The first trailer for Dune: Part Three landed this month, and it did something no marketing beat for this franchise has had to do yet: quietly acknowledge that closing out a beloved trilogy is where most franchises go to die. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune Messiah follows two Certified Fresh, awards-nominated blockbusters. Our own Dune: Part Two review called Part Two a modern sci-fi landmark — though not everyone agreed; we also argued Part Two was overhyped at the time. Either way, Villeneuve has a high bar to clear twice over with Part Three, and that means stepping directly into the blast radius of Hollywood’s most consistent curse: the third film.
The “3rd film curse” (or threequel curse) is still a problem in Hollywood, even after years of filmmaking. “Third time is a charm” is a phrase often used in everyday life but not in the world of cinema. Fans have noted a strange trend: the third entry in any trilogy is always noticeably weaker than its predecessors. Think about it. Just how many good threequels are out there? Only a handful of trilogies have survived the curse, notably The Bourne Ultimatum, Toy Story 3, The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But most threequels are destroyed by budget problems, director conflicts, and just-plain-awful production. This culminates in low box office returns and proves that the third cut is the weakest.
We pulled the actual Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score for each film below and reordered the list from the ones that mostly survived the curse down to the ones that killed their franchises outright — your original verdict on every film stays exactly as you wrote it.
The Dark Knight Rises Proved a Threequel Could Still Stick the Landing
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
Yes, The Dark Knight Rises. Fans must admit that the third film lacks the resonance of its two originals in The Dark Knight Trilogy. While it’s remarkably better than most threequels (and probably manages to survive the 3rd film curse), it still doesn’t live up to its first two instalments, thanks to a poor ending and an anti-climatic outcome for Bane – the real star of Rises.
Worth noting: Nolan stayed on as director for all three films and had eight years to plan this ending — a luxury almost nothing else on this list got. Read our full ranking of the Dark Knight trilogy.
Iron Man 3 Is Better Than Its Fan Reputation Suggests
Rotten Tomatoes: 79% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
Not even the great Tony Stark could dodge the 3rd film curse. While not as bad as the second film, his third outing is probably at the bottom of the list of ranked MCU films. Even though the first Iron Man was spectacular, the sequels failed to capture the fun and excitement of the first film. Robert Downey Jr. instead found success with Tony Stark in the Avengers films.
Critics disagreed with that fan take at the time, though — Iron Man 3 actually holds the highest Tomatometer score of the trilogy. We broke down why Iron Man plays like Batman Begins in an earlier piece, if you want the full origin-story comparison.
Men in Black 3 Was the Threequel Nobody Expected to Work
Rotten Tomatoes: 67% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
If only Will Smith could use that device on audiences to help them forget the terrible MIB 3. Despite Josh Brolin’s excellent performance as a younger Tommy Lee Jones, the last instalment was plagued with an unfortunate script. It just felt so 90s!
Critics were kinder to it than that memory suggests — a full decade after the widely-panned MIB II, the time-travel threequel was actually treated as a genuine bounce-back for the franchise.
Spider-Man 3 Buckled Under Too Many Villains
Rotten Tomatoes: 62% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
A textbook example of the 3rd film curse, Spider-Man 3 suffers from being… well, emo and messy. Throwing everything and the kitchen sync at the story, the over-abundance of villains helped sink the Spidey franchise right down the spout.
Sony didn’t repeat the multiple-villain mistake with every subsequent installment — see where this one lands in our full Spider-Man movie ranking.
X-Men: The Last Stand Was Undone by a Rushed Production
Rotten Tomatoes: 56% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
The Last Stand is utterly devoid of soul. It is a visual effects extravaganza, with Ratner introducing as many mutants as possible to compensate for the poor script.
Worth remembering why Ratner was in the chair at all: Bryan Singer left mid-development to direct Superman Returns, leaving Fox to rush a replacement onto a compressed schedule. Five years later, X-Men: First Class proved the franchise’s real problem was never the mutants — it was the rushed production.
Alien 3 Was Gutted by Studio Interference Before Fincher Even Started
Rotten Tomatoes: 44% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
If David Fincher has proven anything over the course of his career it is that he wasn’t responsible for the awful Alien 3. The studio clearly didn’t know what to do with the franchise. Alien Resurrection proves that!
Fincher has disowned the theatrical cut ever since — reshoots and an unfinished script gutted the film he actually set out to make, and he wasn’t given final cut.
Batman Forever Traded Gotham’s Darkness for Neon
Rotten Tomatoes: 41% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
Ah, the cursed Batman Forever. Joel Schumacher managed to turn the dark and gloomy world Tim Burton created into a comic book dribble. The best thing anyone can say about this threequel is that it isn’t Batman and Robin. Well, that and Seal’s ‘Kiss by a Rose’.
Schumacher was brought in specifically to make the franchise more toy-shelf and family-friendly after Batman Returns drew complaints — which explains a lot about where the tone went.
Shrek the Third Ran Out of Jokes
Rotten Tomatoes: 41% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
Who knew that the charm of the characters of Shrek would wear off? The third instalment lacked everything that made the original two cool. Completely uninspired. The same jokes for a third time running.
It stayed the franchise’s low point until Puss in Boots spun off years later and found a fresher angle on the world.
The Matrix Revolutions Answered Almost Nothing
Rotten Tomatoes: 33% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
How can one of the best fight scenes in film history be one of the most anti-climactic? Despite our best efforts to love the franchise, Matrix Revolutions makes it quite tricky. Dammit, why couldn’t Neo just beat Smith? Why couldn’t it all make more sense? Why did Trinity have to die? Why did Neo have to go blind? Why did it have to end in mystery? Who knew the fourth movie would be even worse?
