10 Times Hollywood Gave Up On Movie Series

Summary

The
Amazing Spider-Man
franchise ended when the character’s rights were bought by Disney.
The
Jack Reacher
movie series failed due to poor reception and was overshadowed by a TV show reboot.
The
Percy Jackson
movies received backlash and the franchise was later successfully rebooted as a TV show.

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Hollywood movie franchises have been known to give up on the series part-way through, due to box office bombs or other circumstances. Several independent superhero movies ended when the rights to the character were bought by Disney, after struggling to compete with the MCU. Other sequels languished in development hell for years before the people involved with the project finally admitted that the next movie was never happening.

These planned movies’ cancellations may have come as a relief or a disappointment to audiences. People will argue that certain unfinished movie franchises are still worth watching, especially when downright terrible reviews were not the reason the franchise was not completed. Some series were never finished because the actors or directors became busy with other projects. However, this is typically symptomatic of the most recent movie not being that great and the people involved losing interest in it as a result.

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10 The Amazing Spider-Man

Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man series ended after two movies when the rights were bought by Disney.

Spider-Man famously saw multiple reboots within a short period, leading up to the character being incorporated into the MCU. The trilogy starring Tobey Maguire had a strong run until its widely criticized third installment, after which Andrew Garfield starred in two The Amazing Spider-Man movies, which achieved average reviews but objective box office success. Garfield and other actors’ performances are the movies’ biggest strengths, even if other writing decisions proved to be divisive. Leading up to the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a sequel was all but confirmed.

Movie	Release date
The Amazing Spider-Man	2012
The Amazing Spider-Man 2	2014
The Amazing Spider-Man 3	Planned for c. 2016-2018; canceled

However, The Amazing Spider-Man coincided with the growing dominance of the MCU. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was then canceled when Garfield was fired from the role after failing to appear at a significant press event, and Sony finally sold Spider-Man to Disney. Disney managed to add Spider-Man to the MCU in record time, with Tom Holland debuting as Peter Parker in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, only two years after Garfield was last seen in the role.

9 Jack Reacher

The Jack Reacher movie sequel failed before the franchise was overtaken by a reboot.

On paper, a Jack Reacher movie franchise starring Tom Cruise is a surefire win. It is exactly the kind of role Cruise is known for and there is a substantial amount of source material, with Lee Child’s series to comprise 29 books and a short story collection as of October 2024. However, the dramatic failure of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back spelled doom for this adaptation.Director Edward Zwick blamed himself for Jack Reacher’s failure, stating he did not understand what audiences wanted from the movie.

Movie	Release date
Jack Reacher	2012
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	2016

The longer gap between the first and second Jack Reacher movies suggests that they were playing each sequel by ear, and Never Go Back’s awful reception told them it was hopeless. Meanwhile, Amazon produced a much more popular Reacher TV show, while Cruise returned to working on Top Gun and Mission: Impossible. Although it was never officially canceled, it would appear that Jack Reacher 3 is dead.

8 Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Dwayne Johnson’s new would-be franchise only featured him in one movie.

Johnson confirmed in 2018 that the movie(s) had been officially canceled, to a middling reaction when the franchise never had much of a dedicated fanbase.

Based on Jules Verne’s classic adventure novels, the Journey to the Center of the Earth franchise kicked things off with a relatively successful movie of the same name, starring Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson. Later, Dwayne Johnson replaced Fraser as the series’ headliner, playing Hutcherson’s character’s stepfather rather than his uncle. While studio executives might have thought Journey 2: The Mysterious Island could be a solid setup for a series of movies starring Johnson, which seemed likely when Journey 2 was also a hit.

Movie	Release date
Journey to the Center of the Earth	2008
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island	2012
Journey 3: From the Earth to the Moon	Canceled
Journey 4	Canceled

Plans were made for Journey 3: From the Earth to the Moon and Journey 4 to be filmed back to back. However, Journey 3 was abandoned due to problems with the script and Johnson’s busy schedule. Johnson confirmed in 2018 that the movie(s) had been officially canceled, to a middling reaction when the franchise never had much of a dedicated fanbase.

7 National Treasure

National Treasure was reimagined as a TV show after a long development — then canceled.

National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets were off-beat but solid action adventure mystery movies for the mid-2000s. With the second movie setting up the page 47 cliffhanger that would serve as the next sequel’s plot, National Treasure 3 seemed like a given. However, the movie has now been stuck in development for almost two decades. Meanwhile, Disney+ produced the entertaining but short-lived sequel TV show that was canceled after one season.

Movie	Release date
National Treasure	2004
National Treasure: Book of Secrets	2007
National Treasure 3	Presumed to be canceled
National Treasure: Edge of History (TV show)	2022; canceled

In the wake of National Treasure: Edge of History, producer Jerry Bruckheimer suggests that National Treasure 3 could still happen. However, this seems unlikely when lead actor Nicolas Cage has, in no uncertain terms, said that the movie will never exist. Ultimately, if they wanted this movie sequel, they should have fought harder for it in the years following Book of Secrets, before the actors and the industry moved on.

6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The live-action TMNT trilogy ended after the second movie bombed at the box office.

Several Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies were canceled over the years, perhaps illustrating how the franchise would be better served by animation when the premise is inherently cartoonish. Despite this, the poorly-reviewed, live-action adaptation of the comics that came out in 2014 was a box-office hit. However, its sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, failed at the box office as well as with critics.

