The Greatest Movie Franchises of All Time - Sweet 16
 

Links to preceding threads:


You can view the entire tournament bracket here as we go along, but here's the current state:

https://i.imgur.com/q94s8qD.png

Please vote for the franchise in each pair that you feel is most deserving of being in consideration for the Greatest Movie Franchise of All Time. I'll put one of these up every day or two as we go along. So vote!

Possible Concerns and Responses:

1. A franchise I like isn't on the list! Too bad. Nominations are closed. This is just a fun offseason diversion, but feel free to complain in the thread if it will make you feel better.
2. There's something on the list that I don't even think is a franchise! Don't vote for it.
3. There's something on the list that I don't recognize. Yeah, there are a few that I don't recognize either. If you feel generous, look it up and determine if you think it's worthy. Or just don't vote for it. Either option is allowed.
4. The seeding seems weird (or there's something I have no idea how it got in there). The seeding is based on total estimated tickets from Box Office Mojo, but some older franchises were randomly seeded since we don't have any data available about their ticket sales. Again, if you don't feel something is deserving, don't vote for it!

It's always kind of weird how these work out. I honestly don't care much about Karate Kid, Die Hard, Rocky, or The Godfather, so whatever on those. For the rest, I'm starting to be really picky about the idea of a franchise at this point - not just a couple good movies. So that means:

MCU over Pirates
Harry Potter over Indiana Jones
Bond over Hunger Games
Star Wars over M:I
X-Men over Superman
Lord of the Rings over Batman

MCU
Indiana Jones
Hunger Games
Die Hard
Star Wars
X-Men
Batman
The Godfather

Batman versus Lord of the Rings? **** that's a hard decision.

In the end, Clooney ****ed the franchise yet again.

I just cannot get over that streak of pure garbage in the middle. The Hobbit movies weren't great, but they'll movies I can watch and enjoy the cinematography if nothing else.

But man, Batman & Robin deserves genuine consideration as one of the worst movies ever made. Batman Forever was pretty awful as well.

Now what could flip it is if you consider the animated films as part of the franchise. Some of those are genuinely good. But in the end there are a dozen of the damn things and it just didn't seem fair to include them. So I went LOTR because of how god-awful B&R was.

Granted its competition this round is Karate Kid, but Die Hard seems to be the Cinderella story of the tournament. At 13-0 so far, it's basically a lock to make it to the Elite 8. It's got its work cut out against Bond (probably) though.

Marvel Cinematic Universe
Indiana Jones
James Bond
Die Hard
Mission: Impossible
X-Men
Lord of the Rings
The Godfather

I know, I know, M:I over Star Wars?!?!?! Hear me out; the M:I franchise has been more consistent in quality than Star Wars.

Put down the torches and pitchforks for just a moment. Look beyond the initial trilogy, does anyone consider the prequels good? Is anyone on this board ready to fire up some The Phantom Menace or watch the pillar of charisma Hayden Christensen? Or how about the total bomb that was SW:8 The Last Jedi? Anyone clamoring to pop that gem into the DVD player?

I know it will lose but the M:I franchise is strong in my opinion than SW is overall.

I'm including the animated movies for both. I voted for Batman but I would be happy with either one.

How is x-men not marvel comics?

Because they aren't part of the Marvel Universe movies. They were considered Fox.

For the love of God, do we have a bunch of 13 year olds on this board???

In no way, shape, or form, should Harry Potter be this close to the iconic Henry (indiana) Jones!

Die Hard is really living up to its name.

All of my hopes for the tournament at this point are pinned on Indy. I could live with Star Wars as well, based purely on the first three movies, but Indy is where I'm planting my flag from here on out.

People don't like to admit it, but Star Wars is a kids story as well. Just because something is meant to be accessible for kids doesn't mean that it can't be well done and enjoyable for adults as well.

I'll be asking the same if The Godfather advances only to lose to Batman or LOTR

Not that this isn't a worthwhile endeavor and I'm sure there will be a lot of spirited debate along the way, but there's no f'ing way the MCU loses this thing.

