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Trilogies are where it's at, cinematically speaking. They make money, and generally just barely overstay their welcome. This quotation says it best (from the pamphlet How To Be A Hollywood Shill): "Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, especially in the case of Lethal Weapon." Unfortunately some movie franchises should have stopped at two. Here are five that are right out:
 The Godfather series. A gap of 16 years between installments is a pretty good clue that the third movie was an afterthought. The Godfather, Part 3 was only truly bad when Sofia Coppola was onscreen, but it had a previous standard to uphold. So did Sofia for that matter. As expected, the mouth-breathing nepotism beneficiaries that came before Sofia moved quickly to disown her. |
The Jurassic Park series. If anyone knows how to milk a movie series, it's Steven Spielberg. But even he passed on Jurassic Park 3 to work on his pet project, Schindler's List 2: Oskar Takes Vienna. |
The Terminator series. They shoot Arnolds, don't they? Well they should. The upcoming T3 will not have James Cameron or Linda Hamilton. Instead the plot will revolve around the now-grown John Connor. Anyone else smell an Anakin? |
The Die Hard series. Starring Bruce Willis before he was a minimalist, Die Hard: With A Vengeance was notable solely for a bunch of ridiculous riddles. Oh, and the Eurotrash. There was lots of good Eurotrash. |
The Naked Gun series. The Naked Gun movies were all pretty damn funny, but they are essentially indistinguishable from one another. The third movie was called Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. The second part of the title was originally supposed to be "For The Record," but some wimp at the studio decided the CD generation wouldn't get it. But hell, even if some people weren't going to get "For The Record," so what? People don't get half the stuff in those movies. Except when O.J. Simpson is spiking a baby. That works on every level. |
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