13 Sequels That Never Happened

There was a time in Hollywood where it was taboo to even mention a sequel before the original had hit theaters. No one wanted to assume a film was going to be successful, and run the risk of putting a sequel to a failure into the pipeline ahead of time. In recent years, however, there has been an “entire franchise at once” mentality at work, and extensive lists of movies and their sequels are now being planned far in advance. I mention all of this because Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is going to hit theaters on Friday, and Marvel Studios announced at last weekend’s Comic-Con that a sequel is already planned. Fan buzz is all it takes these days.

Related: Guardians of the Galaxy Review: Super Sounds of the ’70s

This is all well and good for franchises like the Marvel movies, which have been, to date, hugely successful across the board. There was a time when 2011’s Thor was considered a risk, but with all the positive buzz behind it, and onward to something like Guardians of the Galaxy, it looks like Marvel can unearth any of their more obscure characters and still make a bundle. We’ll see how it does.

Other ambitious planners, however, haven’t been so lucky. The whole-franchise-at-once mentality has produced, over the course of film history, a long column of false starts, failed mythbuilding, and end-of-film stingers that never went on to fulfill their promises. I admire the optimism of people who plan out entire film franchises, and, of course, all their ambition. But if the original fails, and those planned sequels get canned, we can only snicker at what could have been.

Here is a list of 13 sequels that were promised to us in some way, but nevertheless, sequels that never happened.  


Witney Seibold is a commentator at Nerdist, a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.

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