Bond can take down the MCU

Harry Potter, like it or not, was consistent.

Indiana Jones was great, meh, surprisingly good, and then an epic dumpster fire.

I'm an MCU fan, but I think Bond could take it down in the Final Four, or Star Wars has a shot in the championship. The MCU is great, but there are people who love it and people who don't care at all.

For what it's worth, though, this all started with my random desire to understand the MCU's place in the discussion (see the nomination thread in the OP). So I certainly expect it to be a strong contender to take it all.

I enjoyed the prequels. We got to see the story behind the people in the original trilogy. Seeing how the young Skywalker was being groomed to be the chosen one to become Darth Vader was good to watch for me. My daughter is 14 and until about 3 years ago, hadn't seen any of the Star Wars. We watched them together. I started out with the Original Star Wars, then went to episode one and watched them all in order. She became a die-hard Star Wars fan from that point on.

Back To The Future is a better ... (glances up at sweet sixeen) ... dammit.

Marvel
Harry Potter
James Bond
Die Hard
Star Wars
X-Men
Batman
Rocky

I’m one of the antiMCU people. They’ve just become too overwhelming in number and I blame them for squeezing out the sci-fi and fantasy movies that might have otherwise been made. Plus, they’re mostly just long fight and chase movies and that gets boring to me.

I only liked the first half of the first Pirates movie, but they get my vote here.

I went...

Caribbean
Indy
Bond...James Bond
Die Hard
Star Wars
Superman
Batman
Rocky

Honestly, I don't care about half of these, but they were the better option.

Lord of the Rings is my preference for champion, but I could be happy with several others. Not Superman though. I didn’t care for any of those.

I don’t like Harry Potter either. I don’t think I’ve ever made it through one without nodding off. But I can appreciate them and wouldn’t have a problem if they end up going far.

I refuse to vote in matchup #1. Bleh.

At least Batman had a couple classics in the original with Jack Nicholson and the Dark Knight Returns. Marvel is just the same movie over and over and over - always ending with some kind of beam that's going to end the world and a disposable CGI army.

Except Deadpool - I'd vote for that purely for the opening car rollover scene to Juice Newton. It's pretty much the anti-super hero movie.

And I like Guardians of the Galaxy for the music and creativeness - but it still follows that same lame formula at the end.

This. I will not waste my time on Temple of Doom or Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. 2 out of 4 is not good, I don't care how good the first one was.

Rocky vs the Godfather. That one was tough.

MCU
Indiana Jones
James Bond
Die Hard
Star Wars
X-Men
Batman
Godfather

The hardest one for me was Rocky vs The Godfather. I gave the edge to The Godfather due to the great performances from Pacino and Brando.

I voted Godfather but I really probably shouldn't have.

The Rocky Franchise has produced, man. Especially with the late stage renaissance over the last several years. Rocky Balboa, Creed and Creed II are outstanding movies. Rocky I was just an excellent movie; much like Rambo was an excellent film before the later movies became almost a parody of the character. But unlike Rambo, Rocky II-IV were good in their own cheesy but really entertaining sort of ways; they didn't go nearly as over the top as the later Rambo movies did (especially III, that was essentially a live-action cartoon). V sucked, but they made 8 damn movies and only had 1 real clunker.

I like Godfather I and II so much that I went with my heart and voted for Godfather, but as a true franchise, Rocky is the runaway winner really.

"Touch me and I'll sue"

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DiligentEx...restricted.gif

I guess I should watch the Creed movies. I liked Rocky, Rocky II (to a lesser extent) and Rocky Balboa, but III-V soured me quite a bit.

Rocky ended the Cold War in Rocky IV, man.

C'mon. If I can change....and you can change....EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!!!!

<iframe src='https://gfycat.com/ifr/FlimsyPerkyAlabamamapturtle' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen width='640' height='412'></iframe><p> <a href="https://gfycat.com/flimsyperkyalabamamapturtle">via Gfycat</a></p>

You gotta accept Rocky IV (and to a similar extent, Rocky III) for what they are. And once you do, they're pretty damn entertaining.

