20 film franchises that churned out sequels

We’ll combine these two because they're trilogies from the same world. That is to say, the world of Middle Earth. Both of Peter Jackson’s trilogies came out one a year for three years. When it came to “The Lord of the Rings,” that led to a culmination wherein “Return of the King” won a ton of Oscars, including Best Picture.

There are franchises within the overarching franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; we will grant you that. However, from “The Avengers” on, the whole crux of the MCU was having these characters overlap within the same, well, cinematic universe. Things started off well, especially from a box office perspective. Then, we got oversaturated by MCU films. Since 2010, the only year without at least one MCU movie has been 2020, for obvious reasons.

When it comes to the different “segments” in a franchise’s history, Bond is one of the franchises we were thinking of. During the Daniel Craig era, the Bond films weren’t frequent by any means, but early in the franchise’s history, things were different. The first four Bond movies were released one a year, and between 1962 and 1974, we got nine Bond films featuring three Bond actors.

With movies starring children, it behooves you to move with some pace. Otherwise, you run the risk of a “Stranger Things” situation where grown adults are playing kids not yet old enough to drive. Between “Sorcerer’s Stone” in 2001 and “Deathly Hallows Part 2” in 2011, there were eight movies in essentially a decade. The less said about “Fantastic Beasts,” the better.

When a horror franchise hits, especially when it’s pretty cheap to make, you often see movies start to get churned out. During the 1980s, the “Friday the 13th” franchise released eight movies. The fourth of the movies was subtitled “The Final Chapter.” Not so much!

The first “Planet of the Apes,” the one most people have seen or at least know about, came out in 1968. There was then a one-year gap before “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.” The Earth explodes in that movie. Then, there were three more sequels within the span of three years. Five movies in six years, three of them coming after the end of the world.

In an old-timey way, this series of films was about the actors, as opposed to the characters. It was about Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (and Dorothy Lamour) in some far-flung locale. The characters didn’t really matter. The first three films in the “Road To…” series came out from 1940 through 1942. We will also include “Road to Utopia” because, while it came out in 1946, it was filmed in 1943.

“Police Academy” is a perfectly fine 1984 comedy about wacky cops to be. It was successful enough, though, they figured they’d keep the antics up. Plus, working characters in and out of the academy is a reasonable thing to handle. The first six movies came out year by year through 1989, but then there was a five-year break until 1994’s “Mission to Moscow.”

Again, you make a horror movie on the cheap, and it becomes a big success, you’re probably going to get a sequel. Sure, “Leprechaun 2” had a new director and new writer, but it’s not like the 1993 original is some auteur vision. It’s mostly “What if a leprechaun killed people for his gold?” By 1997, the franchise was on its fourth movie and going to space.

Warner Bros. calls it “The Conjuring Universe,” so we’ll consider all those films together. There are “The Conjuring” films, which are about the con artists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the “Annabelle” movies, about the doll owned by the con artists Ed and Lorraine Warren, and “The Nun” movies, which…we aren’t sure what they have to do with the con artists Ed and Lorraine Warren, but these nuns are in their universe! Nine movies came out between 2013 and 2025, which is a pretty quick turnaround, but the first six came out within seven years.

The “Twilight” movies are a mix of young actors likely to age out of the roles if you waited too long, worry that the “Twilight” phenomenon would be played out if you waited too long, and the fact that these movies were slapped together, feel lazy, and look terrible. They knocked the five movies out in five years, made a ton of money, and won a ton of MTV Movie Awards. Then, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had to work hard to distance themselves from the “Twilight” franchise.

Yes, these are made-for-TV movies, but they speak to the “churn the sequels out while we can” nature we had in mind when considering this list. “Sharknado,” a junky SyFy movie, became a weird cultural phenomenon because it was charmingly cheap and tacky. Unfortunately, they then decided to milk the thing for everything it was worth and completely leaned into the “so bad, it’s good” thing on purpose. That doesn’t really work, and all the charm disappeared for the four sequels. Well, at least they knocked all six “Sharknado” movies out in six years.

If you’re British, and especially if you’re British and of a certain age, the “Carry On” series needs no introduction. They slapped these bawdy, silly comedies together with gusto in Britain. It would be like, “This time they are on a cruise” or “This time there is an attractive nurse.” They were churned out on the cheap, and they’d make some money because television was still nascent, especially in the United Kingdom. Between 1958 and 1978, they released, no joke, 30 “Carry On” movies.

“The Land Before Time” is direct-to-video royalty. There are 14 movies about these cutesy little dinosaurs. Thirteen of them were direct-to-video. Only the first, directed by Don Bluth, was released in theaters. There was a gap between the 1988 original and the first direct-to-video sequel in 1994. However, they released 12 of those 13 sequels onto video between 1994 and 2007.

Like the “Road To…” movies before them, the “Beach Party” movies were a franchise based on recurring cast, a few recurring characters, and a bunch of recurring vibes. Some songs, some slapstick comedy, some bikinis, and then you go from there. They probably shot some of them one after another, or even concurrently. After all, they managed to release seven “Beach Party” movies between 1963 and 1966. Yes, seven films in four years. If we include a few related movies like “Ski Party,” you can get to as many as 11 movies in four years.

When your horror movie is both successful and has a villain that lives in the dream space and is thus, in theory, unkillable, you’re going to get some sequels. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” had a surreal quality that “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween” couldn’t really deliver. The first film came out in 1984, and the sixth, “The Final Nightmare,” in 1991. Then, of course, they made two more movies.

There was, obviously, a long gap between the first trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Then, there was another gap until the next “Star Wars” movie. It’s this tenure that makes this list. The hype was so huge for “The Force Awakens” that we ended up with five “Star Wars” movies in five years. Of course, by the end of it people had “Star Wars” fatigue/Yelling on the internet fatigue, and so plans for more “Star Wars” movies were pushed several years.

The first Andy Hardy movie, 1937’s “A Family Affair,” was an adaptation of a play about ordinary, modern life in America. There were no plans for another film, much less a franchise. However, Mickey Rooney ended up playing Andy Hardy time and time again. Between 1937 and 1946 there were 15 Andy Hardy movies. There were two years in that span featuring three films in the series.

“The Strangers” movies are schlocky trash, dull home-invasion horror movies. Renny Harlin is a director who pretty much exclusively makes schlocky trash. The two have come together in recent years. “The Strangers” was rebooted, resulting in three interchangeable movies, all directed by Harlin, in 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Yes, we’re including the direct-to-video sequels. Jim’s Dad is in them! The first three theatrical “American Pie” movies came out every other year, but then the direct-to-video sequels stepped in to make this a franchise with a lot of movies in a short period of time. Four of these “spinoff sequels” came out between 2005 and 2009. So, when we circle back to 2012’s “American Reunion,” we are left with eight movies in 14 years and seven in 11.