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    20th Century Fox / Blue Sky Studios 
  • The A-Team seems like the ideal start of a franchise. It's a big-budget action blockbuster based off of a TV show with likable characters. However, the film performed slightly below box office expectations (budget was $110 million, the film made $170 million). The four main actors and director Joe Carnahan all expressed interest in making a sequel but concluded that the film ultimately didn't make enough revenue.
  • There were several attempts to extend The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension into a franchise, all of which failed. The decision to treat the first film as if it were already in the middle of a multimedia franchise (and assuming audiences would be in on the joke) may have backfired. The movie ended in a Sequel Hook, and a TV spinoff was attempted by ABC, but the rights got locked up for nearly a decade by a nutcase studio executive whose paranoia made him believe the film makers had tried to rip him off (and/or his attempt to cover up his embezzlement from the production company). It wasn't until his suicide that the rights were released. Several attempts were made to create both a movie sequel and a television series spinoff, but studio expectations, combined with conflict over character and story continuity and continued legal snarls, effectively killed the projects.
  • Assassin's Creed (2016) was to be the initial film in a series about the Assassin's Brotherhood, but the movie debuted to very negative reception and only grossed $240 million worldwide on a $125 million budget. Any remaining hope of a sequel was definitively quashed when 20th Century Fox was purchased by Disney.
  • Bette Davis lobbied hard for a sequel to All About Eve, as she and Gary Merrill had since married, and she wanted to continue Margo and Bill's lives. Years later after they'd divorced, she approached Joseph L. Mankiewicz and said "forget about that sequel. I've played it and it doesn't work."
  • City of Ember, adapted from the first novel in The Books of Ember series; The City of Ember, was released in 2008 and subsequently failed at the box-office due to a complete lack of advertising, making it next to impossible for the other three books to be adapted.
  • Mark Steven Johnson showed interest in a Daredevil sequel that would adapt Born Again, as well as having Mr. Fear as a possible villain. Ben Affleck stated he would only return in the lead role if Fox would renegotiate to tell the darker stories of Daredevil, and showed interest in a Kevin Smith graphic novel which included Mysterio, as well as Born Again. Michael Clarke Duncan expressed an interest in returning as Kingpin. It ultimately never happened and the character reverted back to Marvel, where he made a much more well-received comeback.
  • Dragonball Evolution (2009) was an attempt to adapt the famous manga in an Alternate Continuity and ended with an obvious Sequel Hook. But the movie was critically panned by the critics, the fans, and Akira Toriyama himself. In fact, Toriyama disliked the movie so much that he decided to make Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods just to spite Fox, which eventually led to Dragon Ball Super and a renaissance for the Dragon Ball franchise.
  • Epic (2013) was meant as an adaptation of the children's book series The Leafmen. The film received mixed reviews and opened at #4 at the box office amid competition from Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast & Furious 6 and The Hangover Part III; making the series continuing on film unfeasible. Any further plans effectively ended with the closure of Blue Sky in early 2021.
  • Eragon, despite having been advertised as "The First in the Trilogy", ended up becoming the only film adaptation of the Inheritance Cycle series. Ironically, the movie makes numerous changes to the plot, including leaving out the book's Sequel Hook ending. Even if more movies had been made, it would require such drastic changes to the plot of the next two books that they would have been barely recognizable, especially after Christopher Paolini, the series' author, released the fourth book, ''Inheritance'', within a few months of the film's release.
  • Fant4stic was intended to reboot Fox's Fantastic Four movie franchise after the mixed reception and disappointing box office totals for Rise of the Silver Surfer put the franchise on hiatus. Unfortunately, the production of the reboot was nothing short of disastrous, forcing the studio to yank director Josh Trank from the editing room. When the film did get released in August 2015, critics, fans of the comic book, and general viewers alike viciously thrashed it, and its subsequent utter failure at the box office led Fox to abandon plans for a sequel.
    • On a broader level, Fant4stic was also intended to plant seeds for the creation of a cinematic Shared Universe that would link Fantastic Four with the X-Men Film Series. The movie introduced interdimensional travel as part of the team's origin story, and producer Simon Kinberg hinted at the idea in interviews before the movie's release. Fox scheduled a direct sequel for July 2017 and an unidentified Marvel movie for July 2018, which more than likely would've been the crossover movie. Since Fant4stic flopped, Fox has canceled both and shifted back to focusing on X-Men and Deadpool. With the characters now in the hands of Disney, a Fantastic 4 movie has been announced to bring the characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • There were plans for sequels to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (all but one of the main cast signed on for multiple films), and the box office had been considerably stronger overseas than in the US, largely due to the presence of Sean Connery, but since Connery had quit films entirely in disgust at how the production had gone along with the director, any heat the franchise had petered out pretty quick.
  • Master and Commander had pretty much the entire cast signed on for multiple sequels, and they bought the actual boat they used to make sure it was going to be available. It made enough money for it to be deemed a financial success, as well as being well received critically, but not enough to make the sequel a sure thing, and in the end, it never happened. It was even fully titled Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, taking the titles of two of the books so that the first book's name would work as a series title followed by the particular book that the film was closest to. That the rights are tied up with multiple studios didn't help matters.
  • A strange variation of this was done for Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. While he himself had no intentions of doing any more movies, he deliberately left a Sequel Hook in case another filmmaker decided to do more. Despite a strong opening weekend and the film recouping its budget, no sequel was made. There would be no further films for a decade until the Continuity Reboot of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was a critical and commercial success and kicked off an acclaimed trilogy.
  • A sequel for Blue Sky Studios' Robots (2005) was intended, but disappointing box office performance meant that the planned sequel did not move into production. The death of key co-star Robin Williams also made the possibility of a sequel highly unlikely. The idea of a sequel was killed off once and for all when Disney - who had acquired Blue Sky Studios after buying 20th Century Fox - shut down the studio.
  • The adaptation of Royal Flash in 1975 did not lead to other adaptations of the Flashman novels.
  • The Seeker: Intended to be the next Harry Potter for Walden Media after the success of their first The Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, but due to its negative reception from critics and fans of the book series particularly from Susan Cooper who disowned the changes made for the film which pulled it from theaters after its release, made sure its light stays dead.
  • James Cameron planned a sequel to True Lies that would have reunited all the main cast members, but the 9/11 attacks put the sequel on hold and it was eventually cancelled. He would later comment:
    "In this day and age, terrorism just isn't funny anymore."
  • X-Men had seen plans for spin-offs shelved from time to time.
    • X-Men Origins: Wolverine was intended to be the first installment of an X-Men Origins film series spun off from Fox's X-Men Film Series, to be followed by X-Men Origins: Magneto. After disappointing reviews for Wolverine, the X-Men Origins series was scrapped; some aspects of the Magneto script ended up being recycled into the much better-received X-Men: First Class. Although the franchise of Wolverine films did continue, the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine were never directly referred to again (and were retconned by X-Men: Days of Future Past) and the next two Wolverine films (The Wolverine and Logan) were not prequels.
      • The film was also a stillborn franchise for the character of Deadpool; who would have received a spinoff of his own were it not for the negative critical and fan reaction to the liberties taken with the character. There would be no further films with the character until 2016, with the R-rated Deadpool, which was Truer to the Text.
      • The film also set up Gambit for a potential sequel; which never materialized due to the film's disappointing reception. The character was planned to be rebooted with Channing Tatum but the project wound up in Development Hell, from which it never emerged.
    • Dark Phoenix was originally intended to be the start of a new trilogy of films. This changed once Disney began the process of buying most of Fox's assets in late 2017 even though most of the film had been shot at that point. The third act of the film was entirely reshot to become a Grand Finale of the series, as Disney had plans to bring the X-Men into the umbrella of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
    • The New Mutants was also meant to be the start of a Darker and Edgier spin-off series until Disney began buying Fox's assets. Like Dark Phoenix, the film already wrapped up filming by then and ended up in a long post-production-turned-limbo (over three years) before its eventual release in August 2020.

    Amblin Entertainment / DreamWorks Studios 

    The Cannon Group / Golan-Globus 
  • Masters of the Universe had a Sequel Hook. Interestingly, a sequel was being made, but was canceled when the He-Man franchise as a whole was at such a decline and was a flop that making it was unfeasible. It and the abandoned Spider-Man movie were fused into Cyborg (1989).

    Columbia / Sony / Tri Star 
  • It was initially announced that 2012 would be followed up with a television series called 2013, following the survivors establishing a new civilization in the aftermath, but for reasons unclear (possibly due to budget concerns) ABC decided to pass on making the show.
