Five Comics Movies That Jumped the Shark

In most cases, the original is the best. Look back at films like Jaws or Psycho and there’s no question whatsoever that the first film was the best of the lot. But in a creative and financial environment like Hollywood, the temptation is to drive a property into the ground and only stop making more of them when it becomes an economic necessity. Sequels actually tend to make more money, not less, at the box office given that there’s no uphill battle to win fans, and the first one–usually out on home video by the time the sequel is in post-production–serves as a kind of promotional tool for the new film.But recently we’ve been treated to a parade of strange and unnecessary sequels. Films like Tron and Rocky managed to turn out sequels that yielded middling box office returns and lukewarm reviews, while things like Scream 4 have been outright duds. Announcements in the last few weeks that there will be sequels to Twins (this one’s called Triplets and has Eddie Murphy) and Dumb and Dumber have combined with the impending release of American Reunion to get us thinking: When is enough, enough?This isn’t so much a list of the WORST sequels of all time. In fact, the idea here is to point out the movie where a franchise missed a step and never recovered–where it “jumped the shark,” if you will. In some cases, the franchise has been rescued by reboot and in others the offending film really was the last one (at least for now) but in any case, these sequels are the kinds of flicks that make you walk out of the movie theater scratching your head and wondering, “Why did they even make that?”.