingly back on track for the fourth of seven planned movies to release.
02:57However, this hope was short-lived.
02:59Not only because enough time had passed that the children were too old to return to their roles,
03:04but because Netflix purchased the rights.
03:06This effectively killed the franchise on the spot.
03:09Noise was then made about a potential series at the streaming giant,
03:12though nothing of note has been heard since.
03:15Number 8. Spider-Man
03:16There will always be a passionate debate among comic book movie fans as to which iteration of Spider-Man is the best.
03:22Of course, all have their own merits,
03:24though Tobey Maguire's version of Peter Parker has a certain advantage for being the original.
03:29From 2002 through to 2007, Sam Raimi brought his trilogy to life.
03:34People loved the first movie.
03:35The second is the best of the three, but the less said about the third, the better.
03:39It essentially spat in the face of everything that made the first two movies great,
03:43opting to shove as many over-the-top characters and stories down audiences' throats as possible.
03:48Even in spite of its poor reception, Spider-Man 3 performed well at the box office,
03:53and a fourth movie was confirmed.
03:55It was even given a 2011 release date.
03:58But unfortunately, in spite of reportedly bringing back the core cast,
04:02as well as John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway as Vulture and Black Cat, respectively,
04:06Sam Raimi wasn't happy with the script.
04:08The acclaimed director ultimately left the project,
04:11ending Tobey Maguire's stint as Spider-Man and opening the door for another.
04:15Which leads us to number seven, The Amazing Spider-Man.
04:19What was Tobey Maguire's loss turned out to be Andrew Garfield's gain,
04:23as The Amazing Spider-Man saw the English actor's suit up as a very different Peter Parker.
04:28Though Mark Webb's movies typically weren't as well-received as Raimi's,
04:32there is still a lot of love for Andrew Garfield himself.
04:35Peter 3 was, too many, the MVP of Spider-Man No Way Home,
04:40bringing a great deal of depth and emotion to proceedings.
04:43But according to the Sony leak of 2014,
04:46which claimed he was let go for failing to show up to a press event in Brazil,
04:50he was the architect of his own downfall.
04:53The event in question reportedly would have seen the announcement of The Amazing Spider-Man 3,
04:58ironically a movie that fans want to see now more than ever,
05:01slated for a 2016 release.
05:04Instead, with Garfield fired and a second Spider-Man franchise dead in the water in seven years,
05:09Sony turned to Marvel Studios.
05:11This was truly the final nail in the coffin,
05:14as Tom Holland was brought in to play in the MCU,
05:17leaving The Amazing Spider-Man 3 on the shelf forever.
05:20There is a slim hope for fans that the popularity of Garfield in No Way Home could spark a return to the franchise,
05:26but for the time being, it doesn't seem particularly likely.
05:296. Divergent
05:31Things started off well for the Divergent series,
05:34but the movie franchise suffered largely at the hands of cinematic trends that it tried to exploit.
05:38The first of these trends was the world's obsession with young adult novels in the wake of The Hunger Games' success.
05:44Debuting in 2012 and finishing in 2015,
05:48The Hunger Games is up there with the best young adult film franchises,
05:51leading to adaptations like Divergent and The Maze Runner.
05:55However, the Divergent series never reached the same level as The Hunger Games,
05:59and by the time the third movie released in 2016, no one really cared anymore.
06:04The young adult trend had passed, as was made very clear by Allegiant's sub-$200 million global take.
06:11It was at this point that the studio decided to abandon ship,
06:14leaving regret over the decision to split the final movie in two.
06:18Allegiant Part 1 performed so poorly at the box office that the franchise was killed on the spot.
06:23Talk of a TV movie was put to bed pretty quickly, with none of the cast even remotely interested.
06:29Number 5, Eragon
06:31In the same way that Divergent was essentially born out of the mainstream audience's brief obsession with young adult novels,
06:37Eragon was a product of the fantasy movie craze of the early 2000s.
06:42Just three years removed from Return of the King came a movie in the same vein, albeit far inferior.
06:48Eragon, based on the incredibly popular children's book series, was cursed by the same trend that brought about its release.
06:54There was a massive call for fantasy movies of this ilk,
06:57but with the likes of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to compete against,
07:01there was never really much hope for the franchise.
07:03Of course, it didn't help that the movie was as poor as it was.
07:07Even without being mired in an oversaturated genre,
07:10Eragon gave critics and audiences little to hang on to.
07:13Even with a fairly decent cast, there was little to redeem it.