  • Will Smith intended for After Earth to be this. An infamous Sony powerpoint slide was created, showing a spread of mocked-up After Earth branded merchandise. The film utterly flopped after receiving heavy criticism for its perceived nepotism and misleading marketing in casting Jaden Smith in the lead role over Will Smith, as well as just not being very a particularly inspired film in general. It's worth noting this movie was also intended to be a career revival for director M. Night Shyamalan.
  • Bear Island announced an adaptation of Goodbye California, another Alistair Maclean novel, in its credits.
  • The 1991 film Bingo ended with the announcement of a sequel titled "Bingo's Big Fix" as "Coming Soon", but the film itself was savaged by critics and was lukewarm at the box office, which definitely played a part in it being cancelled.
  • Tri Star planned a Cliffhanger sequel in 1994, called The Dam, but it never went beyond the development stage. It would have featured Gabe Walker battling terrorists in...a dam.
  • A sequel to Dad's Army (1971) called Dad's Army and the Secret U-Boat Base was planned but never came to fruition.
  • The Emoji Movie was intended to be the start of a franchise, as Mel says in the trailer that it’s their "first movie". However, its overwhelmingly negative reception and mediocre box office take, as well as Sony Pictures Animation changing up their MO, means that any sequels are very unlikely to happen.
  • The 2016 reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise was originally intended to start a cinematic universe. But the film's mainly negative reception and numerous controversies harmed its box office returns and caused Sony to scrap those plans. Instead, following the footsteps of Terminator, they decided to make Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a direct sequel to the 1980s films starring much of the original cast, disowning the reboot completely.
  • The 1998 U.S. Godzilla movie was meant to have a sequel as well (and a script was even completed), but it never came to fruition due to the film's highly negative reception and underwhelming box office gross (the closest to that was the animated series, which was already in production before the movie came out), and later budget disagreements with the proposed sequel causing the director and producer dropping out. The next American film, released in 2014, was a Continuity Reboot.
  • Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts ends with Zeus saying "For Jason, there will be other adventures..." which sounds like a sequel hook, but there wasn't one. This is probably for the best because the rest of the myth is a total downer where Jason becomes a serious Jerkass.
  • The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones became one of these after performing poorer than expected at the box office, with production shut down indefinitely on the sequel only a week before it was supposed to start. In late 2013/early 2014 both a new production date and several cast members were announced as being re-signed, and in October 2014 it was officially announced that the film sequel had been cancelled in favour of Shadowhunters, a TV series based on the books, starting with a re-adaptation of the first book and continuing with the rest of the series.
  • Frank Capra planned a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town called Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington, based on the story The Gentleman from Wyoming (alternately called "The Gentleman from Montana" by both contemporary and modern sources) by Lewis R. Foster. When Gary Cooper became unavailable, this became Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
  • The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists: A sequel was cancelled after US box office grosses did not meet expectations.
  • RoboCop (2014) was supposed to reboot the long-shelved RoboCop franchise after 1993's RoboCop 3. Instead, its box office under-performance and mediocre critical reaction ensured that the rebooted franchise wouldn't go forward. Sony did try to make a sequel but ultimately let the rights lapse back to MGM.

    DreamWorks Animation 
DreamWorks Animation is a particularly notable example of this trope. The studio is a franchise house by design - initially done as a way to stand out from Disney (who rarely made theatrical follow-up films to their animated movies until the 2010s) in the 1990s, it became a necessity in 2004 when the studio split with its live-action counterpart and went independent. Every single one of their original films is intended to be the first in a potential film series; if DreamWorks makes a stand-alone film then it's purely by accident, as the film for one reason or another just couldn't spawn a franchise of its own.
  • Antz (1998) was a box office hit and had a direct-to-video sequel planned, but as mentioned below it didn't happen.
  • Joseph: King of Dreams (2000) was meant to be the first in a line of direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs to DreamWorks movies that would compete with Disney's sequels at the time. Its lackluster sales meant that all of these sequels were cancelled, including several further Bible story adaptations as well as a planned sequel to Antz. DreamWorks would not attempt a sequel again until Shrek 2 in 2004, which was theatrically released.
  • The Road to El Dorado (2000) was supposed to be the beginning of a film franchise about Miguel and Tulio's various adventures in search of gold. Unfortunately, low grosses and DreamWorks' preoccupation with its new-found computer animation meant that chances were not very high.
  • Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) did so poorly at the box office (forcing the studio's then-parent company DreamWorks SKG to take a $125 million loss on the film) that it convinced Katzenberg that audiences were no longer interested in hand-drawn animation, acting as a Genre-Killer for 2D animation at DreamWorks.
  • Shark Tale (2004) did well in the United States and Canada, but its poor critical and international take meant that a planned sequel did not move into production.
  • Over the Hedge (2006) is unique among DreamWorks' stillborn franchises in that it actually did well both critically and commercially, a rarity at the time, but disagreements that the studio had with United Media (who at the time owned the rights to the franchise) ultimately resulted in the cancellation of Over the Hedge 2 as well as a Pearls Before Swine movie. In addition, co-lead Garry Shandling died in 2016, while Bruce Willis would retire in 2022 due to aphasia.
  • Flushed Away (2006) was supposed to mark the beginning of a new series of CGI Aardman films, but it resulted in both a $109 million loss and the end of the eight-year partnership between DreamWorks and Aardman Animations. The company would eventually jump ship to Sony Pictures Animation, with the stop-motion animated The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists among one of the films released during their brief partnership.
  • Bee Movie (2007) did mediocre business at the box office, but the main reason that a sequel didn't move forward was that the film resulted in two lawsuits against it by a Swedish animation studio and a Florida-based cosmetics company, both of whom sued over alleged plagiarism. If that still wasn’t enough, Seinfeld himself said, in the wake of its future Watch It for the Meme status, that he has no interest in working on a sequel.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), like Shark Tale, did poorly overseas, though it did result in a short-lived TV series a few years later.
  • Megamind (2010), like Shark Tale and Monsters vs. Aliens before it, did poor international business and as a result, a sequel to the film was cancelled. All three films, while technically profitable, were considered disappointments by DreamWorks because they did not travel well internationally. However, the film has since amassed a cult following and, in 2022, a television series was announced for streaming platform Peacock titled "Megamind's Guide To Defending Your City" slated for a 2024 release date.
  • Rise of the Guardians (2012) was supposed to carry the successful The Guardians of Childhood book series into a new medium, but instead the Guardians fell — and took down $83 million of DreamWorks Animation's money (and 25% of their employees) with them. Guardians was particularly notable at the time of its release for being the first non-Aardman DreamWorks film to actually lose the studio money since Sinbad almost a decade earlier, and for being the first time in the studio's history in which animators were fired as a direct result of a films under-performance.
  • Turbo (2013) actually managed to out-underperform Rise of the Guardians at the box office (though oddly enough the studio didn't take nearly as big a hit, only losing $13.5 million on the film). This was a major blow to DreamWorks as they were hoping that the film would result in their next billion-dollar franchise (or more accurately, that it would result in their version of Pixar's own billion-dollar racing franchise Cars). A lawsuit against the film means that any chance of a Turbo sequel is all but dead. Though a made-for-Netflix show called Turbo F.A.S.T. was put into development before the film came out and premiered in December 2013.
  • Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) was the first film made as a result of DreamWorks' purchase of the Classic Media holding company, and was intended to test the waters and see if audiences would be interested in seeing Classic's library of older characters re-imagined on the big screen. Although it had a decent opening weekend and held the #1 box office spot in the U.S. for a week, as well as good critical and audience reception, it quickly fell after the releases of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Rio 2, and ended up losing the studio $57 million. The movie also managed to underperform both Rise of the Guardians and Turbo, and is the studio's second-lowest grossing CGI film after Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. While any chance of a sequel is low, The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show premiered on Netflix in October 2015.
  • Penguins of Madagascar (2014) actually had a worse box-office performance than the previous three initially (but eventually managed to surpass them in terms of total box-office gross), despite receiving positive reviews and being fueled by the Madagascar series, leading them to lose $49 million at theaters, over triple of what they expected, and the company's shares fell six percent because of it. The fallout from the film's under-performance combined with the above-mentioned under-performances led DreamWorks to shut down their second studio Pacific Data Images, lay off 500 employees including the CCO and COO, rethink their ambitious "three/four films a year" plan, and eventually scale it down to two films a year, and eventually led to Katzenberg agreeing to sell his studio to Comcast/Universal without him coming with it.
