These days, Hollywood seems to operate under the premise that you can never have too much
of a good thing.
If people like a film, well, that means you can expect a dozen sequels to be announced.
But sometimes things don't go as expected.
Here's a look at some planned trilogies that, sadly, will never be completed.
Hellboy
If there's an unmade sequel out there that fans truly want to see, it's Hellboy III.
Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army was released in July 2008, starring Ron
Perlman as the not-quite-horned-hero.
It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and grossed over $160 million
worldwide on an estimated $85 million production budget.
But even though the movie was a modest success for del Toro, it wasn't a monster hit.
So Universal Pictures never commissioned a third installment.
Since then, both del Toro and Perlman have publicly lobbied to make a third Hellboy,
but nothing has come of it.
Still, hope springs eternal.
In January of 2017, del Toro asked his Twitter followers to weigh in on the possibility of
a third Hellboy movie.
After getting more than 132,000 responses, del Toro and Perlman approached Hellboy creator
Mike Mignola to discuss the possibility of a third film.
But there have been plenty of hopeful meetings before, and after nearly a decade of waiting,
it's starting to look like this one will never actually happen.
Amazing Spider-Man
Despite critics and audiences largely detesting Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, Tobey Maguire at
least got the chance to conclude his Spider-Man trilogy.
That's something Andrew Garfield will never get to do, because in 2015 Sony Pictures suspended
plans to expand the Amazing Spider-Man franchise and instead opted to share the character with
Marvel Studios.
As a result, we now have Tom Holland playing a new Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
and a rebooted Spider-Man film series that officially kicks off with Spider-Man: Homecoming
in 2017.
But what were Sony's original plans?
Prior to Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, Sony planned to launch an extended
Spider-Man franchise to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It was going to include two more Amazing Spider-Man films, as well as spin-offs for Venom and
the Sinister Six.
Sony also hired Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy Nolan to write a script for a female superhero
movie set in their Spider-Man universe, but nothing has since come of it.
Although the studio canceled plans to pursue more Amazing Spider-Man films, they haven't
shuttered all the Spider-Man spinoff films.
In March 2016, Sony confirmed they were moving forward with the Venom film.
However, there don't appear to be plans to have the movie connect to either the Amazing
Spider-Man films or the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"So, to become an Avenger, are there like, trials, or…"
"Just don't do anything I would do.
And definitely don't do anything I wouldn't do.
There's a little gray area in there and that's where you operate."
National Treasure
Jon Turteltaub's lowbrow take on Indiana Jones was a surprise hit in 2004, and the 2007 sequel
National Treasure: Book of Secrets performed even better, bringing in almost $460 million
worldwide.
The success prompted Disney to commission a sequel the following year, and with the
studio acquiring domain names for National Treasure 3 and 4, rumors began to spread that
the Mouse House was eyeing back-to-back sequels.
Although Turtletaub was interested in making another National Treasure film, he said they
were going to take their time and get the story right before moving forward, explaining
in an interview, "[U]ntil we have a great story, a great adventure and a great piece
of history to explore, there's no point in making the movie."
A decade later, it still hasn't happened.
TRON
It took almost 30 years, but in 2010 Disney finally released a sequel to their 1982 cult
classic TRON.
Starring Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Jeff Bridges, TRON: Legacy earned average
critic reviews and modest box office success.
It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't a big enough hit for Disney to move forward with a third
film.
But the thing is, TRON: Legacy writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz had already begun
working on a script for a third film before Legacy even released.
Not long after Legacy hit, Ain't It Cool News reported that Disney was gearing up to announce
TRON 3 — but the announcement never arrived.
Instead, after five years of dragging their feet, Disney finally announced the series
was dead.
But hey, who knows?
Maybe they'll bring it back again in thirty more years.
Kick-Ass
Director Matthew Vaughn and star Aaron Taylor-Johnson brought the comic book series Kick-Ass to
life on the big screen in 2008.
Praised for its adult themes, Kick-Ass received positive reviews from critics and managed
to become a modest box office success, prompting Universal to move forward with a sequel.
Kick-Ass 2, meanwhile, was released in August 2013 to negative reviews and declining box
office sales.
Shortly before the release of Kick-Ass 2, the comic book's writer confirmed that plans
for a third movie would largely depend upon how much money the second movie earned.
Later that month, reports of plans for a third installment surfaced, saying Kick-Ass 3 would
conclude the Kick-Ass trilogy with a major death.
After the film's disappointing results, though, those plans were put on hold along with a
rumored Hit Girl prequel.
