These 10 Failed Would-Be Franchises From the 2010s Deserve More Love From Modern Audiences

Launching a film franchise can be very difficult. Even when adapting successful material with a built-in fan base, there are plenty of pitfalls that studios and creatives can stumble into. Often, studios simply put so much effort into world-building and setting up future characters that they fail at making a single satisfying film that audiences would want to see any follow-ups to. Those franchise-starters that do manage to tell a solid standalone story often fail regardless of their quality because audiences don't show up for them.

The 2010s were an era filled with plenty of franchise beginnings and continuations, but for every franchise like John Wick or The Hunger Games that found success, there were several others that failed to bear any fruit from their labors and instead died on the vine. That failure isn't always warranted, and, as the following ten films show, many would-be franchises from the 2010s deserve far more love from audiences than they were initially given.

10 'The A-Team' (2010)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Joe Carnahan's big-budget adaptation of the action-packed '80s TV series The A-Team had a lot going for it. It featured a solid cast filling out the four lead roles, with Liam Neeson (entering his action hero era off the success of Taken) as team leader Hannibal, Bradley Cooper as Face, UFC star Quinton Jackson donning the signature mohawk of B.A. Baracus, and District 9's Sharlto Copley as Murdock. With that charismatic cast and Carnahan eschewing his leaner and grittier aesthetics for a more overblown action movie, the modern update on four former soldiers turned mercenaries seemed primed for success.

The movie knows it's meant to be big, dumb fun, and if it isn't obvious to audiences at the start, it will be by the time the heroes are flying a tank. Critics didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as Carnahan and were harsher on the movie than it deserved, and its lackluster performance at the box office killed all chances of the planned sequel. It's a shame because Carnahan has since repeatedly shown his ability to craft pulpy over-the-top action in films like Boss Level and Copshop, and a return to the bigger sandbox afforded by a sequel had a lot of explosive potential.

9 'Tron: Legacy' (2010)

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

While audiences will be getting a chance to return to the Grid with the upcoming Tron: Ares, that film looks to be, at the very least, a soft reboot of the series, with Jeff Bridges the only returning actor. Bridges' presence, while making sense from a marketing standpoint, seems to ignore his role in Tron: Legacy. In that literal legacy sequel, Bridges played two roles, reprising his characters of Kevin Flynn and his digital doppelgänger Clu from the original Tron, though both were derezzed by the end of the movie.

Tron: Legacy positioned Flynn's son Sam, played by Garrett Hedlund, as the new franchise protagonist, but the film's lukewarm critical reception and less-than-spectacular box office meant that Disney didn't push hard for a sequel. Despite several attempts and a long development, the original plans for a true sequel eventually dissipated, which is unfortunate since Legacy is a visually arresting sci-fi adventure with a fantastic soundtrack by Daft Punk that, despite some of its flaws, has earned a cult following much like its predecessor. It's entirely possible that Ares could follow through, or at least reference, the hanging plot threads from Legacy, but that seems unlikely given the lack of support that Disney has given the franchise.

8 'The Green Hornet' (2011)

Directed by Michel Gondry

2011's The Green Hornet is a real curio of the superhero subgenre. Starring Seth Rogen, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the film takes a more humorous approach to the classic superhero who originated in radio serials, which may have been just a little too ahead of its time in an era where The Dark Knight and MCU were going strong. The film's bloated budget didn't help matters when it came to getting a sequel greenlit.

With Rogen as the masked superhero and Jay Chou as martial arts expert Kato, director Michel Gondry fills the movie with some incredibly inventive action sequences. Even among the more comedic superhero films, The Green Hornet has a distinct voice, and the movie world needs more superhero movies that take weird, wild swings like this, which it's doubtful the inevitable reboot will be willing to.

7 'The Adventures of Tintin' (2011)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Despite several of the cast and crew teasing that a sequel might still happen, it's been over a decade since audiences got Steven Spielberg's gorgeously animated adaptation of the beloved Hergé character Tintin. Using performance capture technology, Spielberg and the visual effects artists at producer Peter Jackson's Weta Digital wisely didn't try to match the animated characters directly to their live-action actors, instead attempting to adhere closer to Hergé's illustrations. The result is far less uncanny than the dead-eyed abominations that filled out similar animated movies like The Polar Express.

Following the titular youthful reporter, who gets embroiled in a search for a lost pirate treasure, the movie owes a debt to Spielberg's adventure franchise, Indiana Jones. However, Tintin carves out a new place in the genre thanks to the director's lively use of the animated medium. Despite a relatively warm reception from critics and audiences, development stalled on the follow-up, but, given the agelessness of animated characters, there's still hope for fans of the film.

6 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' (2011)

Directed by David Fincher

While Stieg Larsson's bleak crime novels in the Millennium series managed to get a full trilogy in their native Sweden, the American adaptation of the first novel, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, only managed one entry. Even so, David Fincher's cold, violent mystery thriller is one of the best crime movies to come out in the 21st century. Rooney Mara plays punk hacker Lisbeth Salander, who is recruited by Daniel Craig's journalist to assist with an investigation of a forty-year-old disappearance.