  • Home (2015) had the lowest critical reception for a DWA film since 2007, and although it managed to make back its budget both domestically and internationally, the current crisis within the studio caused by its previous underperformances makes it very unlikely for the film to have a sequel, although its made-for-Netflix spin-off series premiered in July 2016.
  • Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) is also the last since, despite relatively positive reviews and the film recouping its budget, the results were below expectations. It received a Netflix spinoff instead in 2018.

    Lionsgate Films / Summit Entertainment 
  • The writer and the director of American Ultra were hopeful to make at least a follow-up, but it went nowhere after lukewarm reception from critics and poor box office grosses.
  • Bratz: The Movie was planned as the first in a series of films based on the doll line, but the film's box office failure coupled with a lawsuit filed against the doll's parent company prevented a sequel from moving forward.
  • Child 44 bombed hard, and thus the two book sequels are probably never getting adapted.
  • Dredd is obviously designed as an introduction to the basics of life in Mega City One, setting the stage for a planned pair of sequels, the first of which would delve into Judge Dredd's origin story (covered in the infamous 1995 film, completely left out of Dredd) and the second of which would pit Dredd against his nemesis, Judge Death. However, Dredd failed miserably at the box office, and despite strong home video sales and a very vocal fanbase, those sequels are officially dead. There is a comic sequel being printed in the Judge Dredd Megazine, however, with the first couple of stories collected in a graphic novel titled Urban Warfare. Reportedly, Karl Urban is in discussions with Netflix about a Dredd series, possibly set after the movie. Rebellion announced in 2018 that they were working on a TV show based on the comics to be produced in-house, tentatively titled Judge Dredd: Mega City One. However, its connections (if any) to the movie are unclear. The show itself has since fallen into Development Hell.
  • Plans were made for an Ender's Game sequel (albeit not following the actual book sequel, given the author vetoed it), but instead of being the start of a new film franchise, the film adaptation could end up serving as a prime example of why creators of potential franchises should watch their mouths in the future.
  • The poor reviews and box office failure of Gods of Egypt killed any chance of becoming Lionsgate's next Hunger Games-style franchise.
  • Kin (2018) was to be the first of a series if its French subtitle "Le commencement" ("the beginning") and tagline "La nouvelle saga" ("the new saga") are any indication. The film's critical and commercial failure ensured it wouldn't.
  • The Last Witch Hunter was supposed to be the start of a new franchise. Summit/Lionsgate were so confident of its chances, they announced a sequel even before the film was released! Then the box office numbers came in and they had to take back their plans.
  • Mortdecai was based on the first Mortdecai story "Don't Point That Thing at Me", and the studio hoped to follow it up with adaptations of the other four stories. However, the film itself was a critical flop and a Box Office Bomb, barely making back half of its $60 million budget.
  • The 2017 Power Rangers film was intended as the start of a cinematic franchise to span anywhere from five to seven films. After a strong opening weekend in the US and Canada, however, it dropped like a rock with a final gross barely over two times the opening weekend tally. Worse, it was a box office bomb in its foreign release; with the Japanese opening getting overshadowed by Pokémon: I Choose You! and the Japanese releases of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Cars 3. The strong sales of the tie-in toyline left the possibility of a sequel open, and Hasbro initially announced development of a sequel after their acquisition of the Power Rangers franchise, but in 2019 they announced that the next movie would be a reboot at Paramount, killing Lionsgate's attempt at a franchise for good.
  • The obscure Direct to Video animated film The Princess Twins of Legendale (created by MGA Entertainment and distributed by Lionsgate) had the Tag Line "Starring In Their First Enchanted Movie!" plastered on it, indicating that there were potentially hopes to start a franchise based off of its characters. However, no follow-up of any kind emerged.
  • Plans for a sequel to The Punisher remained in Development Hell until Thomas Jane and director Johnathan Hensleigh pulled out. What came next was the reboot Punisher: War Zone.
  • The Three Musketeers (2011) ends on a cliffhanger, implying that the battle has only just begun. However, the film itself wasn't considered enough of a success (critically or financially) to warrant a follow-up. A rift between star Milla Jovovich and the studio after the film's release over marketing didn't help matters either.

    MGM / Orion Pictures / United Artists 
  • Die Another Day was intended to launch a spin-off series of films about Halle Berry's American secret agent Action Girl Jinx. Unfortunately, the lukewarm critical and fan reaction led to the James Bond franchise taking a few years off before a full Continuity Reboot with Casino Royale, and no such spin-off occurred. Of course, the fact that Jinx was one of the more disliked aspects of the film probably didn't help matters either. Berry's other action film of the era (Catwoman (2004)) being an even more catastrophic flop additionally tarnished her as an actor and discredited the whole concept of a female-protagonist action movie for studios until the mid-2010s.
  • Gorky Park did not lead to other adaptations of the Arkady Renko novels by Martin Cruz Smith.
  • The animated version of The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi made it halfway through the second volume of the novel (The Two Towers). Due to Executive Meddling, the title did not indicate that it was Part I, and a sequel was never produced. Rankin-Bass' The Return of the King is sometimes seen as (and, today, frequently marketed as) a sequel to the Bakshi film, but the two films don't link up perfectly and differ wildly in style and tone. There's no official relation between them.
  • Mac and Me ended with the words "We'll be back!" Poor reviews and accusations of ripping off E.T. ensured they wouldn't.
  • In 2007, Kevin Costner talked about wanting to do two sequels to Mr. Brooks, but despite a decent box office performance, the sequels never went past talks.
  • Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins... and then immediately stops due to making less than $15 million at the box office. Orion and Dick Clark (yes, that one) did have another go with a TV pilot two years later, which didn't work either. The book series, on the other hand, had a long and very healthy franchise life.
  • Plans were announced for a sequel to A Star Is Born in 1938 entitled Heartbreak Town, about a child actor, but it was never made.

    Miramax Films / The Weinstein Company 
  • Author/screenwriter Anthony Horowitz attempted to turn his successful Alex Rider novels into a blockbuster franchise, the starting point being Stormbreaker. Unfortunately, the film's poor box office take prevented this from happening. Horowitz has since then admitted that bringing the spy teen to the screen was a “mistake”. The series would ultimately end up getting a TV adaptation that fared much better.
  • Quentin Tarantino planned a sequel to Django Unchained called Django in White Hell. He realised that Django's morals wouldn't connect with the story, so it became The Hateful Eight.
  • Kevin Smith originally wanted to do a sequel to Dogma about Islam, but since it would touch on a belief system much less forgiving to jokes, he decided to abandon the idea of a sequel altogether.
  • The makers of Freddie as F.R.O.7 had planned to make it a franchise but the financial failure of the first movie stopped that from happening.
  • Not everyone knows this, but according to Word of God, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) in Pulp Fiction and Mr. Blonde/Vic Vega (Michael Madsen) in Reservoir Dogs are actually brothers, and the films are set in the same universe. There was originally a plan for a film about the two brothers, but this project ultimately never took off. The film can't be made now since both brothers were killed in their movies, so the film would have to be a prequel and the actors look far older now.
  • Scream 4 restarted the Scream series after eleven years of dormancy, and was intended to be the beginning of a second Scream trilogy, with director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson contracted to do a fifth and sixth film. However, the film barely made back its budget in the US and depended on the international box-office in order to turn a profit, locking the rest of the planned movies into limbo. Ultimately, the franchise carried on, producing two television series and a fifth film in 2022 (simply titled Scream), but with minimal input from Williamson (who only served as an executive producer) and none whatsoever from Craven (who died in 2015), it ended up being a Soft Reboot.
  • The 2014 movie adaptation of Vampire Academy was a Box Office Bomb that only made a meager $7 million gross in North America, the lowest of any YA adaptation in the '10s. As a result, the plans to adapt the novel's five sequels were shelved. Despite this, a crowdfunding effort by the creators was made to keep the franchise alive, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

    Paramount Pictures / Nickelodeon Movies 
  • The Adventures of Tintin (2011) was a critical and financial success intended to launch a whole series, with the sequel being likely based on Hergé's "The Seven Crystal Balls" and "Prisoners of the Sun", and directed by Peter Jackson (Producer of the first one) instead of Spielberg after he was done with his Hobbit Trilogy. However, production of the sequel has constantly been delayed and things haven't worked out that way with Spielberg saying in 2018 that the series isn't dead but no new film can be expected within the next 3 years and no new announcements have been made since then.
