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Stillborn Franchise
- 123 statements
- 21 feature instances
- 20 referencing feature instances
| Stillborn Franchise | type |
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| Stillborn Franchise | label |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise | page |
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| Stillborn Franchise | comment |
So the Hollywood marketing machine is hyping a movie as the next big thing in the industry. The producers are so confident that they have already announced a TV series, a Spin-Off, a TV series for the spin-off, the Comic-Book Adaptation, action figures, the flamethrower (which the kids will love), and plans to make a trilogy. However, when the work is actually released, it flops so badly that all the intended sequels, spin-offs, and merchandise are cancelled. This can happen for a variety of reasons: An adaptation that pisses off the fans of the original source and fails to capture a new audience. Trying to shotgun a niche property into a multimedia cash cow even though not many people are interested in it. The work's premise turned off too many people from watching or playing it. The work gets Overshadowed by Controversy and turns people away as a result. Executive Meddling. The work just plain sucks. In some cases, the start of a stillborn franchise may actually be critically and/or even financially successful, but complications (such as the creators parting ways with the production company and losing the rights, the publishing/distributing company refusing to fund a sequel on the grounds that the work didn't make enough money, Creative Differences, the creative team focusing on other projects, or, most dramatically, the death of one of the creators) prevent sequels from being made. On top of the actual Word of God from the creators about their plans and the natural law that forces executives to milk anything they spent a lot of money on, there are also several common hints to their intentions that affect the work in various places: An orphaned Sequel Hook. A surprisingly good actor in a bit part being saved for later. Colon Cancer-riddled titles to set up a series name. An adaptation of the first work in a popular series. The title indicating it is the first in a series. An ending caption promising a sequel. A milder variant of this is when they try to expand an already successful franchise, often with a feature film adaptation, a spin-off series or an alternate continuity, in an attempt to make a profitable franchise even more profitable, but it fails and it can even lower the profitability of the original parts of it. Compare and contrast with Franchise Killer where an already vibrant franchise is ended by a later bad entry. Another installment might be planned but end up being a victim of Development Hell. Often overlaps with Orphaned Series. See also Genre-Killer, Creator Killer, Trend Killer, What Could Have Been, and Cut Short. (As TV Tropes does not know time, please wait either 5 years after the work's release or for official confirmation by the creators before adding an example.) |
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Dropped link to AllStarCast: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to LetsPlay: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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GrimAndGritty | |
| Stillborn Franchise | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_110d4471 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_110d4471 | comment |
Company example: Kevin Kulek had every intention of turning Skit-B into a major player in the pinball business, with Predator as its beginning, as is evidenced by him having at least three other machines in development at the same time as Predator. However, either by naivete, laziness, or arrogance, he never actually requested the Predator rights from Fox, putting him in deep legal trouble when Fox found out about his project. This act destroyed his company before it could even release its first game. This case also crosses over with Creator Killer, as Kulek mishandled this legal dispute so badly, no one else in pinball wants anywhere near him anymore, and his name has become either a joke or, to the people who pre-ordered Predator for thousands of dollars and never got refunded, a Berserk Button. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_110d4471 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_110d4471 | featureConfidence |
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| Predator | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_110d4471 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_19c9d11e | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_19c9d11e | comment |
Puppicarus by Caddicarus received not so stellar views and mixed reception that led to the end of the spinoff and even the end of the character altogether. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_19c9d11e | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_19c9d11e | featureConfidence |
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| Caddicarus (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_19c9d11e | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_1f818da5 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_1f818da5 | comment |
Channel Awesome: Demo Reel was clearly intended for another season, but poor viewership and mixed reception led to the Walker Brothers to axe the series and erase it from existence by rebooting The Nostalgia Critic. Melvin: Brother of the Joker had a lukewarm reception that led to the discontinuation of the character by outright killing him off in one of the donation drive videos. Emo Jones, just like Melvin, was so poorly received that everyone (especially Doug and Rob) forgot that it even existed. So yeah: Don't expect a second episode anytime soon. The Let's Play of The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare would have led to a recurring feature were it not for the negative reception it received, to the point where the review of the James and the Giant Peach film that followed opened with NC apologizing for it at the start in a sketch where he got sent to prison for it (placed next to the State Home for the Ugly, no less). |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_1f818da5 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_1f818da5 | featureConfidence |
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| Channel Awesome (Website) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_1f818da5 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_20bd532b | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_20bd532b | comment |
Jim Meddick's Robotman and Monty started off in 1985 as just Robotman, a character whose United Feature Syndicate comic strip was intended to launch a cross-media franchise with books, toys, and so forth. The character never took off to these heights aside from the standard paperback collections of the strips. Robotman was written out of his own strip in 2001, and it has continued since as just Monty, starring the nerdy inventor Meddick introduced in 1993. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_20bd532b | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_20bd532b | featureConfidence |
