A good trilogy is always hard to pull off, at least judging from the ones we’ve seen. For some reason the first two movies are brilliant, while the third one, let’s just say it’s not quite what you’d expect. If you want to have some good time go watch “Star Wars” or “The Lord of the Ring” trilogies. Hell, maybe even “The Toy Story.” But if you like the feeling of disappointment, I’ve got just the right titles for you!
Here are 7 potentially amazing trilogies ruined by one bad movie.
1. The Godfather (1972-1990)
The first and second installments of this franchise were some of the most well-written, well-directed, and well-acted bits of cinema ever. The audience as well as the critics loved them which helped these movies reach the legendary status, but when it comes to “The Godfather Part III”… it’s just OK. Which is a shame, when you compare it to the previous two movies.
2. Blade (1998-2004)
“Blade” did all the legwork to help the future superhero movies become successful. But since it’s a trilogy on this list, something must have gone wrong in the end. The 3rd installment (“Blade: Trinity”) had some production issues, and there was this whole drama with changing directors at the last moment, you know, the usual stuff behind the scenes.
3. X-Men (2000-2006)
This is a tough one. The first two X-Men movies were a sight for sore eyes for comicbook nerds, but, as you may have guessed it, the third chapter of the story turned out to be a major flop. Why? Because the studio (FOX) got way ahead of itself and announced the release date of the final movie without even seeing the script, which at that point looked something like “the X-Men win. The end”. Directors Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn didn’t want to get caught in this crap-trap, so the studio hired Brett Ratner at the last moment, who had less than 12 months to finish the movie. That’s insane!
4. Iron Man (2008-2013)
Personally, I don’t think that “Iron Man 2” was a disaster, but the majority has spoken! Sure, it’s not as good as “Iron Man 1”, but then again, you can’t beat an awesome origin story. Anyway, the critics slammed “Iron Man 2” for being a mess, but luckily for us fans, the movie did all right at the box office, but negative critics’ reviews can be seen online even to this day. It just made the Iron Man trilogy a slightly less awesome, that’s all.
5. Men in Black (1997-2012)
Will Smith will always bring cash home, no matter what he’s in, but the second installment of “MiB” was a big mistake. It was rather dull, compared to the first one, and the movie-goers didn’t seem to want to see more of “Men in Black”. Either way, that’s why we had to wait for 15 years to finally get the third movie, and, thankfully, it was everything we’d expected.
6. Thor (2011-2017)
When you look at the Thor trilogy, you see the “mythical”, almost Shakespearean, Thor in part one; wacky, and off-the-wall colorful space ride that is “Thor: Ragnarok”; and then there’s “Thor: The Dark World”. Dark elves, space ships, the Ether… there’s just not that many exciting things about it. And did you notice how grayed out everything was? But still, thanks to the criticisms this movie received, we got Taika Waititi to direct “Thor: Ragnarok”, which is amazing! Otherwise we’d probably be stuck with the old-timey Thor.
7. Spider-Man (2001-2007)
Ah, here’s the king of the failures – “Spider-Man 3”. Just like “Blade”, “Spider-Man” was one of the first modern superhero movies that made us look back at the comics and get our hopes up, because at that point any one of your favorite heroes could come to life on a big screen! Well, at least that’s what we were thinking during the first two movies. But then the rain came and washed away all our dreams. By that I mean that “Spider-Man 3” turned out to be super-bad. Especially after such a strong setup from the end of the second movie, where Harry finds out who Spidey is! But here’s what went wrong – studio execs messed everything up by forcing Raimi to add Venom into the mix. Which in turn changed the whole story and we got not one, not two, but three villains with almost no screen time to focus on any of them. Well, at least now we have Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, so I’m happy!