  • Airplane! was not intended to start a franchise, but first-and-only sequel Airplane II: The Sequel may well have been, since Airplane III is promised at the end of the credits. Then again, the whole thing is probably a joke anyway, since Buck Murdock (William Shatner) appears right after the announcement, claiming, "That's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!"
  • Flight of the Intruder did not lead to adaptations of the other Jake Grafton novels.
  • Furby Island was intended to be the pilot movie for a TV series that would, of course, promote the Furby toyline, with the end of the movie teasing that there was more to come. The series was even green-lit, but due to a change in Nickelodeon’s executives, the project fell way off-track until it was eventually scrapped altogether.
  • Ghost in the Shell (2017) was intended as the start of a planned franchise, but due to poor reviews from critics and a disastrous showing at the box office (even if overseas it went better); the film is unlikely to receive a planned follow-up. The film being Overshadowed by Controversy among fans of the source material didn't help matters either.
  • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was intended to have a sequel which was expected to see release in 2016, but the film was widely panned by critics and ignored by North American moviegoers, so it never happened (although the story might find new life on TV).
  • The Last Airbender, which adapated the first season of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name. While in July 2010 M. Night Shyamalan was convinced the planned sequels would be made, there had been a noticeable lack of talk about them from anyone else involved in the years after the infamous film's release. The rights to create a film adaptation found their way to Netflix as part of a larger Viacom deal, with a live-action television series developed for the streaming service.
  • Paramount initially had huge plans for Monster Trucks during production, seeing franchise and merchandising potential in the premise. But after multiple delays, the studio started to lose faith, giving it a January release date and putting a $115 million write-down on the film. Monster Trucks ended up becoming a huge Box Office Bomb, just making back over half of its large budget; any ideas for a sequel are likely dead in the water.
  • The 1996 film adaption of The Phantom, starring Billy Zane, was to have been followed by two sequels. Instead, it underperformed at the box office and no further films were made, despite subsequent redemption through rental sales.
  • Primal Fear, based on the novel by William Diehl, could have been the beginning of a trilogy of films featuring Richard Gere as Martin Vail and Edward Norton as Aaron Stampler (the duo were featured in two more of Diehl's novels, Show of Evil and Reign in Hell). That didn't happen.
  • The film of A Series of Unfortunate Events is an adaptation of the first three books with an ending tacked on, covering 3/13 of the series. The ending doesn't preclude a sequel, but there hasn't been one. The film rights have since been bought by Netflix, who rebooted it as a TV series that managed to adapt all thirteen books.
  • Tomorrow: When the War Began was based on the first of John Marsden's seven-book Tomorrow series. If its failure to make its money back at the Australian/New Zealand box office didn't guarantee the other six books (or the three follow-up books focusing on the series' main character) wouldn't be filmed, the pitiful international takings certainly did. There was a Continuity Reboot in the form of a TV series in 2016 with an entirely new cast. That didn't fly either...
  • Transformers: The Last Knight was meant to launch a Transformers cinematic universe, featuring the reveal of Quintessa, the Witwiccans' castle hinting at possible sequels by confirming Transformer involvement all throughout human history, and the revelation that the Earth was Unicron all along. Poor critical reception and even poorer box office performance ensured that these sequels would never come to be, though Bumblebee would launch a rebooted film series with Michael Bay only serving as a producer.
  • Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory leaves off with Wonka telling Charlie that he inherited the factory. Any plans for this to be followed up with Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator were scrapped when Roald Dahl became so upset about the film adaptation of his book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) that he left it in his will that Elevator could not be adapted for the big screen. This explains why Tim Burton's version 30 years later lacks any Sequel Hook. Ironically the original film was Vindicated by Cable and loved by millions over the years, so this was more of a case of short-sightedness on the author's part. Another reason why the film may have not gotten a sequel was it was a bit of a flop that caused Paramount to not renew the distribution of this film, which would then move to Warner Bros. years later.
  • Wonder Park was intended to launch a franchise that would have spun off into other media such as an animated TV series. The film received lukewarm reviews and failed to make back its $100 million budget at the box office, which makes the prospect unlikely. The film's director Dylan Brown being fired over misconduct allegations, which infamously caused the film to forego a director credit at all note , has cast further doubt over the future of any franchise plans.

    Universal Pictures 
  • A sequel to Animal House was planned that would take place during the 1969 Summer of Love and involve the Deltas reuniting for Otter's wedding. But when More American Graffiti bombed at the box office, Universal stalled the project. The project was scrapped for good when John Belushi died in 1982.
  • Barb Wire was poorly received by critics and fans of the original comic book (they accused the film of deliberately copying Casablanca) and bombed at the box office, leading Dark Horse Comics to take back the film rights and prevent any more Barb Wire movies. So far it is the biggest box office failure based on a Dark Horse franchise, with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For being the runner-up.
  • Battleship did well in every market except North America, which sunk its chances of becoming Hasbro's next Transformers-style blockbuster film franchise.
  • Following a three-year break after the expiration of their deal with Miramax Films and Creative Capers Entertainment, LEGO partnered with Universal and Threshold Animation to launch a second Direct-to-DVD trilogy of animated films based on their BIONICLE franchise, concurrently with the slight Retool of its story. BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn came out in 2009 and ended on a big Sequel Hook. The first draft for the sequel's script had already been written when LEGO announced that they're ending BIONICLE due to reasons that were never made explicit (probably unsatisfying sales and the story being too continuity-heavy to bring in new fans). They wrapped up the story (leaving out some pre-planned arcs) in the comics and a Web Serial Novel. However, their partnership with the studios wasn't wasted: they released an Animated Adaptation for Hero Factory, BIONICLE's Spiritual Successor toy-line and numerous other LEGO themes.
  • Universal was considering developing a Bridesmaids sequel without Kristen Wiig, when she stated in an interview she and Annie Mumolo weren't planning a sequel and were "writing something else". The rumored sequel would've likely focused on Melissa McCarthy's character's wedding in the Bahamas without Wiig's involvement, which she considered "a terrible idea" in another interview.
  • The Bone Collector did not lead to other Lincoln Rhyme films.
  • John Hughes considered a sequel to The Breakfast Club detailing what would happen upon the club's return to school the following Monday but realized that it would be too complex a story to tell in film, and would be a logistical nightmare with regards to the actors reprising their roles. He danced around the idea of a novel, but ultimately never got around to it. He also tossed around the idea of doing a sequel every ten years, showing where the club was at in their lives, but for the above reasons (and possibly because of the Downer Ending predicted for Bender in a Deleted Scene) he decided against it. It's a double shame when you consider that all five of the actors said they would have reprised their roles in a heartbeat. Any further ideas for a sequel permanently died off when John Hughes passed away in 2009, along with the five main actors now being too old to play their respective characters again.
  • Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant was an adaptation of the first trilogy in The Saga of Darren Shan. There was supposed to have been three more movies to adapt the rest of the series, but when Cirque du Freak bombed critically and commercially, those plans were shelved. Ironically, one of the film's main criticisms was that it focused too heavily on setting up future films.
  • Universal have tried twice in the 2010s releasing films that would kickstart a Shared Universe based on their Universal Classic Monsters and both of them failed:
  • The film Devil was intended to be the beginning of a new anthology series called "The Night Chronicles" based on stories by M. Night Shyamalan about the supernatural in modern urban society. The film even has the number one shown after the label's logo. However, its disappointing box office combined with Shyamalan's detractors among audiences (the film, not directed by him, had mixed reviews) led future installments to be canceled.
  • The ending of Doctor Detroit just before the credits promised Doctor Detroit 2: The Wrath of Mom. It started as a parody on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but later the studio was seriously considering it because they expected the film to be a huge hit. Dan Aykroyd was even working on the screenplay himself. Unfortunately, the film did not do well at the box office and the proposed sequel was scrapped. Dan Aykroyd is still asked occasionally if there will be a sequel.
  • Reportedly, when Dune (1984) finished production, David Lynch was hired to direct two more Dune films and was already working on a script based on Dune Messiah, the next book in the series. The film was a commercial disappointment and received poor initial reviews, so the sequels were cancelled. Warner Bros eventually picked up the rights to much better reception, adapting the first novel in two parts.
  • Flash Gordon ended with a sequel hook, with someone taking Ming's ring. However, while it has since gained a cult following, the film performed poorly outside of the UK and no sequel to the film has been made.
  • The 1994 remake of The Getaway was planned to become a series of movies focused around their characters but the film's failure led to the cancellation of future installments.
