Comedy film franchises that held on for too long

We get it. “Austin Powers” was really good, but it was a home video hit. The sequel, “The Spy Who Shagged Me,” was the one that was a huge box office smash. It was already running out of ideas, though. “Goldmember” only made a little less money, but it wasn’t as well-received, and it definitely didn’t feel like a justified trilogy.

Look, you do seven movies in a comedy franchise, you’re going to run out of steam. That’s true even with the premise of “wacky cops,” which can be dropped into different scenarios. The question becomes about when the “Police Academy” series reached the point of holding on too long. We’d go with the fifth one, “Assignment Miami Beach,” as it was the first one without Steve Guttenberg. At that point, you’re just trying to draft on limited good graces.

Sure, there is going to be a fifth “Shrek,” but we’re guessing that isn’t going to turn the ship around. After all, this is yet another legacy sequel. Also, if we included the “Puss in Boots” movies, the last one was well received, but that’s more of a spinoff franchise. Frankly, all the “Shrek” sequels are lacking, but the fourth one was definitely the one where it felt like the franchise was just going for the sake of it.

It’s simple. There are two “Home Alone” movies with Kevin, Harry, and Marv, and two without those three. Each and every one of those was a misfire and totally forgettable. Nobody really stumps for any of those. Kevin is home alone, and then he’s lost in New York, and that’s it.

“Dumb and Dumber” is, well, dumb, but it’s funny, and it’s considered a ‘90s comedy classic. A sequel never really made sense, though. Indeed, both attempts to draft off the success of “Dumb and Dumber” have been misfires. One was a terrible prequel, and then one was a terrible legacy sequel. Sometimes you just need to make one good movie and let it stand on its own.

This was a case where the ship was righted…and then they wanted one more crack at it. “Vacation,” the road trip adventure of the Griswold family, was a classic ‘80s comedy. “European Vacation” was an attempt at a sequel, with more scope and scale. That’s a typical sequel move, but it didn’t work. So, they decided to tell a smaller, but still broad, story with “Christmas Vacation.” That one is considered a favorite Christmas movie of many. That film came out in 1989, and it was a fine last film in a trilogy. Then “Vegas Vacation” came out in 1997. It’s, well, it’s bad.

“Crocodile Dundee” was a huge hit, a true sensation. A quickie sequel was greenlit and came out two years later. It was a financial success, but critics loathed it, and moviegoers were lukewarm at best. That was that. Paul Hogan had his hit, and then the cash-in sequel that probably made him a good bit of money. However, and inexplicably, in 2001 we got “Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.” In addition to being terrible, it was a total flop.

Yes, the “Scream” movies are horror films, but they are also meta slashers with plenty of comedy in them. Well, until the most recent one, which is kind of part of the problem. “Scream” and the first sequel are both really good. The third one is subpar, but then the fourth one, which came out 11 years later, was a worthwhile legacy sequel from before the days of legacy sequels. Then, in 2022, there was another legacy sequel, and it’s okay. It’s still meta and trying to be fun, at least. The sixth and seventh films, though, have not been good; the seventh was particularly bad and annoyingly self-serious.

Look, it’s not just that they are kind of out of ideas. Johnny Knoxville can’t do stunts anymore. Some of them are dead. To their credit, the fifth one is “Best and Last,” so this is a case of being a little greedy, but at least almost knowing where to draw the line.

The Wikipedia page for “Meatballs” uses the phrase “any connection to the original” when discussing the third movie, which says it all. “Meatballs” has some camp comedy fun, but mostly it has Bill Murray. As noted by some Wikipedia editor, two of the three sequels are just wacky camp comedies with “Meatballs” slapped on them, and the third one is also bad. It doesn’t have Bill Murray, after all.

After “Look Who’s Talking” was inexplicably huge, we get to try one sequel. That’s a lot of talking baby comedy, but you get one chance to try and glom some easy cash. Indeed, “Look Who’s Talking Too” came out just under 14 months later. It’s a mediocre 82 minutes of comedy, but it was a financial success, and they had managed to talk Amy Heckerling into returning to direct that one. Then, they got greedy with “Look Who’s Talking Now.” In addition to no Heckerling at the helm, it’s about talking animals, not talking babies. It was a true flop, a prime example of cinematic hubris.

There have been five “Bring It On” sequels. Surprising? That’s fair, because all five of them have been direct-to-video. They are all just cheerleading movies with “Bring It On” thrown onto them. Literally every movie has a different cast. On the one hand, we can’t get too irked given that these are direct-to-video sequels. On the other hand, they aren’t really sequels, and that makes them kind of pointless.

This is another case of “One sequel makes sense,” even if it is a bit sweaty how they get Ben Stiller’s Larry Daley from the Museum of Natural History in New York to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. That being said, of course the sequel was at the Smithsonian! The problem was that a few years later they tried it again, this time in London. That was a move too far. Also, there was an animated quasi-sequel, but it’s dumb.

Hey, too many sequels isn’t wholly an invention of modern filmmaking. “The Thin Man” series was doing it all the way back in the 1940s. This is a case where the first sequel, “After the Thin Man,” is the best movie in the series. Sequels aren’t inherently bad ideas. By the third film, though, Nick and Nora already had a baby, and then there were three more sequels. We’d say the fifth film, “The Thin Man Goes Home,” is when the series had held on for too long. That was the first one not directed by W.S. Van Dyke.

Sure, there is no movie called “Ernest,” but you know what we mean. We’re talking Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell. Yes, it’s easy to say that by the direct-to-video “Slam Dunk Ernest” and the direct-to-video, totally not problematic, “Ernest Goes to Africa,” the franchise had held on for too long. However, we’d argue everything after 1991’s “Ernest Scared Stupid” was too much. That includes two theatrical releases.

This is pretty simple. They made three “Pink Panther” sequels after Peter Sellers died. One used deleted scenes of him from earlier films, one is about his son, and one is about a totally different character. There had already been six “Pink Panther” movies. Why not just let the series end with Sellers’ death?

Cheech and Chong were a comedy team, but “Cheech and Chong” is also effectively a film series. They ran out of stoner jokes and gross-out gags pretty fast, though. We’d say the first three movies were all reasonable enough, but the last three were the duo running on fumes. It’s not like even “Up in Smoke” is exactly a cinematic masterpiece, you know?

The “Ghostbusters” legacy sequels are among the most egregious. The 1984 original is great. “Ghostbusters II” is definitely a step down, okay probably two-or-three steps down, but it’s pretty fun. Had things ended there with one cash-in sequel bringing the gang back together, that would have been fine. However, after a solid, unremarkable reboot, Jason Reitman decided it was time to ride his father’s coattails into the franchise game. The biggest problem with “Afterlife” and “Frozen Empire.” They take “Ghostbusters” so seriously, something that only Dan Aykroyd did previously.