Standalone movies are so 1980s.
These days, it's rare for a movie to end without laying the groundwork for some sort of sequel
or franchise.
Unfortunately, a lot can change between movies.
Directors leave projects and long-term priorities change, all of which can leave compelling
cliffhangers to dangle in the wind.
From replacement spies vanishing between movies to abandoned apocalyptic endings, here are
a few cliffhangers that movie sequels ignored.
Aw, rats
The original Species, released in 1995, follows a group of scientists trying to stop an alien-human
hybrid intent on breeding with humanity.
While the scientists are able to ultimately destroy the hybrid, the movie ends on a rat
that's exhibiting some strange behavior after eating the corpse.
Instead of following up on that plot thread, Species II just doubles down on the creepy,
erotic themes of the first movie, portraying scientists trying to stop a brand new, mating-obsessed
alien-human hybrid.
That hungry rat, and the implication that the genetic mutation can be introduced through
food rather than intercourse, is totally ignored.
We'll never know what we missed.
"Oh!
He's making a pizza!"
That's just corny
What Children of the Corn started as a simple Stephen King short story about a group of
kids in a midwestern town worshipping a demonic entity, it's since spun into a massive franchise
with nearly ten movies and counting.
Obviously, that required a bit of an escalation from the original premise, which is what happens
in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, when two children of the corn are adopted
into foster care in Chicago.
They bring corn.
"That's nice lookin corn."
Through a series of violent events, one of the children is able to summon the demonic
corn monster to Chicago while also distributing mind-controlling corn all over the world.
An entire world of mind-controlled children isn't a bad hook to hang a horror film on.
Unfortunately, Children of the Corn 4: The Gathering would return the series to its roots,
as it were, by taking things back to the midwest, ignoring the worldwide implications of the
previous film.
There was only one appropriate reaction to the unrelated sequel.
"Get that corn outta my face!"
A missed call
Like Children of the Corn, The Lawnmower Man is so far removed from the original story
about a murderous, naked lawnmower man that King successfully sued to remove his name
from the finished movie.
The film follows Jobe, a greenskeeper who becomes a vengeful, cyberspace god through
a series of science experiments.
Halfway through the film, Jobe promises to prove his god-like power by making every phone
in the world ring simultaneously once he's achieved unlimited cybernetic control.
An omnipotent, technology-controlling despot seems like a great place to start a sequel,
but The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace features a largely new group of characters
in a cyberpunk Los Angeles.
Jobe makes his return as an antagonist, but using a different actor.
His triumph in the first film is ignored in favor of a retcon that left him crippled by
the climactic explosion in the first Lawnmower Man.
Bourne again
As one might guess given its title, the Bourne franchise is focused on the adventures of
amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne.
The formula worked so well that even when Matt Damon took a hiatus from the series,
it moved on without him for 2012's The Bourne Legacy.
Following Jeremy Renner as Bourne's fellow spy Aaron Cross, the film tried to capitalize
on the world-building of prior films with a character similar to Jason Bourne and a
familiar story.
Unfortunately for them, the movie premiered to mixed reviews and an ambivalent audience.
The filmmakers heard that message loud and clear when they completely ignored the ending
of The Bourne Legacy, which featured Cross wounded after a shootout and a close escape
on a boat.
The next sequel, Jason Bourne, forgets about any boat-related cliffhangers, putting the
focus squarely back on Damon's character.
Dino dos and don'ts
It's fitting for a movie franchise about giant prehistoric dinosaurs that each movie in the
Jurassic Park series tends to get bigger.
Even once a balance seems to reached by Jurassic Park 3 with the escaped dinosaurs settling
on an island, the film ends with Pteranodons seeking out new nesting grounds.
It's like Dr. Ian Malcolm always says:
"Life, uh, finds a way."
Unfortunately, the ending went too big.
As cool as it would be to see dinosaurs out in the world, 2012's Jurassic World decided
to skip the whole "dinosaurs terrorizing the mainland" thing, and the fourth film just
returned to the original, fully-functional Jurassic Park, instead of going bigger, giving
us very little reason to, well,
"Hold onto your butts."
Loss Leader
While it's been somewhat forgotten, 2008's The Incredible Hulk is still an important
building block for modern-day Marvel films.
While Ed Norton's version of Bruce Banner wouldn't make the jump to later films, William
Hurt's "Thunderbolt" Ross would later return to the MCU for Captain America: Civil War.
Further connecting the movie to the larger MCU is the ending sequence that features Robert
Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark dropping some foreshadowing for the Avengers.
"What if I told you we were putting a team together?"
"Who's we?"
Despite all that, there's still at least one cliffhanger that has never been resolved:
Samuel Sterns' irradiated transformation into his big-headed comic book counterpart, the
Leader.
"I am the most advanced mind the world has ever seen!"
The supervillain is one of the Hulk's most famous foes, so it makes sense that the filmmakers
would want to tease his possible appearance in the sequel.
Since his first appearance, a slew of different Marvel movies have come out, and Hulk's nemesis
hasn't re-appeared on the big screen.
Why?
Because Black Widow capped him off-screen, in Marvel's official Avengers tie-in comics.
To this day, he's just hanging out in a prison somewhere, completely forgotten by the Marvel
Universe.
What a way to go.
"How dare you!"
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