  • Ang Lee's Hulk was divisive and dropped off at the box office sharply from its huge opening weekend. Marvel let the would-be franchise wait for a few years before giving it a Continuity Reboot, The Incredible Hulk, the second film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (then distributed by two separate studios: Universal and Paramount). It too suffered the same fate as its predecessor, right down to the near-70% 2nd weekend drop. After Disney purchased the distribution rights of future MCU movies, a different actor was cast again as the Hulk to star in The Avengers. Although the actor was more well-received, Hulk has yet to star in a standalone film again, partly to prevent the same mistake from happening, partly to deny Universal (which still has the rights to the character, unlike Paramount) from sharing any profits made.
  • The Jem and the Holograms (2015) film was clearly intended to be the start of a franchise, judging by The Stinger featuring The Misfits, including Kesha as Pizazz. The film was a notorious bomb that was trashed by both critics and fans of the original cartoon, and was withdrawn from theatres after only two weeks.
  • The Russian adventure film Mongol was originally planned as a trilogy depicting the rise and fall of Genghis Khan. After difficulties on the first film, production on the sequels were stalled. A brief glimmer of hope occurred when it was announced that the sequels would become one large-scale film but production was canceled again in late 2010.
  • The critical and commercial failure of Mortal Engines likely killed any future adaptations of the Hungry City books.
  • 1994's The Shadow movie was intended to be the beginning of a franchise, but the movie bombed at the box office, killing any chances of it continuing.
  • Universal and Carolco hoped that Wes Craven could recapture lightning in a bottle with Shocker, with body surfing serial killer Horace Pinker as the new Freddy Krueger. Despite quickly recouping its $10 million budget, the film was considered a disappointment and no sequels were made. Pinker's actor would get his Star-Making Role a few years later on the TV series The X-Files.
  • Van Helsing was supposed to spin off a TV series, Transylvania, in addition to at least one film sequel. The Direct to Video animated featurette Van Helsing: The London Assignment doesn't count — it was released at the same time the film hit theaters (and explains why Van Helsing was fighting Mr. Hyde at the beginning of the film). While the original did gross plenty of money, Universal found it wasn't enough to make them happy, which is why they pushed the reboot button.
  • WarCraft was meant to be the beginning of a WarCraft film series, with early teaser material referring to the film as WarCraft: The Beginning. Despite a decent marketing campaign, reviews were negative (as predicted, though fans begged to differ) and while it was a smash hit in China, it bombed everywhere else. That, combined with co-producer Legendary Pictures parting ways with Universal two years later, killed the potential movie franchise stone dead.
  • When Oliver Stone wrote his early draft of Conan the Barbarian (1982), he intended it to be the first film in a whopping twelve film franchise. The script would later be rewritten and directed by John Milius, becoming one of the most successful films of 1982. The film did get a sequel in the form of Conan the Destroyer, which was both a critical and commercial disappointment. There would be no more Conan films until the franchise was rebooted with Conan the Barbarian (2011), which was also a critical and commercial disappointment.
  • The Wolfman was meant to kickstart a direct-to-video werewolf franchise, with Werewolf: The Beast Among Us as the first installment. However, The Wolfman opened to negative reviews, and the franchise was scrapped, with The Beast Among Us ultimately unrelated.

    Walt Disney Pictures / Touchstone Pictures / Hollywood Pictures 
  • Disney started work on a TV spinoff of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but when the movie bombed they canned it and edited the completed episodes into a direct-to-video movie. This one is of special note to Gargoyles fans, as Greg Weisman was the producer on both shows and one of the unfinished episodes was to be a Cross Through between the two.
    • Plans to retheme the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland to an Atlantis ride were also scrapped between the failure of the film and the general Development Hell of the Tomorrowland '98 expansion. The submarine lagoon remained as a scenic viewpoint (but it was painfully obvious that it was a defunct attraction) until finally getting reopened as a Finding Nemo (2003) ride in 2007.
    • A similar fate befell the movie Treasure Planet as well, which also resulted in a potential animated TV series and sequel movie (which would've given Jim Hawkins a love interest named Kate and introduced a new villain named Ironbeard, who would've been voiced by Willem Dafoe.)
    • In fact, every single animated Disney movie that failed at the box office starting with The Great Mouse Detective (1986) note  and ending with Meet the Robinsons (2007) will always be a stillborn franchise.note  You can easily tell by which characters from those films were added into the merchandise: if a film succeeds at the box office, then the hero(ine) is marketed very greatly, but if the movie fails, then the villain is marketed instead, best exemplified with The Black Cauldron.
  • Dick Tracy, though not for the assumed reason that it wasn't a hit at the box office. It didn't reach the Batman (1989)-level grosses Disney hoped for and the merchandising was a total dud (Warren Beatty complained in a Premiere interview at the end of 1991 that they tried to blow up the film into something it wasn't with the latter), but it was still successful enough that a sequel was planned. The problem was a dispute between Beatty and the Tribune Co. over who owned the rights to the Dick Tracy franchise. The dispute didn't end until over 20 years later, in March of 2011.
  • After John Lasseter took the reins for Disney, he put a quick stop to the Disneytoon Studios Direct to Video movies. Among the abandoned sequels:
    • The Aristocats II would have been about the kittens touring Europe on a cruise with a jewel thief as the planned antagonist. Marie and Duchess would have been voiced by Tara Strong and Russi Taylor, respectively. Former Disneytoon collaborator Tod Carter discusses it here.
    • Two possible sequels for Chicken Little. One would have involved Chicken Little going to Mars. The other, which was further along, would have been about Chicken Little getting smitten with Raffaela, a French sheep. Abby Mallard would have made herself over out of jealousy. The original film's critical failure was another factor in the sequel getting canned.
    • Dumbo II would have been about Dumbo and the rest of the young animals in the circus embarking on a journey from New York City to Florida. This was announced as early as 2001, but nothing ever came of it.
    • Meet the Robinsons had a sequel planned: Meet The Robinsons: First Date. It was cancelled after the original's disappointing box office results. It didn't help that John Lasseter's demands to rework said film sent it went way overbudget.
    • Pinocchio II which would have been about Pinocchio, now a real boy, going on a strange journey and wondering why life can be so unfair sometimes.
    • Snow White 2 would have introduced the evil Queen's sister kidnapping six of the dwarfs. Dopey would have guided Snow White, the prince, and their daughter to rescue them.
  • The title of Doug's 1st Movie strongly implies that it was meant to be the first in a series of movies based on the then-running Doug cartoon. At the time, movie adaptations of popular television cartoons were a common trend in animation, having started with the smash success of The Rugrats Movie and having continued with numerous other TV-to-movie adaptations. However, Doug had already been falling in popularity at the time, having been recently purchased by Disney and having had several controversial changes applied to it. Moreover, Doug's 1st Movie was not even intended to be a feature film, having started its life as a Direct to Video film based on Doug before being abruptly moved to theaters after the aforementioned success of The Rugrats Movie. As such, while the film was a box office success (owing to its low budget), it received unfavorable reviews and became the only Doug movie ever made.
  • The failure of DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) actually prevented the making of any sequels to the DuckTales (1987) show as well as the making of a Darkwing Duck movie and a Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie, although the latter would eventually happen 32 years later.
  • Walt Disney intended for Fantasia to be rereleased every year with some new segments. Thanks to a combination of bad timing (released while World War II was heating up) and an animators' strike, this never materialized. Unused segments ended up being released as standalone shorts. Sixty years later, Walt Disney's nephew Roy tried to resurrect the dream project with Fantasia 2000; once again, segments created for a never-finished sequel were released as standalone shorts.
  • The end of the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) left a Sequel Hook that the characters would be going to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in the next film. The first film was somewhat successful (grossing $104 million worldwide on a $50 million budget) and the actors and the director were signed on for a sequel, but Disney (through Touchstone) decided against making it, claiming the film wasn't profitable enough. It did not help that Douglas Adams died before production completion as well.
  • John Carter. The problems began in late 2011 when Disney shopped the film around to various toy companies, and all of them refused to sign a deal to produce John Carter-based merchandise, claiming that films based on Mars (including Disney's own bombs Mission to Mars and Mars Needs Moms) don't sell. In response, Disney dropped the "of Mars" from the title and refocused marketing efforts from the film's sci-fi elements to its action/adventure elements. The changes didn't resonate with the general public and sci-fi fans, both of whom saw the new advertisements and concluded that the film was a generic fantasy blockbuster. As a result, the film flopped at the box office and ultimately led to the resignation of studio chief Rich Ross and the firing of marketing chief MT Carney. While there have been talks of a sequel despite its dismal box office take, Disney's commitment to continue the series was not strong. The rights have now reverted to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate and they plan on making additional films. Whether or not the plan involves a sequel or a reboot is unclear.