Fincher envisioned the film as the beginning of an adult franchise, and the film was given an appropriate marketing blitz to treat it as such, with the studio labeling it as the "feel-bad movie of the year." Unfortunately, the attempts at marketing the film as counter-programming weren't enough to turn the film into the overwhelming success the studio wanted it to be. Sequels based on the two follow-up novels were planned but were never put into production, and a lesser reboot was eventually made based on one of the non-Larsson-written novels.

5 'John Carter' (2012)

Directed by Andrew Stanton

John Carter was supposed to spawn a Disney franchise, but its marketing and release were seriously fumbled by the House of Mouse, turning it into an infamous box office bomb. That disappointment put the brakes on Pixar director Andrew Stanton's live-action career and prevented star Taylor Kitsch from achieving leading man status. The movie had a toxic reputation long before it even hit theaters, and critics weren't too kind to it when it did, which gave audiences even more reason to stay away, since they had no real idea what it was about anyway. Based on Edgar Rice Burrough's novel A Princess of Mars, the movie was originally titled John Carter of Mars before Disney removed the red planet from the title out of fear that audiences wouldn't be interested in a movie about Mars.

The generic name change made the film even harder to market to audiences, and the trailers only exacerbated the issue by giving audiences only a vague sense of the plot, which involves a Civil War veteran who gets transported to the planet and becomes involved in a Martian civil war. Burroughs' novel has been noted as a major influence on the science fiction and fantasy genres, to the point that many of the ideas originating in the novel were recycled many times over before it got a proper adaptation. Unfortunately, all these issues made the film feel less original and, without the benefit of a sequel, unfinished.

4 'Dredd' (2012)

Directed by Pete Travis

After the terrible Sylvester Stallone adaptation of the cult comic book Judge Dredd, it took almost two decades before Hollywood took another crack at the satirical police state character. Luckily, the second time around, they had Karl Urban in the lead role, and acclaimed writer Alex Garland behind the script (and allegedly more). The resulting reboot, Dredd, was a visually arresting action movie, but had a mediocre box office performance, which, to date, has led to no sequel.

Urban wears the helmet of the lead character well, giving a gravel-voiced performance somewhere in between Clint Eastwood and Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken, and the slow-motion action scenes are blisteringly beautiful. Despite a growing cult following, no movement has been made on the follow-up, preventing the possibility of seeing some of the wilder characters and plotlines from the comics make it onto the big screen.

3 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E' (2015)

Directed by Guy Ritchie

While some fans have been holding out hope that Henry Cavill will be named as the next James Bond, the English actor had another spy franchise that should have been. Based on the '60s TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was Guy Ritchie's slick, stylish update that paired Cavill's American agent Napoleon Solo with Armie Hammer's KGB killer to protect the daughter of a nuclear scientist.

Like much of Ritchie's work, the film was a lot of style over substance, but that worked in its favor, making it a breezy spy adventure that contrasted with the more self-serious Daniel Craig era of Bond. Unfortunately, critics were more mixed on it, and it couldn't recoup its costs at the box office. Add to that Hammer's cancellation and exile from Hollywood, and any hopes for a sequel have been well and truly eliminated.

2 'The Nice Guys' (2016)

Directed by Shane Black

In a just world, Shane Black's box-office bomb turned cult classic The Nice Guys would have had multiple sequels by now, all following the further adventures of Ryan Gosling's alcoholic private eye and Russell Crowe's temperamental enforcer. The two actors' white-hot chemistry made Black's neo-noir comedy one of the best buddy movies in years and could've sustained an entire franchise had more movie-goers flocked to see the original film in theaters.

Set in Los Angeles in the '70s, the film's twisty mystery plot involves a convergence of the auto and porn industries, and Black's script is just as sharp as his previous Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black had intended to make a sequel had the film been a success, but the film's irreverent humor and throwback sensibilities went unappreciated at the time. Instead, Black went on to direct the sci-fi misfire The Predator.

1 'Alita: Battle Angel' (2019)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Director Robert Rodriguez and producer James Cameron's underrated manga adaptation Alita: Battle Angel had been in development under Cameron for almost two decades by the time it was finally made, so perhaps the long-awaited sequel will still be made in the next decade, if Cameron finds time in between Avatar movies. The film is certainly just as worthy of a sequel as that, admittedly more lucrative, franchise.

Following Rosa Salazar's wide-eyed cyborg, built out of scraps, as she navigates Iron City, becoming both a sports star and a lethal bounty hunter, the movie is overstuffed with ideas and doesn't always follow through on some of them. Still, Alita boasts tremendous action and more personality than many other action franchises that are still thriving. The movie infamously ended on a cliffhanger that has left fans waiting for a follow-up six years later, but has yet to materialize.

NEXT: 10 2010s Movies You've Probably Never Heard of But Must Absolutely Watch