The finale to a major film franchise is usually a very lucrative event, often earning more at the worldwide box office than any other installment in the series. As a result, movie studios have started splitting the final part of a popular franchise into two or more different films. While this can often work for a franchise that needs more installments, audiences can also view this move as a cheap cash grab.
Whether a movie series has a two-part finale or a franchise has greenlit separate features to conclude the story, several great sagas could have ended with just one movie. Popular movie franchises Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games have all suffered from this problem.
10 Fast & Furious
Fast X was marketed as the beginning of the end of the road for the long-running Fast and Furious franchise, which began over 20 years ago. Franchise star Vin Diesel has stated that the Fast and Furious finale will be at least two parts, potentially even three.
Although Jason Momoa's Dante Reyes could carry multiple films with his eccentric villainy, Fast and Furious 11 and 12 are definitely overkill. With diminishing returns over the last several installments, the Fast and Furious franchise would do well to bring its overblown story to an end before it's too late.
9 The Hobbit
The Hobbit films acted as a prequel to Peter Jackson's beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Hobbit stretched Peter Jackson's rather short book into three separate films, releasing An Unexpected Journey in 2012, The Desolation of Smaug in 2013, and The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014.
Stretching The Hobbit into a trilogy proved to be a highly unpopular decision, and many viewers criticized the films' slow pace and additions to Tolkien's source material. Given that The Hobbit is shorter than the Lord of the Rings books, Peter Jackson's prequel would have worked as just one movie.
8 Twilight
Based on Stephenie Meyer's popular book series, Twilight was one of the biggest film franchises of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Although Meyer's series only consists of four books, Lionsgate opted to stretch the final installment, Breaking Dawn, into two movies, which were released in 2011 and 2012.
Unfortunately, this meant that Breaking Dawn dragged on. Both of the final two films feel stretched too far, as they had to slow things down to fill a doubled runtime. Critics panned the bloated runtime, which the plot didn't justify. In the end, Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2 fall short of the finale they could have been had they been relegated to a single movie.
7 The Matrix
After the incredible success of The Matrix, two sequels were shot back-to-back to complete the trilogy. The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions were both released in 2003, depicting the final battle between the remnant of humanity and the Machines that have taken over the Earth. Unfortunately, both of these sequels were not as well received as the original film.
Critics also disliked Reloaded's unnecessary cliffhanger ending, which seemingly only served to stretch out the story's conclusion. The last two films in the original Matrix trilogy aren't bad, but it is clear that they suffered from a bloated runtime. Instead of a satisfying ending, fans were left with an overly complicated and confusing conclusion.
6 Harry Potter
As one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, it is no surprise that Harry Potter's epic finale was split into two movies. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One was released in 2010, adapting the first half of J.K. Rowling's book of the same name. This was followed by Part Two in 2011, which depicted the final battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort.
Although Harry Potter's two-part finale works better than other multiple-part endings, Deathly Hallows could have easily been a single movie. The first part struggles with pacing and stretches out genuinely engaging scenes with long sequences where nothing much happens. In a single film, Deathly Hallows would be a far more efficient and potentially more enjoyable story.
5 Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is being marketed as the biggest installment of the Tom Cruise-led spy thriller franchise yet. The upcoming film promises to bring back some of Mission: Impossible's best characters for what could be the beginning of the end for the franchise. Part Two, the eighth and potentially final film, is set to come out in 2024.
While Dead Reckoning has yet to hit theaters, it is hard to imagine that the film's story really requires two parts. Mission: Impossible movies have always been very self-contained and rarely rely on previous installments to sell new ones.
4 The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games defined a generation of movies when it adapted Suzanne Collins's hit dystopian trilogy of the same name. Following the trend of YA novel adaptations in the 2010s, Jennifer Lawrence-led franchise split the third and final book, Mockingjay, into two movies. These were released in 2014 and 2015.
Unfortunately, each half of Mockingjay feels incomplete. The movies stretched the story into two films, both of which run for over two hours. The bloated finale would have felt much more efficient in a single film, particularly leaving the first part to suffer from a lack of action as it meanders along toward its cliffhanger ending.
3 After
After is a romantic drama franchise based on Anna Todd's four novels of the same name, which began as fan fiction about singer-songwriter Harry Styles. Four After movies have been released so far - After, After We Collided, After We Fell, and After Ever Happy. After Ever Happy's second part, After Everything, is set to release in 2023.
After's story was spread thinly about 15 minutes into the first movie, so it's surprising that the filmmakers made more movies out of Todd's series. After Everything is completely unnecessary, as it will stretch an epilogue's brief story into an entire movie to conclude the saga.
2 Fantastic Beasts
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them spawned another series of movies set in the Wizarding World. The franchise was expected to include five installments, though only three movies ever saw the light of day. The final two movies in the Fantastic Beasts series would have brought the story to a close, though they were eventually canceled in favor of rebooting the Harry Potter franchise as a Max streaming series.
Fantastic Beasts was infamous for producing some of the worst-received Harry Potter movies, making it quite surprising that the filmmakers expected to squeeze five movies out of the property. Because of the franchise's lukewarm reception, Warner Bros. canceled the finale, and the final two parts of the Fantastic Beasts story remain untold.
1 Divergent
Following the hype surrounding dystopian series like The Hunger Games, the Divergent franchise kicked off to moderate success in 2014. Based on Veronica Roth's novels, the Divergent series got a bit ahead of itself after the success of its first installment, causing filmmakers to split the third and final book into two movies.
Unfortunately for the Divergent movies, public interest in the franchise dropped rapidly. The studio was able to churn out the Insurgent and Allegiant as planned, but it ultimately could not justify making the fourth and final installment. The creatives overestimated worldwide interest in the story, so the Divergent franchise ultimately ended on a cliffhanger. This could have been avoided if Divergent had been a trilogy.