It was shot back-to-back with Reloaded, which explains some of the fatigue. The Wachowskis are reportedly circling a fifth film with director Drew Goddard — we covered whether Neo and Trinity should even return.
The Expendables 3 Lost Its Edge Chasing a PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 32% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
If The Expendables 3 proves anything, you don’t mess with a winning formula. It’s the first instalment in the gratuitously violent franchise to avoid an R rating and earn an audience-friendly PG-13. Watching the ageing badass heroes without the gore proves to be quite a bore. Of course, that is only one of the many problems with the film.
The bet didn’t pay off commercially either — it opened to the weakest box office of the original trilogy, despite chasing a wider audience.
Superman III Let Richard Pryor Steal the Franchise
Rotten Tomatoes: 31% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
A superhero film that focuses more on a comedian than its protagonist is damned for trouble. Superman III proves to be an unworthy sequel despite an awesome Superman versus Clark Kent scene. This is proof that Donner was a superior director to Lester.
It’s the moment the Christopher Reeve era visibly started running out of ideas — the alley fight between Superman and Clark remains the only scene most fans still bring up unprompted.
Blade: Trinity Sidelined Its Own Hero
Rotten Tomatoes: 24% (view on Rotten Tomatoes)
Three bankable actors. What’s wrong with this picture? Blade: Trinity underutilised its heroes and villains to create a sloppy vampire flick. The ideas had so much potential but never lived up to their predecessors.
Wesley Snipes reportedly clashed with director David S. Goyer on set to the point of near-physical altercations — it’s the film that ended his run as the character and delayed a live-action Blade reboot for two decades.
RoboCop 3 Killed the Franchise Outright
Rotten Tomatoes: 20% (view on Rotten Tomatoes
Honestly, RoboCop 3 is nothing more than a long toy commercial. This is the 3rd film curse in full effect.
Peter Weller walked away rather than reprise the role, RoboCop’s voice was redubbed by a different actor entirely, and Orion Pictures’ financial collapse gutted the effects budget mid-shoot — a jetpack-flying, PG-13 cash-in so far removed from Verhoeven’s R-rated satire that it ended the franchise’s theatrical run for over a decade.
Which Threequels Actually Broke the Curse?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (93%, plus 11 Oscars including Best Picture), The Bourne Ultimatum (93%), Toy Story 3 (98%), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (88%) all landed Certified Fresh — the same films your original intro already named as the exceptions, now with the scores to back it up.
Will Dune: Part Three Break the Curse?
Villeneuve has directed every Dune film himself, hasn’t lost his lead cast, and is adapting Dune Messiah — a shorter, tighter novel than the two books he’s already turned into films. Dune: Part Three arrives in theaters December 18, 2026.
Can you think of films that have broken the 3rd film (threequel) curse?
mad max 3-garbage absolute, godfather 3- total garbage, i mean really bad, indiana jones and the jerry lewis crusade- come on! this film is way over rated! sean scares birds with an umbrella that bring down a combat airplane…yeeeesh. only thing worse is #4 which i didn’t see. dont have to you instinctively know. return of the jedi-ewoks, and zombie death star(the trench is now pipes!) star wars-wow! empire-holy s***! jedi…nooooonooo
Three’s a crowd.
One franchise that I can think of is too epic and told that curse to bugger off, Harry Potter. Prisoner of Azkaban was awesome.
PoA is honestly the first really good book in that series, though, so it seems natural that the movie would follow.
Lol, ONLY 13….?
Could have been a 100, but we have other things to do too. :)
No problem, another thing I had to point out is a lot of the time the 3rd films are so bad because the 2nd films are so great.
Wow, Thanks Eric. Great feedback!
Other films that suffered the 3rd film curse,
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: not a bad sequel, but it definitely takes a huge downfall from its predecessor.
Scream 3: With a rewrite and falling out with writer Kevin Williamson, this film suffered from losing a bit of its Scream charm, even making Gale Weathers so dependent on Dewey
Superman Returns: Technically this is the 5th live action film, but its continuity its presented as the 3rd film and its a huge bore.
Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift: Well we now know if nots the 3rd film continuity wise, but it was a huge step down as it was the 3rd film released, although, 2 Fast 2 Furious wasn’t exactly ground breaking either.
Resident Evil: Extinction: While many tend to not enjoy these films(even though they keep going to see them)this film was a small drop from Apocalypse, although it does do one thing no other bad 3rd film does and that be better than the first film(however Apocalypse is still better than both)
Rush Hour 3: This film just seemed to go through the same motions as the first film, except weaker. Its not a terrible film but its just weaker
Rambo 3: Just a huge letdown, the plot is pretty good but the execution is just terrible, Stallone is still great though and Richard Crenna is allowed to do something, so that’s a small bright spot
Iron Man 3: Although, technically this is Tony Starks 4th time out, 5th if you count his After Credit came in The Incredible Hulk I didn’t mind this film much, but many hated its recycling of plot and the change in the villain.
Predators: This went through so many rewrites, first it was a team up with Arnold and Danny Glover, than it was a remake, than this, while the other two films are never mentioned this is considered a rebooted 3rd film. I still am waiting for that team up film
American Wedding: Well this franchise was never masterpieces but this was definitely not the first two films
Expendables 3 didn’t fail because of the rating, it failed because people pirated the film a month ago and bad word of mouth made others not use their own judgement. Many PG-13 action films have great scenes