10 Actor Exits That Destroyed A Movie Franchise

A movie franchise is often only as good as its actors, and when a particularly strong actor with an important character leaves a film series, it can take a toll on the quality of the content. After playing the same role for many years, it’s not uncommon for an actor to feel ready to move on and want to leave the franchise even if it’s successful. Conversely, if a franchise starts losing momentum and audiences aren’t watching the movies anymore, they might feel that they could make better use of their talents somewhere else.

If the actor who leaves plays a minor character only a few times in the series, it’s easy to find a replacement and move on with the story. However, if someone in a leading role has been the face of the cinematic universe for a long time, their absence is obvious. Sometimes, the creative team will try to insert a new actor into the same role, but this can be jarring to the audience, and the new performer might not be as good. Regardless, an actor’s exit can reshape the trajectory of a movie franchise for good.

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10 Ralph Macchio

The Karate Kid Films

The first iteration of the Karate Kid films started in 1984 and starred Ralph Macchio as Danny, the naive student learning from Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), the master. It’s a classic coming-of-age tale, where the underdog must rise up and learn to fight for himself against his bullies. Macchio played the role for three installments, but after that, he moved on to more adult roles, as many actors who begin in younger roles are known to do. Though the franchise tried to restart its momentum twice, it was never the same.

Once in 1994 with Hilary Swank as the student and again in 2010 with Jaden Smith. Mortia reprised his role as Miyagi for the 1994 version, but even that wasn’t enough to save the film. The updated 2010 film expanded upon the original story, used younger actors for the children, and introduced Jackie Chan as the teacher, but like many reboots, it didn’t have the spark of the original film. While Macchio has recently come back as Danny in Cobra Kai, the original series, it’s unlikely another film is in his future.

9 Macaulay Culkin

Home Alone Films

Home Alone is a seminal holiday classic, and a large part of what makes that film, and its sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, is the charisma of a young Macaulay Culkin. He straddles the line between adorable and precocious and makes the audience believe that this kid could outsmart these bumbling villains. As Kevin, Culkin represented the kind of clever young man that every child watching wanted to be. However, the downfall of using child actors is how quickly they age out of their roles.

Kevin was already noticeably older in Home Alone 2, and by the time the third film came out in 1997, he wouldn’t have made sense as the lead anymore. Since he and his original costars left the films, new families have been the focus of the plots but have come close to Culkin’s legacy. Compounding that with the nostalgia viewers have for holiday films they watched in their youth, trying to keep a Christmas franchise alive without the elements that people remember most is a losing battle.

8 Neve Campbell

Scream Franchise

Scream VI might have been different if Neve Campbell returned, but it’s hard to say if she’ll ever come back to the movies that made her a star. As one of the classic final girls of the 1990s, Campbell’s Sidney Prescott reinvented the horror genre, poking fun at its pitfalls and tropes all while still being a thrill ride for the audience thanks to director, Wes Craven. For the first four films of the series, there couldn’t have been a movie with Campbell, but when the films got a new life in 2022, she was sidelined as a minor character and was then absent from Scream VI altogether.

This is becoming a trend for the franchise as the Scream VI star Melissa Barrera was recently fired from the upcoming film. With both the consistent performance of Campbell and the refreshing update of Barrera lost for Scream VII, it’s unlikely that the film is going to generate the kind of buzz as other iterations of the movies. Though horror franchises are known for their many sequels, there could be an end coming for the iconic franchise, and soon.

7 Vin Diesel

The Fast and Furious Franchise

Thankfully, Vin Diesel wasn’t gone for long, but when the Fast and Furious star took his leave for the sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious, it was obvious something was missing. The franchise has lost several actors throughout its run, including the tragic passing of Paul Walker, but Diesel has always been the heart of the series. Though the second film has many of the same elements as the others, Dom (Diesel) and his family are absent. It’s a hard change to get over, as the thrust of the first movie is the relationship between Dom and Brian (Walker).

6 Jamie Lee Curtis

Halloween Films

Being pigeonholed in a genre is a fear for any actor, so when Jamie Lee Curtis decided to leave the Halloween franchise, she left hoping to expand the limits of her career. She was successful in this and went on to star in films across a myriad of genres, but the Halloween films did not find this kind of success without her. Though there have been plenty of films in the series, none have reached the levels of critical acclaim as the first two, Halloween and Halloween II, both starring Curtis.

Many years later, Curtis returned for a few installments, but these lack the intrigue of the originals. With or without Curtis, the franchise has gone from inventing the tropes of the slasher genre to predictably following them. The only character more synonymous with the series than Curtis’ Laurie is the terrifying villain of almost every film, Michael Myers himself. Fortunately, due to his face always being obscured by a mask, he’s easy to recast.

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5 Orlando Bloom & Kiera Knightley

The Pirates of the Caribbean Films

Pirates of the Caribbean might have started as a spin-off of a Disney Park ride, but it has become so much more. Although the first film is regarded as the best, each of the original trilogy has something to offer. Much of the film’s stakes are created by the relationship between Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). The actors have excellent chemistry, and seeing them evolve throughout the films is gratifying. After their departure, it fell to Johnny Depp’s character, Jack Sparrow, to carry on the fire of the films, but his character alone wasn’t enough.

4 Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones

Men In Black Films

Replacing Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson in the recent attempt at a reboot, Men in Black: International was a failure on the part of the creative team. It’s not the fault of Hemsworth or Thompson, but trying to capture the chemistry of Smith and Jones and making a reboot at all was never going to work. The Men in Black films are an enormous part of the cultural zeitgeist, and audiences who grew up watching the films would have to work hard to accept a new team in place of the originals.

3 Sean Connery

The Bond Franchise

The Bond franchise is well-documented for having a revolving door of actors playing the iconic James Bond. Each actor has a new spin on the character and ushers in a new era of the story. However, Sean Connery took a brief pause during his tenure, leading to one of the worst films of the series. Connery quit playing Bond after five films, thinking that You Only Live Twice would be his last. George Lazenby entered to take over for Connery in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Despite Lazenby’s best efforts, his Bond film was a flop in every sense, leading Connery to come back once again for Diamonds Are Forever. While playing Bond is an honor, it limits the possibility for an actor when they’re cast in a high-profile role, playing the same character for so many years. Connery would leave the series again not long after his return, and the hole in the Bond franchise wouldn’t be filled until Daniel Craig stepped up as the Twenty-First Century Bond.

2 Jean-Claude Van Damme

The Universal Soldier Films

Universal Soldier is Jean-Claude Van Damme’s best movie franchise, but both the second and third films didn’t feature the iconic action star, making them the worst of the franchise. Despite Van Damme’s fame, the Universal Soldier franchise isn’t as popular as his other films. Part of this is because two of the sequel films didn’t have his star power, so the entire film series faded into obscurity. The decrease in the success of the sequels proves that it wasn’t just Van Damme’s fighting skills that made him stand out, but his ability as a performer to carry an action blockbuster.

1 Matt Damon

The Bourne Franchise

Though the Bourne films don’t have the legacy of similar action films like Mission: Impossible or the Bond franchise, they are still a significant part of the genre. This is thanks to Matt Damon’s performance as the titular Jason Bourne, a spy who has lost his memories and is being chased by mysterious assailants. Each movie raises the stakes of Bourne’s predicament until The Bourne Legacy, which casts Jeremy Renner as a stand-in for Damon’s formidable Bourne. The Bourne Legacy may still have espionage and fight scenes, but the similarities to the other iterations of the series end there.