Villains who were so evil and iconic that they needed their own spinoffs

Why not take a character and then give them a prequel television series decades later? “Psycho” is just an elevated slasher film, but it is elevated thanks to the skill of Alfred Hitchcock. We find out that Norman Bates is the killer, and that his mother is not alive, but just a skeleton in a chair. “Bates Motel,” named after the family business, brings Norma Bates back to life. It’s a show about the unhealthy relationship between Norma and Norman, and the path that led to the events of “Psycho.”

In his first real acting role, Dwayne Johnson (then known primarily as The Rock) played the Scorpion King as a villain in “The Mummy Returns.” He got his first lead role in the prequel spinoff of that movie. By “prequel,” we mean this movie takes place 5,000 yards before “The Mummy.” It’s a mediocre movie, but Johnson did enough to keep his acting career going.

Batman’s number-one foil Joker is the most famous comic-book villain there is, and also has caused the most hand-wringing and inspired the most hot takes. “Joker” really fueled that fire. Also, Todd Phillips has said that his movie “Joker” is maybe not actually about the Joker? Yeah, that’s not going to make things any more chill. Anyway, Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor for “Joker,” which is also an R-rated movie that made over $1 billion worldwide.

Frankly, we thought Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” went too far into the grittiness thing. Of course, it made a ton of money, so nobody over at Warner Bros. is complaining. Also, it spawned “The Penguin” series, which is a bit more palatable. Originally conceived as a one-season series, the success has quickly led to talk of a second season. That’s even from star Colin Farrell, who had previously said he never wanted to don the Penguin makeup again. Well, money has a way of changing minds.

The Brain is obsessed with taking over the world. If that isn’t villainous, what is? One of two laboratory mice, The Brain tries to enlist the help of his cagemate Pinky for his plots, but Pinky is more jovial. Also, dumb as a box of rocks. “Pinky and the Brain” began life as a regular segment on “Animaniacs” but proved so popular that the two got their own show that ran for 65 episodes.

There’s some fluctuation in Angel during his time on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” His backstory is that he was the most violent vampire in all of Europe until a curse left him with a “human soul.” That leaves him to flee Ireland and come to the United States, where he tries to be a good-guy vampire. He meets Buffy, they get romantically involved, but in a reverse “Beauty and the Beast,” this breaks the curse in a way that makes Angel evil again. Anyway, after some more convoluted storytelling, Angel got his own spinoff series where he’s a private eye looking to help the people of Los Angeles. That show lasted five seasons and proved fairly successful.

Most people were first introduced to Space Ghost through Cartoon Network’s totemic “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.” That show posits that superhero Space Ghost, who had his own short-lived cartoon, has become a talk show host and has imprisoned former enemies of his as employees on the show. That includes Brak, who was originally a “Space Ghost” baddie on that ‘60s-era show. As Cartoon Network started adding more shows and filling out the Adult Swim lineup, Brak is the one who got his own spinoff. It’s somehow even more absurd than “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” is.

“Suıcide Squad” isn’t really a spinoff, since most of those characters were being seen on film for the first time. It is a movie about a bunch of DC Comics villains, though, most notably Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. Robbie’s Harley proved so popular she returned for the second shot at a "Suıcide Squad" movie, but also got her own spinoff. Unfortunately, “Birds of Prey” was terrible, so it is nice that Robbie got to pop into “The Suıcide Squad” to finally appear in something good as the character.

In the original “Star Wars” trilogy, Boba Fett is mostly a guy in cool armor. He’s definitely a villain, though. The dude is a bounty hunter who helps capture Han Solo! Solo acts like he doesn’t care, but he does! Owing to the weird preoccupation many “Star Wars” fans cultivated for Boba Fett over the ensuing years, he would eventually get his own TV show. The show is also sort of a “Mandalorian” spinoff. Unfortunately for “The Book of Boba Fett,” the best episodes of that show are the ones that are basically “Mandalorian” episodes.

Hey, we’re calling Sam Gerard an antagonist in “The Fugitive,” even if he isn’t an outright villain. Gerard isn’t the one who killed Richard Kimble’s wife, but he is the government official who is trying to apprehend Kimble and send him back to prison. He points a gun at Kimble multiple times and explicitly tells the wrongly convicted doctor that he doesn’t care whether or not Kimble killed his wife. Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for playing Gerard, which probably paved the way for “U.S. Marshals.” Once again, Gerard is chasing an innocent man, but this time he’s basically the co-lead character.

Yo, the Wicked Witch of the West was fully planning to take down a tween girl and her dog. All the Broadway showtunes trying to reframe her story isn’t going to change that. Owing to the iconic nature of “The Wizard of Oz,” a prequel about Oz before Dorothy’s trip there made sense (and we will pretend that the James Franco movie doesn’t exist). The stage musical was a sensation, and a movie adaption was inevitable. “Wicked” is profoundly silly, but it got 10 Oscar nominations and the sequel is arguably a Best Picture front-runner for 2025.

With all due respect to Brian Cox, when Anthony Hopkins proved so compelling in only a smattering of screen time in “The Silence of the Lambs,” he cemented Hannibal Lecter as an enduring pop-culture villain. Hopkins won Best Actor in what is definitely a supporting role to Jodie Foster (who, to be fair, won Best Actress). Though Lecter is the titular character in the sequel film “Hannibal,” Clarice is still around and Lecter is not really getting a spinoff there. However, the TV show “Hannibal” is fully focused on Lecter, so that definitely counts.

With a name like Maleficent, it might be hard to prove to be anything other than the “Mistress of All Evil.” In “Sleeping Beauty,” she’s the evil fairy that sets the curse that befalls Aurora. “Maleficent” is half a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” from the titular character’s perspective and half backstory about how she became an evil fairy or whatever. Angelina Jolie seems to be having fun in the role and “Maleficent” was a hit. The sequel “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” was gilding the lily, though.

Disney really got into making movies about their famed villains. Even “Mufasa” has a lot of Scar in the mix. “Cruella” is an all-time unnecessary prequel. It’s inane and not even the best live-action take on the “101 Dalmatians” story. Hopefully Emma Stone had fun playing Cruella de Vil (speaking of nominative determinism).

Xenomorphs and Predators spent years in their own franchises killing people. Why not bring them together? While both were always titular characters, they were also very much the villains. Here the two iconic cinematic killers square off, Freddy and Jason style. We’re glad this movie exists if only to give us the awesome tagline, “Whoever wins, we lose.”

“Spider-Man 3” was kind of a mess, but it got Venom into the mix, which allows us to include “Venom” on this list. Thanks, Sam Raimi! Topher Grace was long removed from the role, with Tom Hardy stepping in as Eddie Brock. The first couple “Venom” movies were dumb fun, but then the third and final one was too messy and the fun was gone. In that sense, the “Venom” trilogy is a fitting parallel to the first “Spider-Man” trilogy.

In the world of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Plankton, along with his wife, the supercomputer Karen, owns the Chum Bucket. They and their restaurant serve as rivals to the Krabby Patty. Plankton is often trying to steal the secret formula for what makes Krabby Patties so tasty. For “Plankton: The Movie,” the stakes had to get a bit higher. He’s full-on gunning for world domination.

Marvel at least decided to cull its own Suıcide Squad from characters and actors throughout the MCU. This villain team-up movie brings Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell, and some more heavy hitters together under the “Thunderbolts*” banner. The group is made up more of anti-heroes than full-on villains, but they have all served in antagonistic roles in the past. Now they have to try and work together to solve some sort of issue. Perhaps the issue of the declining interest in the MCU.