  • The Lone Ranger (2013). Disney had been planning on making a film based on the Lone Ranger since the early 1990s and finally greenlit the film's production in 2008. The production ended up going wildly over budget, was shut down for a while after Cowboys & Aliens flopped hard at the box office, and started up again a few months later with a slightly smaller budget, which ended up going up again. It got to the point where the film would have needed to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time to break even, at which point Disney decided to hold off on sequel plans. After the film bombed (when adjusted for inflation, it's the second biggest bomb in history) the plans were completely thrown out - not helped by both of its stars later finding themselves in major legal trouble. Both it and Cowboys and Aliens also beamed away the sci-fi/fantasy western genre.
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Highest-grossing video game movie until Warcraft, and one of the least reviled by critics and fans. Yet given its high budget and low income in the US, it's hard to expect the rest of the trilogy to receive movie adaptations.
  • The Rocketeer. Interestingly, director Joe Johnson went on to the very successful Captain America: The First Avenger and intends to reboot this character, so maybe there is hope after all.
  • Sky High's stillbirth wasn't its own fault, as it was a critical and commercial success. Disney just didn't consider it enough of a success to risk investing in the planned sequels. The fact that a similar film called Zoom was released into theaters the very next year but turned out to be a commercial and critical failure couldn't have helped, either. However, as of 2016, a sequel is reportedly in development, so this trope might be subverted.
  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice featured an after-credits Sequel Hook teasing the main villain's return, and stars Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel teased a potential sequel in interviews at the time. However, since it only earned $63 million domestically compared to its $150 million budget, it seems unlikely that the series will continue.
  • The 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie left on a sequel hook, with Daisy finding Luigi and Mario and shouting "You're never going to believe this!" We'll never find out what they'll never believe, since the planned sequels never saw the light of day either due to being a flop at the box office and Nintendo responding with a mandate that film adaptations of their franchises not named Pokémon were completely forbidden; this also dropped Jeffrey Katzenberg's move to mix Nintendo into Disney's theme park model into the lava moat as well. Nintendo later greenlit an animated Continuity Reboot by Illumination, and the theme park was made at Disney's rivals at Universal Studios.
  • After the success of Cars as a Cash-Cow Franchise, Pixar wanted to make The Good Dinosaur as popular as that franchise with TOMY's toyline based off the movie. However, because the movie was a Box Office Bomb and was not received well among the target audience since it had many scary moments and was way too dramatic even for Pixar standards, it fizzled away once the movie came to home video.
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit earned comics, a few animated shorts, and even books from the original author that followed the movie's story instead of the novel. And yet a sequel movie languished in Development Hell, partly because it's a Disney/Amblin co-production and thus needs Spielberg's approval (the first script, the WWII-set Roger Rabbit: The Toon Platoon, was even nixed once Spielberg refused to satirize Nazis after Schindler's List), and eventually because of a change in the higher-ups' mentalities, with director Robert Zemeckis saying they are disinterested in reviving Roger Rabbit because "there’s no princess in it".

    Warner Bros. Entertainment / New Line Cinema 
  • A sequel to The Adventures of Robin Hood, Sir Robin of Locksley was announced but never developed. The US government wanted to restrict the amount of money invested in filmmaking at that point in anticipation of joining World War II, so it was delayed. By 1945, when the war was over, the project was scrapped because Olivia de Havilland and Claude Rains were no longer employed at Warner Bros..
  • The Battlefield Earth movie is an adaptation of the first half of the book. Despite John Travolta's (decade-old) claims, it is probably safe to say that the sequel is not forthcoming. Not that a planned sequel would have been very exciting anyway, as the second half of the book basically revolved around getting the paperwork for the first half squared away when the Psychlos' bankers came calling. An animated series was also planned and actually went quite far into production, with voice actors being cast and, according to rumors, the pilot episode was almost fully animated by the time of the film's release. Needless to say, no network was too eager to pick up the series after Battlefield Earth became one of the most notoriously bad pieces of cinema ever created.
  • The box office failure of 2013's Beautiful Creatures doomed any chances of seeing the three other books in the series being adapted into sequels. Fans wouldn't have cared due to not liking how executives handled the film.
  • A sequel to The Bodyguard was planned, with Princess Diana to play herself opposite Kevin Costner. Sadly, it was not to be - Costner received the completed script the day before Diana died in a car crash.
  • Just as Doc Savage served as a partial template for Buckaroo Banzai, his 1975 film announced a sequel that never appeared.
  • Believe it or not, Casablanca almost got a sequel called Brazzaville. Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains signed on to reprise their roles, but Ingrid Bergman was unavailable, which should have ended things right there, but Geraldine Fitzgerald was ultimately tapped to play Ilsa. By most reports, Brazzaville would have completely undone everything that made Casablanca great: Rick and Louis would both have been revealed to have been spies for the Allies, invalidating their apparently genuine Character Development in the previous film, and Victor Laszlo finally would have met his end, freeing Ilsa to be with Rick without guilt (or that pesky Hays Office breathing down the studio's neck); this would result in a Love Triangle between Rick, Ilsa, and a Spanish woman Rick had to seduce as part of his spy activities; ultimately, Rick and Ilsa would have wound up together and on a boat to the United States, living Happily Ever After. The studio (unsurprisingly) didn't care for this plot outline and (given that the war was winding down and Warner Bros. had a backlog of war pictures to get through before V-J Day) the idea of a sequel was dropped and never revisited (at least on the screen).
  • The Clan of the Cave Bear (which Warner Bros. distributed) was intended to be the first in a series, with plans to adapt the rest of the books (at the time of its 1986 release, three books out of a planned six had been published and J M Auel was writing the fourth). Unfortunately, the film was disliked by both fans and critics - and the author herself - and was a box office flop. No sequels were made and it's largely faded into obscurity in comparison to the books.
  • It's quite evident by the ending that the Dungeons & Dragons (2000) film intended to have more films following it revolving around the same characters, but many years passed without any word on future plans. Syfy instead made two loosely related made-for-TV sequels before Paramount acquired the rights and made the much better received Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
  • While Firefox, Clint Eastwood's adaptation of the novel by the same name, resulted in novelist Craig Thomas writing additional stories about Mitchell Gant, it didn't lead to any other film adaptations.
  • The Golden Compass was a blockbuster hit outside the U.S., but Misaimed Marketing and some boneheaded decisions by New Line Cinema, namely, selling off the ability to take any foreign gross (which led to their getting absorbed into Warner Bros.), meant the film still legally became a Box Office Bomb and ensured that the rest of the trilogy won't see the light of celluloid (the movie also wasn't all that well received critically either). Like Eragon above, some of the changes make it hard to figure out how they would have finished it anyway. Apparently the filmmakers were quite determined to make the full trilogy work, but the late-2000s recession caused New Line to pull the plug. Outcries from the Christian right in the U.S. over the first film may have also hurt its chances; while The Golden Compass didn't have a lot of anti-religious content to play down in a film, adapting the rest of His Dark Materials in a way that wouldn't offend that market would result in an unfaithful adaptation that would have offended the novels' fanbase. In 2015 the BBC announced that it would be adapting the saga from the beginning as a live-action TV series. It would go on to premiere in Fall 2019 on HBO and BBC One as His Dark Materials.
  • King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was meant as the first of a six-part film franchise, which won't happen given the film was roundly panned and only made $148 million worldwide on its $175 million budget.
  • All the actors in 1998's Lost in Space adaptation were contracted for a trilogy. When the first one failed, the rest were canceled. In the DVD commentary, Akiva Goldsman still seems optimistic that he has a successful franchise on his hands, and gives a preview of what viewers can look forward to in future films, which seem better than what was in the film itself.
  • The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) tanked at the box office, taking only $110 million on a $75 million budget, making it unlikely any sequels will be produced.
  • Pan sets up an origin story for Peter Pan and Captain Hook where they start out as friends, a definite Sequel Hook, but after failing to make a profit and receiving negative reviews from critics, any potential sequels were aborted.
