Hollywood is clearly out of ideas. For years they’ve taken to recycling plots and releasing pointless sequels. With proof that this trend has gotten way out of hand, here are some movies that nobody in their right mind would make…yet for some reason, they’re being made…

1. Ace Ventura 3: Ace Ventura Jr.

Did Hollywood learn nothing from Son of the Mask with Jamie Kennedy? Maybe they just made the movie, shipped it off, never saw it and never looked at the sales figures.

Since Hollywood was clearly paying attention about as well as I did in math class that day Jenny Reilly wore low-cut jeans and a white tank top, the moral of the story they should have learned is this: Something that was funny with Jim Carrey 10 years ago isn’t going to be funny without him today. (For more evidence, Google: Dumb and Dumberer).

2. Jurassic Park 4

This movie has been in-and-out of the works since 2002. A year ago, there were rumors that this 4th installment would feature dinosaurs that the government had harnessed with guns (because dinosaurs without guns are simply not dangerous enough?). Luckily, Steven Spielberg’s continued involvement with the movie has seen multiple scripts rejected — I’m going to assume that the rambo-dinos were rejected, because let’s face it, if he’d let those through, what could he possibly shoot down?

Laura Dern (who starred in two of the previous three Jurassic movies) is very likely the only original cast member returning. This chart that I paid a six-year-old girl to make should explain my feelings on the franchise:

3. Scary Movie 5

I guess these sucky-suckfest-sucktaculars keep making money…otherwise, they’d stop making them. This franchise hasn’t been good in a looooonnnnngggg time. So, my plea is to the people who are still renting or buying these B-movie-suckholes:

STOP IT! Stop it right now! You’re single-handedly making the world a worse place. Don’t rent Scary Movie 5, don’t rent Superhero Movie, Don’t rent Disaster Movie, just stop watching movies…you’ve demonstrated that you don’t have the single brain cell required to know the difference between comedy and the cause of ocular-bleeding. Just stay home and stop being part of society, it’s clear you don’t belong here.

4. Punisher: War Zone

The Punisher has always held such great promise as a comic-turned-movie. While most comic book heroes are…well…comical, the Punisher has all the makings of a great action movie hero. Put a guy on a motorcycle, give him some big guns, have him beat, shoot, and explode every bad guy in town. That’s a franchise they should be able to print money on. But like making A Confederacy of Dunces movie, it’s just cursed.

I think the curse started when they cast Dolph Lundgren to be the first Punisher in 1989. Casting Dolph as your main character is like choosing Rutger Hauer or Lorenzo Lamas as your star, you’re guaranteeing yourself a bad movie that will never see the big screen. Then they attempted to reboot the series in 2004 with Thomas Jane as the Punisher…it was better than the first, but still not compelling to audiences. Jane signed on to do a sequel, but after picking up and dropping new directors as quickly as betting slips you found on the racetrack floor at the end of the day, even he left. Now they’re making the movie with Ray Stevenson (Rome’s Titus Pullo) in the title role. Three different actors in as many films, that’s never a good sign — remember George Clooney in Batman and Robin?

5: Shrek 5

Details are sparse, but supposedly, Shrek number five has already received a greenlight even though Shrek Goes Fourth isn’t even due out until 2010. I can’t think of a single time Hollywood has made one of these preemptive sequels (a sequel to a movie that hasn’t even come out yet) that’s gone well. They did it with Back to the Future III and The Matrix Revolutions, and the Internet is filled with angry fans still trying to get their money back.

Most recently, Warner Brothers released a straight-to-DVD spinoff of Get Smart called Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control 10 days after the first movie hit theaters. Like a presidential candidate trying to air election tv-spots two years before an election, this kind of eager money-grubbing behavior should be outlawed.


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