07:16Like The Chronicles of Narnia, the full Inheritance Cycle source material,
07:21which is the book series Eragon is part of, was never destined to make it to the big screen.
07:26Only the first book was adapted, at which point the studio saw fit to pull the plug,
07:30and it's hard to argue with that decision.
07:32Number 4, Hellboy
07:34There are plenty of reasons for a movie not to be made,
07:37and many on this list have focused on the likes of poor showings at the box office or seeing an actor fired.
07:42Hellboy 3, however, seemingly never got made simply because of Guillermo del Toro's ridiculous schedule.
07:48He and actor Ron Perlman created a Hellboy that earned itself a loyal army of fans.
07:53After the Golden Army released in 2008, such fans immediately looked to a third Hellboy movie,
07:59while the director didn't.
08:01Instead, del Toro was hired to direct The Hobbit.
08:03Of course, this didn't work out, but upon leaving the project,
08:06it was Pacific Rim that the director went to, again putting off Hellboy 3.
08:10Incredibly, it wasn't until 2017 that the threequel was officially cancelled,
08:16and after the David Harbour reboot became one of the biggest cinematic bombs in recent memory,
08:21it's unlikely any movie studio will touch the Hellboy property anytime soon.
08:25Number 3, Multiple DCEU Franchises
08:28The DC Extended Universe has never been without its issue since its inception in 2013.
08:34Tonal shifts, no real direction, huge flops and plenty of troubles off-screen
08:39meant the DCEU was something of a problem child.
08:42Recently, moves have been made to steady the ship
08:44and take what is now known as the DCU into a brighter future.
08:48Mega changes are coming, but some of the biggest have been the cancellation of franchises
08:53and confirmation that certain characters will no longer be appearing under the new banner.
08:58For example, Wonder Woman 3 has been scrapped,
09:00not too surprising after the reception of Wonder Woman 1984,
09:04as has what was arguably the franchise's most exciting prospect.
09:07Dwayne Johnson has a knack for boosting failing franchises,
09:11and he gave his everything to Black Adam.
09:14Fans loved it, in particular the long-awaited return of Henry Cavill in the movie's post-credits scene,
09:19and the thought of seeing the two go toe-to-toe down the line was amazing.
09:23However, it's since been confirmed that neither Henry Cavill's Man of Steel
09:27nor Black Adam have a place in the DCU's immediate future.
09:31Number 2, Fantastic Four
09:33The Tim Story Fantastic Four movies from the mid-2000s were inoffensive yet uninspired,
09:38but by 2015 they would retroactively be made to look a hell of a lot better.
09:43The 2015 reboot, which boasted an impressive cast on paper,
09:47will always be in the conversation for the worst comic book movie of all time.
09:51Certainly that is suggested by its abysmal 9% Rotten Tomatoes score.
09:56Its audience score isn't much better at 18%,
09:58even though Fox had such high hopes before its release.
10:01The Fantastic Four movies certainly never lived up to the property's potential from the source material,
10:07and so building a universe around them seemed like a good opportunity,
10:10but not with a dull, joyless opener like Fantastic Four.
10:14After Josh Trank's infamous bomb,
10:16the movie that should have kick-started a new Fantastic Four franchise instead ended up killing it.
10:21It wasn't long after this that Marvel's first family returned home to Marvel Studios and the MCU,
10:27hopefully opening the door for a much better version of the team in the future.
10:31Number 1. The Dark Universe
10:33Like King Arthur Legend of the Sword,
10:35there are too many franchises that tried to jump on the bandwagon of the shared universe trend
10:40before laying any solid foundations.
10:43Arguably no potential franchise rushed into things so quickly than The Dark Universe.
10:47This was to be the shared universe of Universal Monsters,
10:50kicking off with Tom Cruise-led reboot of The Mummy in 2017.
10:55Cruise was just one of the huge names attached to the new mega-franchise,
10:58with Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll,
11:00Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man,
11:02and Javier Bardem as Frankenstein's monster.
11:05Universal was seemingly throwing everything at this new franchise,
11:08and would have needed nothing short of a complete and utter disaster
11:11to pull out after just one movie.
11:14Unfortunately, this is exactly what The Mummy was.
11:17With a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 15%, an audience score of 35%, and a mediocre box office take,
11:24even the director labelled the movie as both brutal and the worst failure of his life.
11:29It would seem that the studio also agreed.
11:32And that concludes our list.
11:33If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below,
11:36and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell.
11:40Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
11:42and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:46I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
11:47I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.