  • Flamingos Forever was intended to be the sequel to 1972's Pink Flamingos. It was also intended to be set 15 years after the events of the first movie. While Divine was nervous about the stunts that the script required (i.e. eating pie underwater and having to carry Edie), he also wanted to focus his career on more serious male roles. Plus, Edith Massey's death in 1984 was "the first nail in the coffin" for the project as there was no one else in the world that would replace Edie. Divine would also die in 1988 from a heart attack, therefore ending the project. However, some elements from the project would be incorporated into future John Waters projects. For example, the names of Wilbur, Inez, and Tracy would be Transplanted into his 1988 film Hairspray. The "Hokey Pokey" scene would be featured in the 2004 film A Dirty Shame.
  • Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer was promoted as the titular character's first movie, but was also her only one.
  • Spawn, while a financial success, was ripped apart by critics and delivered a heavy blow to the comic book movie and the crew's careers. A sequel had been in talks some years after release, even once the film rights moved to Columbia.
  • The Specialist did not lead to other adaptations of the Specialist novels.
  • An interesting case where it certainly didn't do the best business in the box office, but still well enough that they were ready to do a sequel; released in 2007, TMNT was clearly intended to be the first in a series of new films starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with even a Sequel Hook at the end of it. But the sequel had some issues with Development Hell, and then Peter Laird sold the whole franchise to Nickelodeon in 2009, only two years after the film was released. If there was still hope for a sequel after that, it was killed by Astro Boy's box office failure the very same year, shutting down Imagi Animation Studios. The film series ended up getting a complete Continuity Reboot in the form of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Platinum Dunes, making any sort of sequel even more unlikely.

    Other Studios 
  • The Russian film Asiris Nuna is the live-action adaptation of Today, Mom!, the first of the Island Rus' trilogy by Sergey Lukyanenko. While many fans of Lukyanenko would like to see the other two books turned into movies, it doesn't appear that this will happen in the near future. The additional difficulty comes from the second novel having an entirely different set of characters with the Sibling Team from the first book only coming back in the third novel.
  • Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon not only had this happen to it, it lampshaded it when Leslie talks about how many wannabe slashers only get one killing spree, whereas the legends like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger always manage to come back to repeat their crimes. In the end, despite a clear Sequel Hook, a positive reception by critics and horror fans, and plans for sequels, it didn't make as much money as the filmmakers hoped. The only sequel it got came in the form of a six-issue comic book miniseries, with a second film falling into Development Hell before the filmmakers decided to abandon it, deciding that the script they had was outdated given how much the horror genre it was parodying had changed since.
  • The Live-Action Adaptation of Bleach was meant as the first of a planned series, but the film's disappointing box office returns in Japan make future installments unlikely.
  • Bright was pitched by writer Max Landis and advertised by Netflix as the start of a massive franchise, envisioned by Landis himself to be on par with Star Wars. While the film ended up one of the most-streamed on Netflix, and an anime spin-off film came and went in 2021, the intended sequel fell into Development Hell (scrapped entirely by 2022), likely due to a mix of negative critical reception and troubled controversies surrounding several key creators (director David Ayer leaving the project, Landis being the subject of several allegations of emotional and sexual abuse, and star Will Smith getting several projects iceboxed following his incident at the 2022 Oscars).
  • The dreary 1981 family film Carnival Magic ended with an enthusiastic plug for More Carnival Magic. This was rather premature as there would be no more carnival magic after that film. Fortunately, there would be no Carnival Magic Cinematic Universe either.
  • The blaxploitation classic Coffy was meant to have a sequel, Burn Coffy, Burn. Due to sequels not being considered profitable at the time, that became Foxy Brown.
  • The Netflix adaptation of Death Note ends on a rather obvious Sequel Hook, but the widespread backlash from critics and fans of the source material (which led to the director quitting Twitter due to the angry feedback he received) makes the prospect unlikely, as the film makes numerous changes that would require more to be made or outright giving the series a reboot. The film's creative changes also led to it being Overshadowed by Controversy (and not just for the casting either.).
  • While the Elf Bowling video game series had already lost its popularity, it didn't stop them from making a Direct to Video film adaptation titled Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike, and it was even planned to be the first in a series of Elf Bowling films, a sequel titled Elf Bowling 2: The Great Pumpkin Heist having been announced. The film was both a commercial and critical failure, and the sequel was cancelled.
  • The Empty Beach did not lead to other adaptations of the Cliff Hardy novels.
  • After Flowers in the Attic, an adaptation of the book's first sequel was planned but never panned out, presumably due to negative critical and fan reception. It would have been hard to do so anyways, considering the film killed off Corrine long before she died in the books. Averted with Lifetime's made-for-TV adaptation, which was soon joined by adaptations of the second, third, and fourth books in the Dollanganger series.
  • Not that it ever had a realistic shot of becoming a franchise anyway due to the film's decade-long Troubled Production, but Foodfight! was intended to be the first of many films centering around food mascots and icons. It was sold to various food companies as a massive multimedia cross-promotion tool that could be adapted to television, stage shows, and countless toys and merchandise. Given the problems that started once they had raised enough funding to actually make the movie, it's clear that the filmmakers had put more thought into the potential franchise than the film itself, which had archaic animation that still would have dropped the film behind Finding Nemo (a robbery that set the production back didn't help).
  • When The Happytime Murders was in early development at The Jim Henson Company, Lisa Henson said in an interview that it was meant to kickstart a whole series of films based on the company's Puppet Up stage show, where the Miskreant Puppets would lampoon a different genre (i.e. teen comedy and sci-fi). By the time the film was eventually released, it ended up a critical and financial failure, effectively shooting those plans down.
  • The 1959 Hammer Horror adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles was supposed to be the start of a series of films starring Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes. The film's disappointing box office returns dashed those hopes.
  • The Host (2008) was originally intended to be the first of a trilogy, but the film's poor box office intake and the next novel's nonexistence have left the prospects of a sequel distinctly murky.
  • The 2017 Live-Action Adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable was meant as the first in a planned trilogy, but the film's disappointing reception at the box office makes the planned sequels unlikely to happen.
  • The critical and commercial failure of Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer in 2011 probably killed off any chances of more Judy Moody movies.
  • Juncture (2007) was intended to be the first film of a trilogy. The other two films never materialized.
  • Inverted in the case of Garth Brooks' alter-ego Chris Gaines. A movie called The Lamb was planned to chronicle the life and times of the multi-platinum enigmatic recording artist in Brooks' head. Then the preview Greatest Hits album (recorded by Garth in-character) bombed, despite "Lost in You" being Garth's only Top 40 pop hit, in or out of character. Safe to say, no Lamb is forthcoming.
    • KISS's Music from "The Elder" was a similar failure; it was supposed to be the springboard for a high fantasy film they would have starred in.
  • Hal Warren intended Manos: The Hands of Fate to have a sequel due to a Sequel Hook. However, the movie was so notoriously bad that even the original film was barely seen until it showed up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. An official sequel finally did come along in 2018.
  • Maradonia and the Shadow Empire, the film adaptation of the first Maradonia Saga book, ends with a caption promising a sequel titled Maradonia and the Escape from the Underworld. Considering that its creators spent almost all their money on Shadow Empire, which didn't even get a DVD release and was presumably a huge net loss, it's very unlikely that Escape from the Underworld will ever get made.
  • Nothing but the Night was the only movie produced by "Charlemagne Films," which was created by Christopher Lee and Anthony Nelson Keys. Lee and Charlemagne Films optioned two other books by John Blackburn, Portrait of Barbara and Bury Him Darkly, which were envisioned as sequels to this movie, with Lee re-creating the role of Colonel Bingham, but it didn't work out.
  • Odd Thomas seemed to have everything going for it to become a successful ongoing film series. Based on an already successful book series from a well-known author, with an extremely likeable lead actor already on a career upswing, based on an intriguing yet relatable premise, a competent (if occasionally over-ambitious) director combined with a film budget that didn’t break the bank the ingredients were all there for a series of decent and profitable films. Unfortunately the film was Screwed by the Lawyers after bitter legal battles broke out between various production companies, crippling the film's release and marketing causing it to bomb at the box office. This put director Stephen Sommers career in the slammer and after star Anton Yelchin’s tragically young death just three years later, the chances of any further films are pretty much dead in the water.
  • Q: The Winged Serpent had at least one sequel planned and ended on a cliffhanger. However, the film bombed at the box office and received dismal reviews, killing any chance of a follow-up.
  • In a rare blockbuster example, the Live-Action Adaptation of Rex: A Dinosaur Story, directed by Haruki Kadokawa, was the first such adaptation of a CLAMP manga, as well as the last, due to Kadokwawa being busted for cocaine smuggling, and the film being pulled from theaters as a response.
