Hollywood loves a sequel. The only thing they love more than a sequel? A whole bunch of them. If there is a chance that all the money possibly hasn't been squeezed out of a concept, they will gladly push out one unoriginal sequel after another until the profit well has finally run dry. But what happens when there is seemingly no bottom to said well? I'm glad you asked, because we have this handy list of franchises that simply refuse to go away.
7- Air Bud
The Air Bud franchise at this point begs one philosophical question for the ages: is there a sport that a golden retriever can't play? We all loved the inspirational movie about a dog who wowed the world with his basketball abilities (who wouldn't??), but when it turned out he was a star player at every single sport imaginable it loses some of it's charm. I'm not good at a single sport, I don't need to watch a canine showing off in every sport. Then they even had the gall to bring in his litter of puppies for their own films. Though if you are in the dog/sport pun industry the existence of the Air Bud franchise is like a license to print money. Such brilliant titles as Golden Receiver, World Pup and Seventh Inning Fetch can't come cheap.
6- Saw
If the success of Passion of the Christ taught us anything, it's that people will fork over lot's of cash to watch some poor guy get tortured for an hour and a half. The creators of the Saw franchise were obviously paying attention, and thus an unwanted October tradition was born. That's right, a new Saw has shown up in movie theaters every October since it's inception. As soon as we manage to forget the awful memories of the last one the next is already fast approaching. Kind of like a visit from an annoying relative. Or a herpes outbreak. And when it comes to sticking with the forumla, no one does it quite like the makers of Saw. Every single movie consists of a bunch of people being tortured while some dumb puppet rides around on a tricycle or something. And by "a bunch of people" I am of course referring to the audience.
5- American Pie
American Pie was the Porky's for the next generation, a place for adolescents and teens to turn to in order to see naked girls and jokes about bodily functions. Unfortunately, just like Porky's, they didn't know when to call it quits. A college based sequel was passable, because at least it was related to the first. But a wedding movie? A band camp movie? Something called The Naked Mile? At this point the main characters in each straight to DVD sequel just refer once to "cousin Stifler" or something of the sort to make it seem as though they have anything to do with the original besides the name. Well, there is Jim's Dad (comedy legend Eugene Levy) of course, who has appeared in every single film. I'm assuming he must have a drug habit to fund or the American Pie producers have rather damning pictures of him.
4- The Land Before Time
The first Land Before Time is a classic. I have fond memories of Littlefoot and the gang in their prehistoric adventures, mostly because when you are little anything with dinosaurs is awesome. Ok, maybe not just when you're little. However, The Land Before Time is pushing the limit of how many sequels can be made, currently up to 13. Honestly, why not just make it a cartoon series on tv? If they keep up this pace I think they are actually going to have to make a movie based around the dinosaurs going extinct to correctly represent the timeline. Sorry Petri, watch your head for the falling asteroids.
3- Scary Movie
There are so many horror movies out there to parody that the Scary Movie franchise could seemingly go on forever. That doesn't mean it should though. After the second movie even the Wayans brothers abandoned the franchise, and these are the guys that made White Chicks and Little Man, so they are obviously pretty loose when it comes to their convictions to quality. However, what is even worse than the 4 Scary Movies is the unofficial franchise that they launched. Dubbed the "Movie Franchise," it's included Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie, and the riskily-titled Meet the Spartans. None of these monstrosities would have existed before Scary Movie ushered in a new era of bad parodies. Congratulations Wayans Brothers, you are like the atom-bomb inventors of modern cinema. Your invention hath wrought a scarier world.
2- Alien
The Alien movies have gone though many different incarnations. The first was a fantastic horror movie set in space, while the second was a fun sci-fi shoot em up. The third and fourth both started to spread the idea of the never ending fight between Ripley and the multi-mouthed aliens a bit too thin. But then they found the ultimate way to extend the franchise past the breaking point: combine it with Predator to make mindless movies about two weird looking creatures fighting and killing people.
1- Friday the 13th/Halloween/ Nightmare on Elm Street
There are many horror movie franchises that have gone on for far too long (Leprechaun in Da Hood anyone?), but these three represent the holy trinity of slasher films that produced one useless sequel after another. And what else makes them all unique? Why they are all undergoing Hollywood's new term for "way to make more money": reboots. Yes, thanks to the success of Rob Zombie's Halloween, rather than even bother with trying to make sensible sequels to old franchises in order to take teenagers' money, they just hastily re-write the first movie and film that over again. And hence a new franchise is born. Well played Hollywood, well played.
