If Hollywood studios can make a franchise out of a property, you can bet it's gonna
happen.
Some become huge hits, like Fast & Furious and John Wick.
But every once in awhile, things just don't work out, and there's no choice but to shut
down production and move on — even if the story hasn't reached its conclusion.
Here are a few movie franchises that ended before their final chapter.
Eragon
Before Twilight and The Hunger Games, there was Eragon, based on the novel of the same
name by Christopher Paolini.
Released in 2006, the fantasy tale could have been a four-film series, but it ended up serving
as a perfect case of a movie doing fairly well at the box office while being ripped
apart by critics and audiences — and killing the sequels before they started.
Paolini has written four novels in his Inheritance Cycle series, which means there were three
possible sequels for Eragon, and director Stefan Fangmeier wanted to film them back-to-back.
He told Movieweb,
"I think one would be best off to write the third film first, and then, being happy with
that, going back to the second one and doing all the set-up work that will pay off in the
third.
Then probably filming two and three together as they did with Pirates of the Caribbean;
as one production."
Unfortunately, things didn't work out in his favor, and Eragon's failure halted Fangmeier's
directing career just as it was getting off the ground.
Should he ever return to filmmaking, there are a few fans of the books who'd still love
to see the complete Eragon saga unfold on the big screen.
Sahara
2005's Sahara looked great on paper: An Indiana Jones-style adventure starring Matthew McConaughey
and based on a best-selling novel by Clive Cussler — it had all the ingredients to
become a summer blockbuster.
Unfortunately, Sahara grossed a mere $119 million worldwide, despite the studio throwing
$130 million into the project.
It was that bloated budget that ultimately brought the action to a standstill.
Director Breck Eisner had hoped to eventually helm a sequel.
But once Sahara hit the books as "one of the biggest financial flops in Hollywood history,"
according to the Los Angeles Times, any chance of a sequel died with it.
And with 18 novels in Cussler's Dirk Pitt series to pull material from, Paramount had
their hands on a treasure map marked with a big red X.
Well, you know what they say...
"An X never, ever marks the spot."
John Carter
It took over 80 years for Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic novel A Princess of Mars to move from
print to screen in the form of 2012's John Carter, and the payoff was...well, less than
spectacular.
When Disney reacquired the rights to the story, the studio hired Finding Nemo and Wall-E director
Andrew Stanton to helm the film and poured over $300 million into the sci-fi extravaganza,
clearly expecting the classic tale to rake in boatloads at the box office.
Spoiler alert: It didn't.
The movie was such a disaster that the head of Walt Disney Studios, Rich Ross, actually
resigned his post after John Carter's release.
Disney originally had plans for the film to be the first in a trilogy:
"When we started on this film we actually wrote treatments for the first three films
based on the first three books."
Unfortunately, since the film flopped and interest at Disney waned, the rights reverted
to the Burroughs estate in 2014, shooting down any hopes of John Carter 2 — at least
with the cast and crew of the first movie.
Percy Jackson
In the late 2000s, 20th Century Fox hired Chris Columbus to adapt Rick Riordan's Percy
Jackson & the Olympians series for the big screen.
Columbus was the perfect choice for a young-adult fantasy flick: after all, he directed Home
Alone and the first two Harry Potter movies.
And while Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief wasn't as big as Harry Potter,
it was still a moderate success at the box office, which was enough to justify a sequel.
German filmmaker Thor Freudenthal came on to helm the next installment, Percy Jackson:
The Sea of Monsters, which saw most of the main cast return.
The movie grossed almost as much as its predecessor, but somewhere along the line, the studio pulled
the plug on the third installment.
While Percy Jackson actor Logan Lerman says that fans are still hoping for a trilogy,
he's not optimistic, telling Daily Nexus, "I think we all are getting a little old to
play those characters, so I wouldn't hold my breath."
I Am Number Four
Although 2011's I Am Number Four grossed nearly three times its production budget at the worldwide
box office, it only made $150 million — apparently not enough to justify building a whole franchise.
Its negative reviews surely didn't help, either.
The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls the movie "a derivative and ultimately forgettable
sci-fi thriller."
Shortly after the film's release in 2011, the film's co-writer Marti Noxon told Collider
that a sequel was put on the "back burner" because the movie wasn't a big enough success
at the box office.
In 2013, director D.J.
Caruso said he and the studios were discussing adapting the series' second novel, The Power
of Six, but nothing definitive ever seem to come out if those talks.
Divergent
As the Twilight gravy train started coming to an end, Summit Entertainment looked to
Veronica Roth's Divergent book series to fill the void.
The young adult dystopian series came gift-wrapped with a strong fan base, and the first two
films, Divergent and Insurgent, did well at the box office.
Then came the third installment, 2016's Allegiant, which completely bombed and forced the studio
to hold off on their plans for a two-part finale.
Stuck with a dying franchise that demanded a huge production budget, Summit decided to
change course and conclude the series by re-purposing the final installment into a TV series.
Unfortunately, the cast and crew weren't on board with the idea, especially headliner
Shailene Woodley, who told E! News that she "didn't sign up for a TV show."
In February 2017, Woodley said that she'd officially backed out of the series, making
the planned sequel all the more unlikely.
Ender's Game
Based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card, 2013's Ender's Game was given
everything it needed to become a blockbuster, which included nabbing a heavyweight cast
consisting of Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, and Hailee Steinfeld.
But although Ender's Game garnered generally positive reviews, it only raked in $125.5
million against a production budget of $110 million, not nearly enough to push the film
into sequel-worthy territory.
Despite one cast member suggesting a script based on Ender's Shadow, a parallel telling
of Ender's Game's story, budget constraints prevented the studio from moving forward with
their planned franchise.
The studio also considered a TV spinoff, but those plans have also petered out.
Looks like it's game over for Ender's Game.
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