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9 utterly rubbish movies that got sequels anyway

Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

From Digital Spy

Independence Day: Resurgence. Blade Runner 2049. Transformers: The Last Knight. There's no denying that we're knee-deep in an era of movie sequels.

And we understand the temptation to revisit the popularity of old movies, sure. But sometimes the original movies were so poorly received that it's almost unbelievable that a sequel ever saw the light of day.

1. Ghost Rider

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Rotten Tomatoes score: 26%

The sequel: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Comic-book nerd Nicolas Cage got the ultimate superhero movie booby prize, missing out on Tim Burton's never-made Superman Lives and winding up with the almost totally forgotten Ghost Rider. Thanks to a moderately okay box-office performance, a sequel was made for half the budget and even worse reviews.

2. Grown Ups

Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Rotten Tomatoes score: 10%

The sequel: Grown Ups 2

A selection of very famous and powerful American comedians including Rob Scheider, Kevin James, Adam Sandler, David Spade and Chris Rock (who should know better) united for this incredibly low-brow and not at all grown-up ensemble where five former basketball team mates reunite 30 years on to make bad jokes.

The Telegraph's Tim Robey described it "Like being sat on by all your least favourite school bullies". Three years later they came back to sit on us all over again.

3. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

Photo credit: Buena Vista Pictures
Photo credit: Buena Vista Pictures

Rotten Tomatoes score: 23%

The sequel: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

"Lazy". "Crude". "Utterly disposable". Just a few of the kind words that critics had for the film about a man who turns to prostitution so he can buy a new fish tank. (Not that he has sex with his clients. Imagine how humiliating THAT would be.)

Obviously what this really needed was to relocate to another continent and bring in Rachel Stevens, Kelly Brook and Alex Zane in guest roles.

4. Annabelle

Rotten Tomatoes score: 29%

The sequel: Annabelle: Creation

The doll-based spin-off was rushed out super-fast after The Conjuring became an unexpectedly massive horror hit. And it totally feels like. Cheap, lazy, dumb and patronising to horror fan, it even features a terrible bit of signposting using an actual signpost.

Trouble is, plans began to grow for an entire Conjuring expanded universe and closing off the scary-doll market would have been a waste.

Instead they made a sequel, which actually turned out to be a prequel, which cleverly retconned Annabelle's back story making it much more interesting and scary. Well played.

5. Planes

Photo credit: Disney
Photo credit: Disney

Rotten Tomatoes score: 25%

The sequel: Planes: Fire & Rescue

Itself a spin-off of Pixar's least popular (but apparently unkillable) franchise, Cars, this non-Pixar movie holds a shockingly low Rotten Tomatoes rating for a Disney and is a cheap, lazy and rather boring tale of a plucky underdog who – guess what? – proves himself against the odds. The thrillingly named sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue is actually marginally better, but still completely unwanted.

6. Sex and the City

Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 49%

The sequel: Sex and the City 2

Coming out four years after the TV series ended, the nicest thing that can be said about the Sex and the City movie is that it was totally circular and pointless, with a dash of Jennifer Hudson to prove that they were totally inclusive and diverse, really.

Still, it was a sizeable hit, as was the sequel, which centred around a trip to Abu Dhabi and is mainly remembered as one of the most crass, offensive and tone-deaf stories ever committed to film.

7. Fantastic Four

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Rotten Tomatoes score: 27%

The sequel: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

If the 2005 Fantastic Four film isn't the most hated of superhero films, it's still probably a strong contender for the most rubbish, from the boring storyline, half-hearted humour and rubbish effects (sorry Chris Evans – we love you really). Of course it had to receive a sequel, which was only marginally better.

(NB The relative lack of merit of these two films would pale into insignificance when Fox released its hideous mess of a reboot in 2015.)

8. AvP: Alien vs Predator

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Rotten Tomatoes score: 20%

The sequel: Alien vs Predator: Requiem

A terrifying head-on collision between 'out of control fan service' and 'Paul WS Anderson video game movie', Alien vs Predator proved once and for all that, no matter how much you thought a film about two kinds of voiceless aliens killing each other was a good idea, the reality would be too silly and pointless to bear.

We say 'once and for all', except someone missed that memo, resulting in a follow-up in which a 'Predalien' (ugh) ran around a high school whose lights were permanently on the fritz.

9. Ouija

Photo credit: Universal
Photo credit: Universal

Rotten Tomatoes score: 6%

The sequel: Ouija: Origin of Evil

A low point for Blumhouse Productions, this soggy, generic, low-impact horror about a game and an evil spirit features a bunch of people sitting round a table and manages to be both boring and repetitive. It made good money, though, so unsurprisingly spawned a second (which was a prequel). What was perhaps more surprising is that the sequel is pretty good.


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