This would be my clear cut favorite, but the up and down James Bond series seems beloved for some stupid reason.

How the **** is Rocky even remotely close to the Godfather in any way, shape or form? That's ridiculous.

Batman vs Lord of the Rings was a tough one.

Star Wars, MCU and Bond are ****ing steamrolling. Given the demographics of the board, i should have expected Indy to wreck but this is getting a bit out of hand.

Temple of Doom is my favorite one. Probably because it's one of the few movies I can actually remember watching during my early childhood, so it's really more of a nostalgia thing.

Batman is more nostalgia than anything but just about every movie was shit. Lord of the Rings is an iconic movie trilogy that pushed Hollywood barriers and was phenomenal. Wasn't much of a choice for me.

Star Wars

Rocky

Batman

In that order

I watched They Shall Not Grow Old and the documentary from Jackson on how he went about making it.

It gave me a whole new appreciation for the LOTR movies. It made me realize just how much HE was required to make those as amazing as they were and made me recognize that the reason it's one of the few times a movie has surpassed its source material is because Peter Jackson is just an absolute badass.

He's possibly the best producer/director in the business today. He's simply quirky enough that he'll sometimes waste his talents on pointless passion projects (like Mortal Engines). The dude is pretty incredible.

i prefer mission impossible over stars as a whole. The cinematography and action scenes and depth of story for an action series is marvelous. It's iconic in it's own way adding to the fact a 50 year old plus tom cruise is balls to the walls crazy and creates INSANE live scenes.

I very much agree. Also a big reason I appreciate The Godfather and Francis Ford Coppola. That movie series was amazing. The first Rocky was good, it was a feel good movie but as a movie series I really don't think it can compete with something as well done as The Godfather.

The whole Midwest region is a dogfight for the final four spot. Each of the four has a strong following here.

The 3 best for me are all on the same side of the bracket, which kind of sucks.

Pretty much LOTR, Godfather, and Star Wars are my top 3. After that I don't much give a ****. Bond and Die Hard would probably be vying for spot #4 and it's not because either were all that cinematically amazing, but I'd tend to lean towards Die Hard.

I came across an article today about a bunch of sequels coming out in the next year or so. There are some franchises adding more, such as Bad Boys, Pirates of the Carribean, and Indiana Jones. But there are some others that will be their first sequel. Avatar actually has 4 coming, The Shining has The Sleep coming out, and they're making a sequel to Space Jam. Oh, and a prequel to Die Hard. Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out.

https://www.directexpose.com/every-m...coming-out/10/

Not gonna lie, I’m in to most of those.

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure what a "franchise" is. Is it the number of films, the story, what? Both Batman and James Bond were great, but how many people played those roles. How many takes can you do on Batman's character? Both Rocky and Godfather followed one story. Those 2 superb franchises should not have met until at least the Final Four. But like you, I had to go with the Corleones.

Pirates without Depp will fail. Indiana 5 is dipping into the well two too may times. Beetlejuice? Really? Triplets? ROFL

I'd say the Nolan trilogy is packing most of Batman's punching power in this tournament

Karate Kid beating Shrek is pure bullshit.

Too many votes living vicariously through Danielson getting mustache rides from Mr. Miyagi

It’s hard when so many of these franchises only have one great film.

Shrek is a cartoon. Karate Kid is a primer for a life well lived. :)

I, Sweet Daddy, the MVP, have now voted in this poll.

Batman is losing??? What is wrong with you people!!

I think GloryDays has a movie he'd like to nominate as a last minute write-in.

Marvel
Indiana Jones
James Bond
Die Hard (first time voting for this piece of shit that knocked off Alien)
Star Wars
Xmen
LOTR
The Godfather

LOTR kicking Batman's ass.

My faith in humanity is temporarily restored.

PS: John Wick could have taken Sauron down with a quill.

FAX

Indiana Jones is beating Harry Potter? That's the only one that surprises me.

The poll closes in about 10 minutes, so barring a last-minute barrage of votes, this one looks about wrapped up. Elite Eight coming up!