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| Robotman and Monty (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_20bd532b | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_21c594df | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_21c594df | comment |
The Hasbro Comic Universe launched with multiple books and tons of hype behind it, promising to change things forever. The plan sputtered out very quickly, with none of the new books lasting more than a year and the existing Transformers series they spun out of dying a year after. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_21c594df | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_21c594df | featureConfidence |
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| Hasbro Comic Universe (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_21c594df | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_27770180 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_27770180 | comment |
Handbook for Mortals was intended to be the first in a series (it ends with the line "They lived happily ever after...or did they?" and an announcement the sequel would be released in 2018, a year after the first book) and it was also supposed to receive a film adaptation, but following all the controversy surrounding the book's release and its tepid reception, Handbook for Mortals remains a standalone work and the film never got off the ground. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_27770180 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_27770180 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Handbook for Mortals | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_27770180 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_52c5a501 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_52c5a501 | comment |
Invoked in Port Sherry, "The saddest movies": The woman gets emotional over a B-list action movie titled Codename Rex. Her reason is that there was an obvious Sequel Hook that never got followed up on because the film didn't do well. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_52c5a501 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_52c5a501 | featureConfidence |
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| Port Sherry (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_52c5a501 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_5fe6bff2 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_5fe6bff2 | comment |
The All-New, All-Different Marvel and Marvel NOW! (2016) eras was another attempt to introduce new legacy characters and lines. While most of the new characters would go on to survive other relaunches, find success or get second/third/fourth chances, the hero Mosaic all but vanished once his eight-issue series was cancelled. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_5fe6bff2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_5fe6bff2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| All-New, All-Different Marvel (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_5fe6bff2 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_78e6114d | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_78e6114d | comment |
Creepy Freaks was a horror-themed Mons game launched in 2003 by Wiz Kids. The company clearly had high hopes for it, as an animated TV pilot and a comic book were created to promote it, but it never amounted to anything. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_78e6114d | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_78e6114d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Creepy Freaks (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_78e6114d | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_85a5a3b9 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_85a5a3b9 | comment |
Transformers: Prime was meant to be the linchpin of an ambitious Shared Universe called Unit:E (which was promoted with an one-off comic issue sold at the 2011 New York Comic Con), which would've placed Transformers alongside other Hasbro properties such as G.I. Joe and (baffingly) Candy Land, and would've been a launchpad to revivals of many of the company's cult 80s properties such as Inhumanoids and M.A.S.K.. While the show was decently successful and well-received, the low outreach of The Hub and long-running behind-the-scenes troubles ultimately doomed any attempt to launch a wider Hasbroverse, killing Hasbro's IP development division Haslab with it. Although the company would later give another shot at a shared universe with a 2016 comic book event, it followed none of what was set up in Unit:E and didn't last long. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_85a5a3b9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_85a5a3b9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transformers: Prime | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_85a5a3b9 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_863f2e96 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_863f2e96 | comment |
After the first episode of Button's Adventures was posted, JanAnimations got hit with a Cease and Desist from Hasbro's lawyers. Plans for as many as ten episodes were put to an abrupt end. Jan ended the legal limbo a few years later by posting a sendoff called "Game Over". | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_863f2e96 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_863f2e96 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Button's Adventures (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_863f2e96 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_88fcaa31 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_88fcaa31 | comment |
A number of characters which were supposed to be the next generation of heroes. Among them Sleepwalker, Darkhawk, NFL SuperPro, and The Awesome Slapstick. None of them lasted long, although there have been many attempts to bring them back after years in Comic-Book Limbo. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_88fcaa31 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_88fcaa31 | featureConfidence |
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| Sleepwalker (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_88fcaa31 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_947ed2f1 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_947ed2f1 | comment |
The Viridian Saga, a Paranormal Romance Stealth Parody, was originally supposed to be a trilogy. The first book, Awoken, came out in 2013; the vlog series where the authors discussed plans for the sequels last updated in 2015. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_947ed2f1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_947ed2f1 | featureConfidence |
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| Viridian Saga | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_947ed2f1 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99041728 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99041728 | comment |
