The cornerstone of every movie studio is its franchise catalog. The Big Five majors will cap off the year with 22 franchise film releases. With the fans and funds these film series attract, there's definitely an incentive for studios to churn out prequels and sequels.

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Every franchise needs a star, but occasionally, factors arise that place a wedge between an actor and a film series. Franchises like Black Panther, have leading actors bequeath their mantle to a protégé or new character to continue a legacy. Executives side-step an actor's mortality and hand off leading role duties to the next in line in an attempt to keep a series' success onward and upward.

Men in Black

Agents M and H pointing their guns in the same direction in Men In Black: International.

The Men in Black trilogy is centered around the galaxy's defenders taking down the scum of the universe. The spin-off, Men in Black: International, was the first picture in the franchise that did not feature the neuralyzing tag team of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

Christened as the 13th highest-grossing comic book movie franchise, it makes "cents" why Sony Pictures wanted to extend the run of the series following Smith's departure. Men in Black 3 was planned to conclude the series, but after the studio renewed its license to print money with the 21 Jump Street films, Sony wanted to kick the tires on their buddy cop films and planned a Men in Black and 21 Jump Street crossover. One-half of the crossover was yanked out of development hell and Smith and Jones passed down their black threads to Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson for a 2019 stand-alone sequel.

The Karate Kid

Hilary Swank as Julie Pierce standing with her arms crossed as Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi shows her pictures in The Next Karate Kid
Image Via Columbia Pictures

The Karate Kid movies were a staple of the 80s and featured Daniel LaRusso learning how to stand up for himself under the tutelage of Mr. Miyagi. The initial trio of films are coming-of-age tales centered around LaRusso's character while the last two pictures venture off to introduce new leads.

The Karate Kid's title doubles as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ralph Macchio aged out of the role and new blood was brought in to usher in a new story for the new decade. The Next Karate Kid replaced Macchio's Daniel LaRusso's character with Hilary Swank's Julie Pearce role. The same tactic was employed for the 2010 reboot starring Jaden Smith.

Transformers

Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager in Transformers

The initial three Transformers films pair the Autobots with a terrestrial group of misfits led by Sam Witwicky. The robots in disguise battle the Decepticons to protect Earth from a similar apocalyptic fate suffered by the Transformers' home planet Cybertron.

The property's bankability was put to the test on the release day of the third installment. The film’s star, Shia LaBeouf announced that Transformers: Dark of the Moon would be his last entry in the franchise. Mark Wahlberg and Hailee Steinfeld were cast as the human protagonists in subsequent films.

CREED

Rocky instructing Adonis Creed

Adonis, son of the late former World Champion, Apollo Creed, chases the title in hopes of landing in his father’s footsteps. Adonis enlists the aid of his father’s best pal Rocky Balboa to train him on his path to becoming a heavyweight champ.

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Prior to Creed, the previous pictures were centered around Rocky’s character. The casting call for the boxing-centric franchise favors a younger robust actor so when Sylvester Stallone aged out of the starring role, MGM sought a storyline that could reenergize the series. Michael B. Jordan's character is the focal point of the 7th installment and spin-off of the Rocky franchise.

The Dark Knight (2008)

John Blake and Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight trilogy follows Christian Bale’s Batman as he defends Gotham City from the League of Shadows and The Joker. After numerous injuries over the years, The Caped Crusader hands the keys to the Batmobile to Detective John Blake.

Despite the trilogy featuring two of Christopher Nolan's highest grossing films, Nolan was adamant about The Dark Knight Rises being his last Batman film. Warner Brothers had other plans and the impasse was settled with the last sequence in The Dark Knight Rises that hinted at John Blake taking over vigilante obligations for Bruce Wayne. This kept the door open for Nolan's universe to live on in future films. Zack Snyder’s original vision for Man of Steel was to ground the story in Nolan’s established universe with Joseph Gordon-Levitt dawning the black cape as Batman.

Logan

Dafne Keen as X23 in Logan
Image via 20th Century Fox

Logan serves as the epilogue to Wolverine’s story arc for the X-men franchise. During his swan song, Logan discovers he has a biological daughter named Laura who shares his DNA as well as his animalistic mutant abilities.

For X-men fans, it has become somewhat of a tradition to witness Hugh Jackman announce he’ll be retracting his claws and stepping away from the Wolverine role. The proactive producers behind the X-men franchise released Logan with the hopes of having Wolverine pass the baton to Laura for a spin-off series focused on Wolverine's offspring. After Disney purchased Fox, production on Laura’s spin-off was stalled.

Ghostbusters

ghostbusters-afterlife-mckenna-grace

The Ghostbusters protect New York City from spooks, specters, and ghosts. The ’84 blockbuster made the Ghostbusters roster household names. The paranormal exterminators LLC shuffled their roster by adding new actors to carry on the Ghostbusters mantle in a reboot and a sequel film.

Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II were two of the top 10 highest-grossing comedies of the 80s. A sequel should have been a no-brainer, but the series’ star Bill Murray was reluctant to shoot the third movie after his less-than-stellar experience on the sequel. With video games, cartoons, toys, and apparel, Sony opted into crossing the revenue streams with more Ghostbusters films. The proton packs were passed down to a female-led cast for the 2016 reboot and afterward, the original team cameoed in Ghostbusters-Afterlife to pass the torch.

Captain America

Anthony Mackie as Falcon in a promotional poster for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

The man out of time leads the Avengers against Thanos and his minions during the MCU’s Infinity Saga. Captain America’s tour of duty comes to a close when the 112-year-old soldier retires and gifts his patriotic shield to his mentee Sam Wilson.

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Unlike the character he plays in the MCU, who “can do this all day”, Chris Evans hinted he had grown weary of playing the super soldier in 2014 and was anxious to retire from acting to pursue directing when his original six picture contract expired. In poetic fashion, Captain America rode off into the sunset after his backfill Falcon agreed to replace the American hero. Captain America's replacement is the star of the Disney+ series Falcon and The Winter Soldier and he'll grace the silver screen in Captain America: New World Order.

Black Panther

Wakanda Forever - Boseman's legacy

Following the power struggle for the throne in Black Panther, T’Challa was on pace to lead the hidden nation of Wakanda into the spotlight for the upcoming Black Panther sequel. Tragedy struck when Chadwick Boseman fell victim to stage III colon cancer. The late, great actor will be sadly missed, but fans pondered on how his absence would credit his Black Panther mantle.

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Speculations run rampant as the trailers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever tease a mysterious character sporting the Panther Habit. Teased in the trailer are, what seems to be, visuals of a home-going for T’Challa’s character. Kevin Feige stated he felt “it was much too soon” to recast the character, but the MCU has bought time by allowing different characters to split duties in the Black Panther paraphernalia to allow the franchise to push the story forward.

James Bond

Recast 007 Actors Sean Connery_Pierce Brosnan_Daniel Craig as James Bond

Agent 007 is the focal point of the James Bond series and the British spy has a career that stretches as far back as 1962. One of the earliest franchises has withstood the test of time by rotating lead actors over the course of 27 films.

After Sean Connery announced he wanted to retire from the role following You Only Live Twice, Eon films constructed a revolving door of actors to carry on the moniker of Agent 007. The opportunity cost for not recasting the James Bond role was $2.03 billion. The tenth highest-grossing franchise of all time has benefited from outlasting each lead actor's tenure as the ultimate spy.

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