That... does not kick ass.
28 Months Later
Five years after Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later hit theaters, the sequel 28 Weeks Later arrived,
depicting a NATO takeover of the U.K., where they supposedly quelled a zombie infestation.
Unfortunately, one person infected with the virus survived and managed to spread it to
the remaining survivors.
At the end of the movie, a handful of survivors escape England and make it to France.
However, one of them was still a carrier for the infection, allowing the infection to spread
across the channel, ending the film on a cliffhanger.
Shortly after 28 Weeks Later released, Boyle indicated that plans for a third installment
were in the works.
Unfortunately, screenwriter Alex Garland believes the rumored 28 Months Later movie won't happen
due to copyright issues: "When we made 28 Days Later, the rights were frozen between
a group of people who are no longer talking to each other."
Still, Garland and Boyle are still talking about doing a third film, if those legal issues
can ever get resolved.
We'll see.
Ghostbusters
The first Ghostbusters movie ranks as one of the most beloved films in history.
In fact, the U.S. Library of Congress selected the original Ghostbusters for preservation
in the National Film Registry in 2015 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant."
It became a worldwide phenomenon following its 1984 release, which prompted Columbia
Pictures to commission a sequel.
And while Ghostbusters II wasn't as well received by critics as the first movie, it was still
a hit, earning over $215 million worldwide on an estimated $37 million production budget.
"We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!"
Despite the success, however, director Ivan Reitman didn't have any immediate plans to
make a third installment.
Flash forward 10 years, and series star and writer Dan Aykroyd finished a 122-page draft
for Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent.
It appeared that they were finally making progress on a third film, but Bill Murray
was reportedly uninterested in making another Ghostbusters.
It was then rumored that Ben Stiller could replace Murray in the sequel, alongside Aykroyd
and Harold Ramis.
"Venkman!
What happened, are you okay?!"
"He slimed me."
Nothing came of the idea, though.
And after the death of Egon-actor Harold Ramis in 2014, Reitman officially backed out of
directing Ghostbusters 3, though he agreed to stay on as a producer.
After approaching a few directors, Sony decided to move forward with a soft reboot of the
franchise instead.
Without Ramis, it looks as though the original team has busted its last ghost.
Regardless of the controversy surrounding the 2016 reboot, at least there were seven
seasons of The Real Ghostbusters, one season of Extreme Ghostbusters, and 2009's Ghostbusters:
The Video Game that tell more stories featuring our favorite paranormal investigators and
eliminators.
Fantastic Four
After achieving global success with the X-Men series, 20th Century Fox hoped to build off
those movies' hype by moving forward with a Fantastic Four series.
The first Fantastic Four movie released in 2005 to mixed reviews.
However, fan anticipation led the Fantastic Four to become a box office success, earning
over three times its production budget.
That success inevitably led Fox to commission a sequel, titled Fantastic Four: Rise of the
Silver Surfer.
Director Tim Story and the rest of the cast and crew all returned for the 2007 follow-up.
But it was meh at best, earning mixed reviews and mediocre box office.
Story wanted to move forward with a third film, but Fox decided against it, opting instead
to put the franchise on hold before eventually rebooting it in 2015 with Josh Trank.
Of course, that move backfired, well, fantastically.
The new version became a critical punching bag and a box office disaster.
Should have stuck with the original after all...
"That's gross."
Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino likes to make a single story at a time, moving from one project to another
without thinking about sequels.
However, just a few short months prior to Kill Bill releasing in theaters, Tarantino
and Miramax concluded that his four-hour film would have to be split into two releases.
Thus Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 were born.
Although they aren't his most commercially successful films, the series has become a
cult hit in the years since its release.
The second film ends on an unexpected up note, with Beatrix and her daughter heading off
to live a life of peace.
However, Tarantino believes there's always room for more.
In 2004, he indicated plans to make a Volume 3 with Uma Thurman reprising her role as the
Bride, though he said he would probably wait around 15 years before making another one.
"You and I have unfinished business."
"Baby… you ain't kidding."
Over the next few years, Tarantino hinted he still had plans to make a third Kill Bill,
with the story potentially focusing on "the revenge of two killers whose arms and eyes
were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories," or maybe a revenge story featuring the daughter
of Vernita Green turning the tables and hunting down Thurman.
But nothing ever came of either idea.
In 2012, Tarantino finally conceded: "I don't know if there's ever going to be a Kill Bill
Vol. 3."
And that, of course, led Tarantino's fans to do this:
(screaming)
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