Movie	Release date
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows	2016

Therefore, the third movie in the reboot series was promptly abandoned. Later on, the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem became the best movie of this franchise, at least in the 21st century, earning a Golden Globe nomination for its efforts. However, despite the failure of the previous live-action TMNT movies, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin comic series is getting an R-rated, live-action adaptation that will come out alongside Mutant Mayhem’s sequel.

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5 Percy Jackson & The Olympians

Both Percy Jackson movies were poorly received, leading to a reboot.

The movie adaptation of Rick Riordan’s first Percy Jackson & the Olympian novel is widely hated due to the changes made to the source material that made the story unrecognizable to fans. Despite The Lightning Thief’s failures, producers forged ahead with a sequel, releasing Sea of Monsters a reasonable three years later. However, Sea of Monsters also buckled under the weight of the inherent story problems the first movie established, and any dreams of seeing the movie franchise to completion were dashed.

Movie	Release date
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief	2010
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters	2013

A decade later, Percy Jackson came back strong with a TV show reboot that retained the most essential parts of the books. With an age-appropriate cast and Riordan on board as a consultant, the show has a bright future, with Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2 now in the works (at the time of writing). In the case of Percy Jackson, abandoning the unpopular movie franchise was doubtlessly the right choice.

4 Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four went through the same reboot cycle as Spider-Man.

Fantastic Four represents a similar phenomenon in Hollywood as Spider-Man, being the two most famous Marvel properties. With such a famous group of superheroes at their disposal, studio executives and filmmakers desperately wanted to make something out of it. However, while Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is something of a beloved classic and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is just shy of a complete masterpiece, the 2000s Fantastic Four saw mediocre at best reviews and fizzled out after two movies, despite there being plans for more.

Movie	Release date
Fantastic Four	2005
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer	2007
Fantastic Four 3	Canceled
Fantastic Four	2015

The series’ branding was complicated when Chris Evans became infinitely more famous for playing the MCU’s Captain America at the beginning of the 2010s. 20th Century then produced a Fantastic Four reboot in 2015 with a new cast in what was ultimately a futile attempt to see some success with Marvel’s biggest property before admitting defeat and selling out to Disney. The MCU is now working on adding Fantastic Four to its lineup, with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in the lead roles.

3 Hellboy

Guillermo del Toro & Neil Marshall’s demon superhero series has a rocky history.

From the macabre mind of Guillermo del Toro, in partnership with his co-director Neil Marshall, came a bizarre superhero movie about a demon summoned by the Nazis who is rescued by the Allies and grows up to become a hero. Hellboy was never a massive blockbuster, but the first two movies in the franchise were profitable and well-reviewed. However, Hellboy 3 was canceled after a decade in development due to del Toro’s busy schedule and problems securing funding.

Movie	Release date
Hellboy	2004
Hellboy II: The Golden Army	2008
Hellboy	2019

Symptomatic of Hollywood’s oversaturation with reboots, Marshall directed a reboot that came out shortly after it was confirmed that del Toro’s sequel was not happening. While David Harbour seemed like the perfect person to take over from Ron Perlman, the Hellboy reboot was a decided failure. In addition to the movie’s lackluster writing, the strange premise’s time and place may have simply faded into history.

2 Divergent

A decrease in genre interest and a weak story led to Divergent’s early end.

Despite the largely derivative story, Divergent initially seemed like it would be just as strong of a franchise.

Riding on the coattails of The Hunger Games, one of the most successful blockbuster franchises of the 2010s, Divergent benefited from the popularity of the young adult dystopian genre at the time. Despite the largely derivative story, Divergent initially seemed like it would be just as strong of a franchise. Lead actress Shailene Woodley had already starred in Best Picture nominee The Descendants alongside George Clooney when the series began, while other A-listers took on supporting roles.

Movie	Release date
Divergent	2014
The Divergent Series: Insurgent	2015
The Divergent Series: Allegiant	2016
The Divergent Series: Ascendant	Canceled

However, Divergent’s story problems started to overshadow its marketability with the second movie, while there was a downturn in YA dystopias with the end of The Hunger Games. The third Divergent movie received the worst reviews yet, leaving studio executives scrambling to complete the series. While there was talk of wrapping things up with a TV movie, most of the cast left the franchise, and the final movie was eventually scrapped.

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1 The Chronicles of Narnia

The Silver Chair was in development for years before Netflix bought Narnia.

The movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis’ classic fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe proved to be as magical and spectacular as fans could have hoped for, becoming a critical and box office hit. This guaranteed a sequel, but the massive changes to the book made for Prince Caspian did not entirely work out in its favor. While the movie still made a profit, the fact that it did not make as much of a profit as its predecessor was the defining point.

Movie	Release date
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	2005
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian	2008
The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader	2010
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair	Canceled

The next movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was already dealing with one of the more difficult Narnia books to adapt and bombed at the box office. Despite this, The Silver Chair was in development for years before Netflix bought the rights to the series, with Joe Johnston slated to direct and Millie Bobby Brown being offered the lead role. The Chronicles of Narnia has a complicated history in Hollywood, making some wonder if the movie franchise should have been canceled just to make another one.