There is a huge emphasis on modern-day cinema for franchises. The safety of a known IP can help a film to heights of success that would be difficult to reach without the additional name brand that a previous link to another franchise can manage.
Related:Spin-Offs That Are Completely Different From The Main Series
In the case of some spin-off movies, the new take on an existing world or franchise can even surpass the original film. It can be difficult for a spin-off to gain that level of popularity among a fan base of people already enamored with the movie or movies which began it all, but this sort of phenomenon has occurred on several occasions.
7Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
There have been so many films in theFast & Furiousfranchise which were successful at the box office, but almost none of them strayed into the kind of territory thatHobbs & Shawdecided to. As far as this spin-off vs the originalFast & Furiousmovie, there is no doubt that this film managed toexceed the originalit was based on.
Hobbs & Shaw were both villains in previousFastmovies, but Hobbs later joined Dom’s crew before splitting off, while Shaw didn’t really embrace being a more heroic character until the 8thFastmovie, which was immediately followed in the continuity of the franchise by this charming, fun buddy adventure between two heavyweights of action cinema.
6Deadpool
Deadpoolis well on its way to becoming a trilogy now, so it would be easy to forget that the Ryan Reynolds version of Wade Wilson appeared inX-Men Origins: Wolverinebefore any of his own filmsmanaged to become realitieson the big screen.
While everyone lovedDeadpoolonce Reynolds got more control over the character and made him more comic-book-accurate, there was a significantly less enjoyable version of his character presented on the screen inOrigins. That version of the character and, indeed, that entire film were so bad that they were openly mocked by Reynolds over the course of the first twoDeadpoolfilms. This drastic shift will likely be addressed further onceDeadpooland Wolverine meet on-screen again inDeadpool 3.
5Birds Of Prey
While James Gunn brought the villainous Suicide Squad team back into the good graces of the mainstream public withThe Suicide Squadin 2021, they were much maligned for their first big screen appearance in 2016’sSuicide Squad.
Fortunately, there was a lot of love for Margot Robbie’sexcellent turn as Harley Quinnin both films, and this generated enough buzz to earn her a spin-off film featuring other female characters from DC that are usually considered more super-heroic than Harley. This team, featuring Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya as well as the young Cassandra Cain, was a fun team-up that gave audiences a lot more thanSuicide Squaddid.
4Bumblebee
While theTransformersfranchise has been generally successful at drawing outbig box office numbers, there is no doubt that audiences generally regard the films as lacking in substance, more focused as they normally are on the action side of things over the plot or characters.
Related:Franchises That Earned Themselves PrequelsFortunately, after five films in the mainTransformersseries, there was finally a shift as the belovedBumblebeegot his own spin-off. The Autobot which always seems the most connected to humanity was a great choice for a film and featuring a great late 80s setting, the film was much more highly praised by fans and critics alike than any of the previous installments in the franchise.
3The Cat Returns
It isn’t like Studio Ghibli to do much by way of sequels or spin-offs to their films, but there was something about a minor character inWhisper of the Heart. That 1995 romance anime movie made by Ghibli was a success and remains a beloved entry in their history. However,the strange spin-offthat came from it was an even bigger success story.
The Cat Returnsfocuses on The Baron, a statuette fromWhisper of the Heart, and tells a new story where he is part of the Cat Bureau, a team dedicated to helping people like the young Haru, who has been promised as a bride to the prince of the Cat Kingdom in exchange for saving his life. The film is one of the more insanely conceived ones in the Ghibli repertoire, but it is much beloved by fans and critics and exceededWhisper of the Heartin many ways.
2Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Though theFantastic Beastsfilms are seemingly notgoing to get to finishtheir story, there is no doubt that the freedom of telling an original tale set in theHarry Potteruniverse was a freeing cinematic experience that allowed a number of talented people to put together a beautiful and wondrous film inFantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
TheHarry Potterbooks translated beautifully to the screen, but it was difficult within the confines of those stories to show off the beauties of the Wizarding World in the way thatFantastic Beastsdid. Newt Scamander and his singular set of friends and enemies made for a fulfilling world that felt a great deal more cinematic than the setting of Hogwarts ever did.
1Penguins Of Madagascar
Madagascaris another film that managed tospawn a set of sequels, but beyond any of those or even the original film comes the success experienced by the hilariously strange and militaristic penguins that were side characters in the originalMadagascarmovies.
The penguins had arguably even more success in their TV show than in the film, but the movie was a hilarious story featuring the North Wind, a secret agency made up of other Arctic animals, and scenes like the one featuring the penguins jumping out of a plane remain cinematic excellence.
