Franchises Canceled Before The Final Film

Sometimes it's great to see a movie and not feel the need for a sequel, but if Hollywood studios can make a franchise out of a property, they'll do it every time. Some become huge hits, like Harry Potter, Fast & Furious, and even John Wick, but every once in awhile, things just don't work out and there's no choice but to shut down production and move on—even if the story hasn't reached its conclusion. Here are a few movie franchises that ended before their final chapter.

C.S. Lewis' classic The Chronicles of Narnia series ranks among the best-loved children's books of all time. Although there are seven novels in the series, all written in the early '50s, Hollywood has only adapted three—the first of which, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, achieved the most success, pulling in $745 million worldwide against a blockbuster production budget of $180 million. That's more than franchise-worthy, which is why Walden Media and Disney went full steam ahead with a sequel.

Despite bloating the budget to over $200 million, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian grossed only $419.7 million, a significant drop compared to the first installment. The third movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, continued the trend of diminishing returns with a $415.7 million worldwide gross. That's still quite a bit of money, but not enough to justify continuing a franchise that costs nearly $200 million to produce, especially when Disney and Fox (who distributed the third film) already have several other successful franchises under their belts. That doesn't mean the property is done for, however.

The rights reverted to the C. S. Lewis Company in 2011, and in 2014, they formed a partnership with The Mark Gordon Company to produce a movie based on the fourth book, The Silver Chair. Although the series is continuing in proper order, with a new installment based on the next book, it's more of a reboot than it is a sequel. There is an entirely new creative team behind the project as well as a new production company. Disney and Fox aren't interested in distributing The Silver Chair, so Sony Pictures and Entertainment One have taken on that responsibility.

A book comes along every once in awhile and inspires a generation of people to pursue their dreams. Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars is a great example—it not only inspired Carl Sagan to dedicate his life to the pursuit of discovering life beyond Earth, but also George Lucas to create a space fantasy like Star Wars.

Needless to say, Hollywood executives wanted to see a proper adaptation of the novel, and it took over 80 years for John Carter to move from print to screen. If things had gone according to plan, A Princess of Mars would have been the world's first feature-length animated film—not Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

When the film rights returned to the Mouse House, the studio hired Pixar legend Andrew Stanton to helm the film, starring Taylor Kitsch as the eponymous John Carter. "Since I'd read the books as a kid, I wanted to see somebody put it on the screen," Stanton said. The movie's financial disaster led the head of Walt Disney Studios, Rich Ross, to resign his post, despite the fact that Ross didn't enter the position until well into the film's development. One of the last decisions he made before vacating his position was slash the budget of Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, presumably because he thought the movie would flop. He was right.

Prior to John Carter's release, the creatives had plans for the film to be the first in a trilogy, with the sequel being based on Burrough's second novel, The Gods of Mars. Unfortunately, since the film flopped and interest at Disney waned, the rights reverted to the Burroughs estate in 2014, thus shooting down any hopes of John Carter 2—at least with the cast and crew of the first movie.

There's already a Swedish-language version of the Millennium trilogy, but it looks like the American version, produced by Sony Pictures, seems to be having trouble moving forward. David Fincher directed the first installment in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—starring Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, and based on the novel of the same name by Steig Larsson—and he planned to direct adaptations of the novel's two sequels, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. But script issues and numerous delays prevented the franchise from moving forward.

Now, instead of following Dragon Tattoo with an adaptation of the second novel, Sony Pictures has decided to jump ahead to the fourth novel in the series, The Girl in the Spider's Web. But here's the kicker: Larsson didn't even write the fourth novel. He passed away years before, and the book was instead written by fellow Swedish author David Lagercrantz. The sad part is that only Mara will return for the sequel; both Craig and Fincher are out. So while the franchise didn't exactly end, the studio dropped plans to film the two sequel adaptations back-to-back and instead skip ahead with a soft reboot. And there's still a long way to go before Spider's Web releases, so who knows if it'll even happen.

DreamWorks partnered with Touchstone Pictures to adapt Pittacus Lore's I Am Number Four novel for the silver screen, with Walt Disney Studios distributing. They got Disturbia and Eagle Eye director D.J. Caruso to helm the project under the supervision of Michael Bay, who signed on as producer.

With the studio also hiring Smallville co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer producer Marti Noxon, to pen the screenplay, the movie looked like it was going to be a hit. Though it did gross three times its production budget at the worldwide box office, it only made $150 million—apparently not enough to justify building a franchise. Its negative reviews surely didn't help, either; the Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls the movie "a derivative and ultimately forgettable sci-fi thriller."

Shortly after the film's release in 2011, Noxon told Collider that a sequel was put on the "back burner" because the movie wasn't a big enough success at the box office. Other than the main character, Noxon said she wanted to see more of Teresa Palmer's Number 6. "My only real regret about that is that Number 6 was really awesome and I would have liked to have seen a lot more of her. We need another kick-ass girl heroine." In 2013, Caruso said he and the studios were discussing adapting the series' second novel, The Power of Six, but nothing definitive ever seem to come out if those talks.

Another young adult series Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment tried to adapt following the conclusion of The Twilight Saga was Ender's Game, based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card. Gavin Hood was hired to direct, and he attempted to give the beloved kids' novel the best adaptation he could, which included nabbing the best cast possible: Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, and Ben Kingsley.

Though Ender's Game garnered generally positive reviews, it wasn't enough to push the film into sequel-worthy territory. It raked in only $125.5 million, after all, against a production budget of $110 million.

There was also issues regarding the author himself. Ender's Game arrived in a politically-charged climate that saw the case of same-sex marriage in the United States go all the way to the Supreme Court, and Card's comments on homosexuality and same-sex marriage led activists, particularly Geeks OUT, to boycott the film. "Do not buy a ticket at the theater, do not purchase the DVD, do not watch it on-demand. Ignore all merchandise and toys. However much you may have admired his books, keep your money out of Orson Scott Card's pockets," the group urged. Card issued a statement in response, but the damage was already done.

Despite one cast member suggesting a script for Speaker for the Dead (the novel's sequel) exists, budget constraints prevented the creatives from moving forward with their planned franchise. If things had gone, Hood thought basing the sequel on Card's new book would have been preferable. Lionsgate thought differently. In fact, the studio was, at the time, considering a TV spinoff, but nothing happened.