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Franchise movies aren’t usually where audiences go for darkness or drama. In the blockbuster-dominated film landscape, the films which are profitable enough to earn sequel after sequel are the ones with mass appeal. This means one of two (usually both) things – the movie is based on a pre-existing property, and is exciting but light entertainment.
Of course, whenever any movie series runs long enough, experimentation is necessary for the series to survive. Sometimes, these lighthearted movie franchises try their hand at something a little darker.
10 Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom Is Infamously Dark
The Indiana Jones series has never been totally devoid of horror – the opening of the Ark Of The Covenant in Raiders Of The Lost Ark is proof enough. However, Indiana Jones‘ core has been pulpy fun, fitting Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ goals to recreate the feeling of old adventure serials. The one exception where the darkness overtakes the excitement is the second film, The Temple Of Doom. So dark even Spielberg and Lucas have voiced regret, The Temple Of Doom has sequences of disturbing human sacrifice and child enslavement.
9 Batman Returns Goes Even Further Than The First Movie
Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman was a shocking movie for a generation raised on Adam West. Frank Miller remade Batman into the Dark Knight for comic fans, but Burton and star Michael Keaton destroyed the character as camp for general audiences.
Unshackled for the sequel, Burton made Batman Returns. The results are fantastic, but not child-friendly at all. Batman Returns feels much more spiritually in-tune with Burton’s usual fare like Edward Scissorhands. Batman Returns is an opera about outcasts in a twisted, German-expressionist reflection of a Winter Wonderland.
8 The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Is Dark For A Disney Movie
The writing of Victor Hugo definitely isn’t source material primed for Disney. Still, that didn’t stop the company from adapting his novel The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1996. While The Hunchback is flavored with comic relief and the ending rewritten, it’s hard to completely sanitize a story so bleak.
For one, Judge Claude Frollo is the vilest Disney villain, and the only one motivated by lust. Even The Hunchback‘s music is darker than usual Disney fare, from Frollo’s soul-searing solo Hellfire to Esmeralda’s desperate God Help The Outcasts.
7 Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith Is The Most Violent Film In The Saga
Though handicapped by a poor foundation, Revenge Of The Sith makes every effort to end the Star Wars prequel trilogy on a dramatic high. In some ways Revenge Of The Sith succeeds because it commits to a darker tone – an appropriate tone for a story about the subversion of democracy into dictatorship, the end of the age of heroes, and the fall of a good man to evil.
Revenge Of The Sith is easily the most violent Star Wars film. The freshly-christened Darth Vader murders pre-school aged children almost onscreen, and his appearance after burning on Mustafar is genuinely grotesque.
6 Toy Story 3 Added Existential Drama
Each of the Toy Story sequels investigates the existential meaning of the series’ premise – living toys. The darkest one is Toy Story 3, since it asks what happens when a toy’s owner grows up and loses use for them. The darkness comes to a head in the climax – the main cast slowly hurtling into an incinerator. Saved only at the last minute, the toys spend most of the sequence resigned and can only embrace each other for comfort.
5 Kung Fu Panda 2 Was Much More Dramatic Than The First
As a movie titled Kung Fu Panda, this film shouldn’t have the pathos that it does. There were dramatic and action-packed moments in the first, but it was a fundamentally goofy movie. Kung Fu Panda 2 can’t totally escape that goofiness, but it does amp up the darkness to counterbalance. Kung Fu Panda 2 explains the backstory of Po (Jack Black), namely the genocide of his people when he was an infant, and Lord Shen (Gary Oldman) is a genuinely ruthless villain.
4 The Amazing Spider-Man Tried To Reboot Spider-Man As Dark And Gritty
Sony’s impatience doomed Spider-Man 4, but they had a deadline to make a new Spider-Man lest they lose the film rights. After The Dark Knight, dark and gritty was in. Thus, The Amazing Spider-Man aped Batman Begins instead of Raimi’s colorful melodramas.
However, a few months before The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers became the biggest game-changer in Hollywood since Star Wars. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was thus molded after the MCU, before Spidey joined that setting outright.
3 Man Of Steel Did The Same For Superman
Another attempt at putting the framework of Christopher Nolan’s Batman onto a usually lighter superhero was Man Of Steel. This one was done in-house at WB, scripted by The Dark Knight‘s David S. Goyer and produced by Nolan (he ceded directorial duties to Zack Snyder). Man Of Steel feels like a melding of Donner’s Superman with Batman Begins, though the tone is decidedly in the latter’s favor.
2 Power Rangers Was Another Dark Reboot
Power Rangers is famously a low budget camp franchise. The whole conceit of the series is a cost saving measure – splice Japanese Super Sentai footage in with American teens to make an action show on the cheap. The two feature length films, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, weren’t a tonal break with the TV series at all. The 2017 reboot film, Power Rangers, was a different story. Striking a tone akin to a CW action series, Power Rangers attempted to meld more serious character drama into Ranger action.
1 Fantastic Four Proved Darker Isn’t Better
The Tim Story Fantastic Four movies had all the gravitas of a sitcom and some woeful casting (Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans excepted). Expectations were that Josh Trank’s reboot would at least surpass the meager bar the original duology set, but it failed – miserably. The attempt at a darker tone just made Fantastic Four boring – meaning there’s not even enough of a “so bad it’s good” factor to offset Fantastic Four‘s incoherence.
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