Prime itself blossomed from the head of the "Aligned Continuity", an attempt to unify various branches of Transformers media into a single grandiose shared universe that would last decades. While a few of the projects, like Prime and the Transformers: War for Cybertron series, managed to establish solid fanbases, the plans of the "Binder of Revelation" were quickly thrown out, with many large projects being delayed or cancelled, and most plans being abandoned in under five years. Most famously, there was the Transformers Universe game, which was supposed to be an MMO that would launch alongside Prime and bring the Aligned continuity to the masses—it had such a Troubled Production that it not only completely changed genre, but it didn't start doing open beta until Prime was over, and then got cancelled before its release. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99041728 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99041728 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transformers: War for Cybertron (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_99041728 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99beaff4 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99beaff4 | comment |
Demo Reel was clearly intended for another season, but poor viewership and mixed reception led to the Walker Brothers to axe the series and erase it from existence by rebooting The Nostalgia Critic. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99beaff4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_99beaff4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Demo Reel (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_99beaff4 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_9f89a5f0 | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_9f89a5f0 | comment |
The Pokémon Jr. Adventure: Pokémon Emergency! game was intended to be the first of twelve "Pokémon RPG" supplements, but due to licensing matters, the rest were never published. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_9f89a5f0 | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_9f89a5f0 | featureConfidence |
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| Pokémon (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_9f89a5f0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_afda134a | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_afda134a | comment |
Prior to the release of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios), there had been numerous attempts to start a Power Rangers comic, barely lasting a few issues before being cancelled. This was due to the franchise's early rotating power set/Zords/villains and the comics industry being shaken by the The Great Comics Crash of 1996 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_afda134a | featureApplicability |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_afda134a | featureConfidence |
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| Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios) (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_afda134a | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_eb79848f | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_eb79848f | comment |
Eve: The Awakening was apparently intended to be the first book in a series; it ends with a few unresolved plot threads that could be explored in sequels, it's listed as the first installment of a series on Goodreads and Jenna Moreci talked about potentially writing a sequel when the book was first published. Since Eve's 2015 release however, there's been no news on any potential sequels and Moreci later began work on a completely different series, the first book of which was published just three years later in 2018. It's looking unlikely at this point that Eve will remain anything but a standalone novel. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_eb79848f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_eb79848f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Eve: The Awakening | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_eb79848f | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_ec3ab2ff | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_ec3ab2ff | comment |
The Adventures of D & A was introduced into Disney Adventures with a lot of fanfare, and based on the comic's name — intentionally similar to the initials of the magazine — it looks like the titular characters were intended to become the magazine's mascots. This ultimately didn't happen as the comic was discontinued after the third story was printed; the magazine would eventually try again with another DA-named hero two years later, Duck Avenger. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_ec3ab2ff | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_ec3ab2ff | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Adventures of D & A (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_ec3ab2ff | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_f42befdb | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_f42befdb | comment |
A sequel to the Captain Underpants spinoff book The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future called The Adventures of Ook and Gluk Jr.: Kung-Fu Cavekids in Outer Space was teased, but was left in Development Hell for years; with Ook and Gluk getting pulled from the market in the wake of Asian-American hate crimes in 2021, chances for a follow-up are officially dead and buried. | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_f42befdb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_f42befdb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Captain Underpants | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_f42befdb | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_fb9c177d | type |
Stillborn Franchise | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_fb9c177d | comment |
Transformers: Transformers: Prime was meant to be the linchpin of an ambitious Shared Universe called Unit:E (which was promoted with an one-off comic issue sold at the 2011 New York Comic Con), which would've placed Transformers alongside other Hasbro properties such as G.I. Joe and (baffingly) Candy Land, and would've been a launchpad to revivals of many of the company's cult 80s properties such as Inhumanoids and M.A.S.K.. While the show was decently successful and well-received, the low outreach of The Hub and long-running behind-the-scenes troubles ultimately doomed any attempt to launch a wider Hasbroverse, killing Hasbro's IP development division Haslab with it. Although the company would later give another shot at a shared universe with a 2016 comic book event, it followed none of what was set up in Unit:E and didn't last long. Prime itself blossomed from the head of the "Aligned Continuity", an attempt to unify various branches of Transformers media into a single grandiose shared universe that would last decades. While a few of the projects, like Prime and the Transformers: War for Cybertron series, managed to establish solid fanbases, the plans of the "Binder of Revelation" were quickly thrown out, with many large projects being delayed or cancelled, and most plans being abandoned in under five years. Most famously, there was the Transformers Universe game, which was supposed to be an MMO that would launch alongside Prime and bring the Aligned continuity to the masses—it had such a Troubled Production that it not only completely changed genre, but it didn't start doing open beta until Prime was over, and then got cancelled before its release. |
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| Stillborn Franchise / int_fb9c177d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Stillborn Franchise / int_fb9c177d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transformers (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Stillborn Franchise / int_fb9c177d |
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