Four of the Worst Movie Sequels Ever Made

If a movie was a huge hit, got praise from the critics and the public loved it, why, just naturally the best thing to do is to make a sequel, right?

Not necessarily.

There are exceptions, of course, like Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather II, the sequel to his magnificent film The Godfather. It was one of those rare instances in which the sequel even managed to outshine the original movie it was spawned from. In most cases, however, sequels are relatively unsuccessful and inferior to the films they are follow-ups to.

Some movies that prove that sequels are not always the best idea are:

Staying Alive (1983)

Saturday Night Fever was the movie that defined the disco generation and made John Travolta a major star.

As Tony Monero, the strutting Italian-American disco king who exuded raw masculinity and arrogance, but had a hidden sensitivity beneath the tough image, he was brilliant. After such an auspicious big film debut, you would have thought that Travolta's career would have rocketed skyward. With the exception of Urban Cowboy, however, most of the movies he made in his early movie career after Saturday Night Fever were clunkers, among them its sequel Staying Alive. The fact that Paramount chose Sylvester Stallone to direct it indicates that somebody at that studio had a good sense of humor, because Stallone is to directing what a bonfire is to a snowball. Obviously, he believes strongly in nepotism, because the songs for the film were written and performed by- what a surprise!- his brother Frank. Sly even makes a "Hitchcock-like" cameo appearance in the movie, blissfully unaware that this film is a bona fide flop.