18 Unnecessary Movie Trilogies We Didn’t Need

Learning to quit when you’re ahead is a lesson that Hollywood filmmakers might want to adopt occasionally. It’s very rare for a trilogy of movies to live up to the success of its predecessor, but sometimes, the later installments shouldn’t even see the light of day. Let’s look at 18 movie trilogies that killed off the franchise.

The Matrix Trilogy

Photo Credit: Warner Bros.

We’re not sure what happened here. The first movie was mind-blowing, but the sequels just left us scratching our heads in confusion. Just when we thought we’d wrapped our heads around The One, it all became far too convoluted. In Matrix Revolutions, Neo seemed to lose his edge, and Agent Smith didn’t look as mean.

The Blade Trilogy

Photo Credit: New Line Cinema.

The first Blade movie was mindblowing and gave us an exciting new take on the often predictable vampire genre. Blade II was watchable at best, but Blade Trinity was appalling. The writing was awful, and the characters were bland.

The Transformers Trilogy

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures.

Explosions and robots can only carry a franchise so far before it becomes repetitive and tiresome. It worked for the first movie as that’s what the original animation was about, but when Michael Bay tried to add pointless subplots to pad the storyline, it started to become mindless.

The Spider-Man Trilogy

Photo Credit: Sony Pictures.

Spider-Man was a terrific movie, and even Spider-Man 2 had a great deal of momentum behind it. Sadly, Spider-Man 3 finally killed the franchise, and Sony was forced to cancel its plans for further installments. We’d say we were disappointed, but there were just too many villains in one place at any one time.

The Jurassic Park Trilogy

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures.

Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park was a cinematic masterpiece; it ticked all the right boxes with heart, action, and scares. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was a decent enough follow-up, but by the time we reached Jurassic Park III, it felt like a cheap, low-budget add-on that was churning them out for the sake of it.

The Terminator Trilogy

Photo Credit: Intermedia.

Few sci-fi action flicks can compete with the original Terminator; it was a tough act to follow. T2: Judgment Day did a great job following up on the series. Killing Sarah Connor off was possibly the biggest mistake that the franchise made, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a colossal mess.

The Taken Trilogy

Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox.

We loved Brian Mills (Liam Neeson) in the first movie when he saved his trafficked daughter, but you have to ask yourself how many times can one guy’s family be taken. Three times too many. The premise started to become a bit silly.

The Divergent Series

Photo Credit: Lionsgate.

Divergent was supposed to be a four-film series, but the third installment was so poor that studios were forced to scrap the fourth. Allegiant failed to hit the right notes and performed appallingly. By the time it came to the third installment, Ascendant went straight to streaming. We suspect it was trying too hard to reach peak success like its dystopian YA predecessors, The Hunger Games.

The Hobbit Trilogy

Photo Credit: New Line Products.

Stretching one book into three movies was too painful to bear, and unlike The Lord of the Rings, they just didn’t hit the mark. Each movie was too long and drawn out; even an all-star cast couldn’t save them.

The Fifty Shades Trilogy

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures.

The fact that leading actor Jamie Dornan went into the franchise expecting to receive negative reviews should have said it all, but it wasn’t enough to stop them churning out the follow-ups. There’s no denying that the soundtracks managed to gain a few more hits than the movies, but they were still terrible.

The Hangover Trilogy

Photo Credit: Warner Bros.

The first installment was hilarious and relatively original, but we were just hungover from the recycled jokes by the third installment. It became a stored concept, and we anticipated the jokes before they came.

The Cars Trilogy

Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios.

Even animated movies can mess up, and when Cars decided to get too big for its tires, it backfired terribly. Only Toy Story managed to get it right, but the third installment of Cars became the lowest-grossing film of the franchise.

The Scary Movie Trilogy

Photo Credit: Dimension Films.

Scary Movie contained all the necessary horror spoofs that we needed to provide the laughs. Even the second was quite a spoof masterpiece, but by the third, it was just scraping the bottom of the parody barrel. Why didn’t they quit while they were ahead?

The Sharknado Trilogy

Photo Credit: Syfy.

Sharks in tornadoes sounded ridiculous enough for one movie, so we’ll never quite understand what led studios to keep going. When they went for the trilogy, there was some belief that filmmakers were aiming for movies that were so bad they were brilliant. We’re inclined to disagree.

The Grown Ups Trilogy

Photo Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing.

It seemed like Adam Sandler and friends had more fun making these movies than we did viewing them. By the third installment, we’d grown tired of the juvenile humor, and Rob Schneiders’s absence was a great loss.

The Fantastic Beasts Trilogy

Photo Credit: Warner Bros.

It seemed that the Harry Potter movies were so encased in gold that J.K. Rowling could do no wrong. Fantastic Beasts was destined to fail due to bad planning, average reviews, and an ample amount of behind-the-scenes controversy surrounding both Johnny Depp and J.K. Rowling.

The Paranormal Activity Trilogy

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures.

After the first movie, the found-footage horror gimmick lost its scare factor despite scaring us half to death with its eerie and unexpected frights. Once we’d established the whole possession gimmick, we knew what to expect, which defeated the object of the movie.

The Twilight Saga

Photo Credit: Summit Entertainment.

It’s hard to like something that the leading actor doesn’t even like, and that’s precisely what happened when Robert Pattinson tore holes in the Twilight Saga. Sparkly vampires and teenage angst had their moment of glory, but mega fans just weren’t buying into them.

 

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