  • After the surprising success of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie, Toei revived the Metal Hero franchise by creating Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie, which would introduce a new Gavan for a modern era. Not even an appearance on Tokumei Sentai Go Busters could save this and Gavan bombed. The characters were quickly tossed into Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z to burn out their contracts. However, Direct-To-DVD movies focusing on the new Space Sheriff Sharivan and Space Sheriff Shaider (both of whom were introduced in Gavan the Movie) seem to have done quite well...
  • Luc Besson planned a sequel to The Professional focusing on a grown-up Mathilda. Because The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc had lukewarm reception among critics and audiences as well as a tepid box office that led to him leaving Gaumont and the fact that the company still held the exclusive rights to the film, he made Colombiana instead.
  • Subverted with the 1982 film The Sword and the Sorcerer. The credits promised a sequel titled Tales of An Ancient Empire that finally materialized in 2010.
  • The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure was planned to have at least two sequels, tons of merch, a TV series, and generally be the next Teletubbies. As the film is mainly remembered nowadays for having one of the worst wide-release opening weekends in history, it should not be a surprise that none of this ever happened.
  • The 2013 C-movie Templar Nation ended with a Sequel Hook, followed by a "To Be Continued" blurb in case that wasn't obvious. Given that no follow-up was ever made, that message was hilariously premature.
  • Playmobil: The Movie had a Sequel Hook in the credits and plans to be the first of a series of films to be based on the Playmobil toys. The film's critical panning and massive box office failure has inevitably halted those plans.
  • Suspiria (2018) had a prequel planned revolving around Helena Markos prior to release, but the film was a Box Office Bomb that the director admitted that the prequel would never happen.
  • LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers' main plot involves capturing three villains that have escaped from a max security prison on a distant planet. However, only one of the three ever actually appear in the film. This was because the film was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but both other movies were cancelled when the first film was a failure.

    Multiple Examples 
  • The last forty years have seen several examples of attempted hard-boiled detective/police/private eye films series that never reached more than one film.
    • Larry Cohen intended to make a few sequels to his 1982 remake of I, the Jury. The script for one of them served as the basis for 1987's Deadly Illusion, but as of 2010, no further Spillane-based films have reached theaters.
    • Kathleen Turner bought options on many of Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski books. Only one film came out, and its failure ruined Turner's career as an A-list starnote .
    • Darker Than Amber was the only film based on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books (although there was a TV movie pilot with Sam Elliott more than 10 years later. Which wasn't a hit either).
    • Devil in a Blue Dress was the only adaptation of Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins books.
    • Eight Million Ways to Die adapted Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder character. The next movie based on him, A Walk Among the Tombstones, arrived 28 years later in 2014.
    • James Lee Burke's Heaven's Prisoners featuring Dave Robicheaux only had a direct-to-DVD follow-up, In the Electric Mist, with Tommy Lee Jones taking over from Alec Baldwin.
    • A film adaptation of the first book in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, One for the Money, was released in 2012; it bombed at the box office and was eviscerated by the critics.
  • In 2011, Green Lantern (2011) ended with a Sequel Hook setting up Sinestro as the Big Bad of a future installment, and was intended to be the start of DC's Shared Universe, following the example of Marvel. However, the movie was met with lukewarm reception at the box office and terrible reviews from critics, which killed off any chance for a sequel or a shared universe. Man of Steel received a better box office and critical reception in 2013, and ended up as the launching pad of the DC Extended Universe.
  • Clive Cussler has seen two attempts to start film franchises based on his novels about Dirk Pitt, Raise the Titanic! and Sahara. Neither produced sequels, they both were massively Troubled Productions that ended up being giant Box Office Bombs (with Raise The Titanic sinking Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment studio), and they both received negative fan reactions — including from Cussler himself, who disowned both movies.
  • The Punisher is a unique example, as different filmmakers have tried (to date) three times to start a series, and in all three cases have failed. The Punisher (1989) starred Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle and focused heavily on the Yakuza, and went Direct to Video in the States. The Punisher (2004) reboot starred Thomas Jane as Castle, and adapted The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank storyline, but was panned by reviewers who said it was boring, and a sequel hook (where Frank intends to drive to New York) never panned out. Although it has become a cult favorite. The series was rebooted once again with Punisher: War Zone (part of the then newly-launched Marvel Knights film franchise), an intended sequel that became a second reboot, and cast Ray Stevenson as a much more gritty, morose version of the character — with plenty of nods to the comics and R-rated violence to boot. War Zone received middling reviews and bombed at the theaters, scuttling any plans for future installments. In October 2011, Fox announced that it would try to adapt the franchise for a television series, which ended up going nowhere and got shelved a year later. In the end, the rights to the character ended up reverting back to Marvel. So as a result, Marvel decided to use the success of adapting Daredevil (2015) for Netflix and used season 2 of Daredevil to introduce Jon Bernthal's version of the Punisher, who received enough praise to earn his own spinoff.
  • The Sesame Street franchise has to date only dabbled twice in feature film, with Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird in 1985 and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland in 1999. Both films were financial flops despite garnering critical plaudits. 20th Century Fox announced that they were working on a third film in 2012, but little was said of it after.
  • Aside from the aforementioned The Great Mouse Detective, other Sherlock Holmes-based or inspired films made from 1959 to 1988 which either stood as attempts at franchises or hinted at sequels but did not produce any include Young Sherlock Holmes, the Hammer Studios Hound of the Baskervilles, and A Study in Terror. No Sherlock Holmes film reached U.S. theaters from 1989 to most of 2009.
  • Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue was intended to be the start of a new entry in the franchise, and had it been successful, future endeavors would've shown Shin evolving into a form more akin to that of a traditional Rider, complete with a belt. However, lack of interest, as well as the untimely death of franchise creator Shotaro Ishinomori, prevented it from going forward, and as a result, it wouldn't be until the year 2000 that the first Kamen Rider entry to be a series as opposed to a movie would air.
    • Before Shin, there was Kamen Rider ZX, which was intended to be a special that would lead into a TV series. However, the special wasn't able to generate enough interest, and as a result, the next entry, Kamen Rider BLACK, ended up being a Continuity Reboot (and would have stayed that way had it not been for its sequel having a crossover with the 10 riders prior to Black).
  • Street Fighter has had two attempts at branching out into intended film franchises, neither of which went past their first installment. The 1994 Live-Action Adaptation of Street Fighter ended on a Sequel Hook, but despite the film recouping its modest budget; it was never made largely due to the death of Raul Julia, who played M. Bison in his final role. The 2009 film, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was an outright Box Office Bomb that was roundly trashed by critics and fans of the games. There is talk of a potential Continuity Reboot, but nothing has been confirmed past that.
  • Kevin McClory announced that Never Say Never Again would be followed by another unofficial James Bond, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (a title which the mainline series made sure to use when they could), but it never came to be. The next decade he tried again with big support from Columbia, as him remaking Thunderball again as Warhead 2000 AD could be followed by a Casino Royale adaptation as the studio held the rights to that book, and even adapted it in 1967. MGM, who co-produces the official movies, sued, and this was settled with Columbia giving the Casino rights (leading to the 2006 movie - the studio also got the rights to the 1967 Casino, which combined with a prior purchase of Never Say Never Again united all Bonds in one studio) in exchange for getting Spider-Man ones (leading to a 2002 movie that started a Cash-Cow Franchise). McClory in turn reacted with a Frivolous Lawsuit trying to claim rights to the whole franchise, that understandably failed.
  • The Terminator franchise has suffered rather greatly over the years, with numerous attempts at continuations or reboots that ultimately ended in failure, resulting in the property being shuttled between various film studios.
    • Things start off with Terminator Salvation in 2009, which was intended to be the first film in a sequel trilogy following the exploits of a now adult John Connor during the height of the war against Skynet. However, the film was a critical and financial disappointment, which contributed to the Halcyon company declaring bankruptcy. Halcyon was forced to sell off the Terminator license, killing any chance of sequels to Salvation being made.
    • Then, the franchise underwent a soft reboot with Terminator Genisys under Skydance Productions in 2015, which itself was supposed to be the first in a trilogy of films as well as a number of spinoff TV series. However, once again, Genisys ended up being both a critical and financial disappointment. The planned sequels and TV series were cancelled as a result.
    • The franchise underwent another soft reboot with Terminator: Dark Fate in 2019, once again with the intention of kickstarting a new film trilogy. While the film was better received than its predecessors, several controversial creative decisions and an extremely poor box office performance led to the studio deciding to cancel their plans for the trilogy.

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