Franchises have always been hugely profitable in Hollywood.
So it makes sense that many films are conceived as trilogies, with the first film or two setting
up a payoff finally delivered by the third.
But sometimes things just don't go according to plan, and audiences never get to see the
story play out as intended.
Other times, a successful first film inspires a sequel or two that just never comes to full
fruition.
For example ...
Tim Burton's Batman III
After breaking box office records with 1989's Batman, director Tim Burton and star Michael
Keaton returned three years later with Batman Returns, a movie that hinted at more adventures
to come.
In 1995, those adventures dutifully arrived — only now they were a neon-drenched debacle
fronted by Val Kilmer, directed by Joel Schumacher, and featuring a bright-green Jim Carrey chewing
the scenery.
What happened?
Burton's trilogy was ultimately sunk by its controversial and underperforming middle part.
Sure, Batman Returns received positive reviews and was a box office smash, but it didn't
perform nearly as well as the first film.
And it was widely criticized in the press for being too dark and violent for kids, damaging
McDonald's Happy Meal sales...
"Now you can get a Batman car in a McDonald's Happy Meal.
There's Catwoman's Coupe, Batman's launching Batmobile, or the Penguin's Roadster.
One toy with each Happy Meal you buy!"
So Warner Bros. chucked Burton, Keaton left, and the final part of the trilogy was replaced
by two ridiculous Schumacher films.
What would Burton's Batman III have looked like?
Billy Dee Williams — who'd played Harvey Dent in the '89 Batman — was set to play
Two Face.
He finally got the role in 2017's The Lego Batman Movie.
Marlon Wayans was cast as Robin in Batman Returns, but he was left on the cutting room
floor.
Industry rumors suggested Robin Williams was meant to play the Riddler, and Michelle Pfieffer
would return as Catwoman.
Would it have been any good?
Well, it couldn't have been much worse than Batman and Robin ...
"I'll finish off the city.
You kill the kids, but leave me the Bat!"
"arrrgh!"
David Fincher's Millennium trilogy
On paper, the Millennium trilogy must have looked like the surest bet in showbiz.
Hollywood movies based on the mega-selling books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson?
Directed by David Fincher, the genre-hopping talent behind Fight Club and Se7en?
Shirtless Daniel Craig?
"Shut up and take my money!"
The first Millennium movie, 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, managed to pull in
$223 million off a $90 million budget, enough to prompt talk of a sequel.
There were still two books left unfilmed in America at the time, and a Fincher-directed
and Craig-fronted Girl Who Played with Fire and Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest would
surely generate a tidy profit.
But Sony claims Craig wanted too much money to reprise the role of journalist Mikael Blomkvist
for two more films.
At one point, they considered completing the trilogy with a different lead.
Then they ditched Fincher, too, and talk of a trilogy went out the window.
Latest reports say Sony is planning a 2018 reboot with a new cast, adapting the semi-official
fourth Millennium book, The Girl in the Spider's Web, written by David Lagercrantz after Larsson's
death.
Chinatown
Not many people know that Roman Polanski's 1974 masterpiece Chinatown already has a sequel.
In 1990, Jack Nicholson reprised the role of grizzled PI Jake Gittes in The Two Jakes,
a sequel that failed to live up to the quality of its predecessor in just about every way.
"In this town, I'm the leper with the most fingers."
But had The Two Jakes been a box office hit, it would've paved the way for a full-on trilogy.
Gittes vs. Gittes would've seen Nicholson's detective take on a monopoly controlling access
to the L.A. freeway while also going through a messy divorce.
Unfortunately, The Two Jakes bombed so hard that screenwriter Robert Towne gave up on
the idea of Part 3 altogether.
Timothy Dalton's Bond trilogy
The never-filmed third and final Timothy Dalton James Bond movie was conceived as a way of
capping the actor's involvement with the franchise.
It would've given Dalton's Bond a big send-off while indulging in the themes that made his
previous two outings so distinct.
According to Charles Helfenstein's The Making of the Living Daylights, it was known in pre-production
as Bond 17, and got as far as the scripting stage.
The plot involved a British-Chinese megalomaniac threatening to unleash a worldwide computer
virus unless the British returned Hong Kong back to China.
Bond 17 stayed on the table right up until 1994, when Dalton got tired of waiting and
simply quit the role ...
"Then you have my resignation, sir."
"We're not a country club, 007!"
Bond was recast with Pierce Brosnan, and Bond 17 became Goldeneye.
Perhaps it's just as well.
Within two years of Goldeneye's release in 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China in the
real world, with nary an evil megalomaniac in sight.
Kick-Ass
Director Matthew Vaughn brought indie comic series Kick-Ass to life on the big screen
in 2010, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson starring as the namesake hero.
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.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow, Kick-Ass 2 was released in August 2013 to not-so-kick-ass reviews.
Although the film was a decent commercial success, it failed to perform as well as the
first film.
Shortly before the release of Kick-Ass 2, creator Mark Millar confirmed plans for a
third movie that would largely depend upon how much money the second movie made.
In 2015, Vaughn said that he'd like to make a Hit-Girl prequel before tackling Kick-Ass
3, but don't hold your breath.
Hit-Girl herself, Chloe Grace Moretz, says poor box office numbers doomed the trilogy,
and she's quote, "done with the character."
And Vaughn hasn't commented on a potential third flick since.
His Dark Materials
In the wake of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter films,
studios were scrambling to find the next big fantasy epic.
New Line almost found it in His Dark Materials, a grim atheist fantasy series by British writer
Philip J. Pullman that had set the literary world alight a decade earlier.
It had battles.
Baddies.
School children sprinting through spectacular set pieces.
In a post-Potter world, it seemed a surefire success.
And it might've been, if the first film, The Golden Compass, hadn't managed to anger just
about everyone.
Fans were outraged that New Line tried to water down the books' anti-religion themes,
while religious organizations were outraged by the diluted leftovers of those same themes.
Fox News even claimed it was part of that year's "War on Christmas" — because of course
it did.
"Religion has been a source of peace, of serenity, of happiness, and I don't understand why militant
atheists wish to take that away from kids."
It also didn't help that New Line forced the creation of a cliff-hanging, gotta-watch-the-sequel
ending in an attempt to milk money right out of viewers' pockets.
So it's no big surprise the film made barely $70 million at the domestic box office against
its $180 million budget.
The global box office, added an impressive $300 million, but the damage had already been
done to its reputation.
The poor reviews and bad box office killed this trilogy as dead as the series' own God.
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