Taking It Up to 11
With movie attendance across America dropping precipitously this year, Hollywood is turning to its most reliable source of box office gold: sequels and franchises. The website Box Office Mojo has reported that studios will send at least 27 follow-ups to theaters in 2011. In fact, as , , and demonstrate, many of these films aren't just the second or even third installment in their respective franchises. The hottest movie properties are metastasizing at a fantastic rate, which puts them on course to match some of these infamously never-ending cinematic stories. Trilogies are so 2010.
ANNOYING:
Don't fall asleep, otherwise you'll dream of a 10th sequel. +58.6%*
When you have a license to kill, you have 22 lives. +47%
Mel Gibson's alcohol-fueled outburst has cast a pall on the quadrilogy. +39.4%
Apes may evolve, but this franchise's seven plots never have. +8.5%
Dammit, Jim, I'm a cash cow, not a shameful 11-sequel nerd fetish! +6%
When this franchise went 3D after the fourth film, even Death asked, "Are we there yet?" +0.1%
ALARMING:
With its eighth film due out this summer, there will be more Potter movies than books—a true achievement -24.6%
Low-cost torture porn? Maybe. Are the seven films more profitable than real porn? Definitely -28.2%
As long as coeds need to be sawed in half, Jason will never die. Not even after 12 movies -41.3%
Warner Bros. is hastily creating a sixth reboot before the late creator's family reclaims its rights in court -51.8%
Even after 11 films, most people don't know Clouseau isn't actually the panther -52.9%
The notion of a sexagenarian mercenary (the fourth installment) is ridiculous -59.4%
APOCALYPTIC:
Upcoming 3D versions of the six films will suck more fan money into a galaxy far, far away -76.8%
The notion of a sexagenarian boxer (the seventh installment) is completely ridiculous -83.1%
Its 28 films have given TV stations afternoon marathon programming since 1954 -93%
More people have died by shark attacks in these four films than in shark attack history -96.2%
It took five movies, but audiences' death wish for this film was finally granted -97.4%
Even Steve Guttenberg couldn't make it through all seven films -99.9%