Top 10 Successful Bad Movies That May Get Sequels

A reimagining of the classic television series starring David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff, “Baywatch” looked to modernize the concept, but completely lost all the charm in the process. While Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron do seem to be enjoying themselves, the film is bogged down with a barrage of generic humor that falls back on the tired premises of sex or drinking in modern comedies. In simpler terms, it was all style and no substance, but it still managed to recuperate its budget at the box office, and a planned sequel is in talks to be set in an undisclosed international locale. Here’s to more slo-mo running on the beach.

In true Blumhouse Productions fashion of picking a subject and adding the ‘What If?’ scenario of: “WHAT IF THIS WAS HAUNTED?”; “Truth or Dare” is as dumb of a concept as one can imagine for a supernatural horror film. It slowly devolves into more of a comedy than a spookfest, so perhaps audiences were intrigued by the unintentional hilarity of it all, helping it rake in close to $100 Million worldwide. Combine that colossal amount of cash with its miniscule $3.5 Million budget and that is a good deal of profit to be had. In fact, in February 2020, Blumhouse Productions did tease that Truth or Dare 2 was in early stages of development.

After a forgettable sequel starring Ice Cube bombed in 2005, Vin Diesel finally made a return to the franchise in 2017 with great results…in the financial sense anyhow. Despite Diesel’s return, this installment was plagued by an overwhelming sense of boredom and a lack of new ideas. Domestic audiences didn’t seem all that keen on the return of Mr. Cage but foreign audiences on the other hand were a completely different story, amassing an absolutely massive $300 Million dollars alone for this mediocre action thriller. With results like that, Xander Cage could return again…and again…and again.

The Cloverfield series had been taking an interesting spin on what the concept of a sequel is with “10 Cloverfield Lane”; a follow-up loosely connected to the original, but telling a new story in the same world, allowing for fresh perspectives and ideas. Understandably, this third film was generating a good deal of hype…only to completely implode on itself with a narrative chock full of coincidences, goofiness and implausible sci-fi mumbo jumbo. With a decent viewership count on its Netflix exclusive release and with producer J.J Abrams still showing interest in the franchise, we suspect more extraterrestrial shenanigans could come in the future.

You’d think that with a movie title like this, Stallone would want to end this franchise of films off with a fittingly titled Last Blood. Based on how confusing the titling standards have been for the rest of this series though, we wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t 10 more after this one! This new installment, which came out in 2019, was panned by critics, who thought the film was a much more dumbed down version of what the franchise is capable of and overusing racial stereotypes to characterize the film’s villains.

Criticized for its overuse of CGI, awful villain and by the numbers script, “Justice League” hoped to make up for this with success at the box office, but unfortunately it currently sits as the lowest grossing film in the DCEU, against a whopping $300 Million budget. So, what chance is there for these characters to unite once more? “Wonder Woman” was hugely praised, so with some tinkering, a new team could be formed for a superior sequel. While DC has moved on to higher critical success with standalone movies like “Shazam” and “Joker”, the outpouring of fans demanding a Snyder Cut may just ring through to bring a sequel to the big screen eventually.

Oscar nomination for ‘Best Animated Feature’? Seriously, why? That kind of acclaim and a hugely successful run at the box office leaves the door wide open for future installments in this new franchise. There is additionally a popular television series playing as we speak, so interest among young viewers is still alive and well. Art is subjective and all that but…in 2017 alone there were a variety of vastly superior animated films more deserving of sequels. Unfortunately, we can’t have nice things and as mentioned, money talks in Hollywood, so this baby could be the Boss for years to come.

This swashbuckling adventure series has been sailing a slowly sinking ship for the past decade. After “At World’s End” wrapped up the original trilogy back in 2007, every new Pirates film that follows is further proof of a formula becoming more and more tired. The fifth film in particular had a myriad of pacing issues, uninteresting plotlines and new characters as dull as a rusty sword; even Jack Sparrow’s theatrics weren’t as funny as they used to be. Although not acquiring nearly as much ‘treasure’ at the box office as prior installments, it still made just enough that Disney are interested in another voyage.

Suddenly, “The Boss Baby’ doesn’t look so bad. “The Emoji Movie” is a laundry list of everything that could possibly be wrong with a film, shall we check just a few of these elements? A studio pandering to a popular trend that has NO place in being a full-length feature, a horrendous amount of product placement and the biggest sin of all: having the legendary Patrick Stewart portray an actual piece of poo. Somehow though, defying all logic and odds, this blatant cash grab got people to buy tickets, making more than double its budget at the worldwide box office. We live in dread that these Emojis could be here to stay.

This Will Smith buddy cop film had an admittedly cool premise, but unfortunately became lost in its own ambition. Suffering from juggling too many different ideas, themes and genres all at once, it culminated into a muddled and absurdly bad experience. Despite its critical bashing though, audiences disagreed spouting nothing but praise for the film, with positive scores such as an 83% audience rating on ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ and being one of the most streamed movies on Netflix. With interest like this, Netflix was quick to show interest in greenlighting a sequel, but with Will Smith’s work schedule being so hectic these days, production seems to be in a state of limbo.