Then why did Men in Black 2 and 3 see diminishing returns, especially 2 which saw only 70% of the first movie’s box office. I mean, they had the two expected actors. That’s right. It was a terrible movie (38% on Rotten Tomatoes). And the stink of it has lingered. That wasn’t helped by International, a movie that was even worse (23%). More so, the entire premise is that the Agents are replaceable. The franchise is a bit like Bond in that way. The movie quality matters to reception.
Comparatively, Bad Boys For Life is sitting at 76% with a 98% audience score. Its critical reception is better than all three sequels to Men in Black, by a noticeable degree.
Let’s not pretend a better movie, regardless of stars, couldn’t save the franchise.
After MIB 2 though came MIB 3... 10 years later.
The worldwide gross for MIB 3 was the highest of the franchise at $650M+. Now I get inflation and everything like that, so technically original MIB probably made more money in the scheme of things. Let's not pretend though like MIB 3, which was a 68% fresh film and 70% audience score (which i'll admit is a bit soft), didn't help the MIB brand.
To get to the core of what *hurt* the brand, specifically with MIB 2, is Sony. They stumbled upon gold and were eager to make another movie, which yes, turned out to be crap, but it was still one of Sony's highest grossing movies ever. I'm not sure if there was studio interference on MIB 2 or why it was so bad, but this franchise really doesn't have to be this way, a lot of it is similar to how they've handled it. I look at the
MIB: International the same I do
Ghostbusters (2016). It's about a studio that doesn't have many big franchises looking for any way possible to squeeze another dime out of the brand, even if it means leaving what made it popular behind.
You can still see Sony trying to do this in many ways with Uncharted. Sure it's a new brand to movies, but it's been around on the video game side of things since 2007. A movie was finally made with Sony's biggest studio movie star in Tom Holland, coming off of the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Uncharted still has only managed $373M worldwide and a 41% rotten score, although an impressively high 90% audience score. I think an Uncharted sequel is pretty much guaranteed, but will it increase upon the audience it has impressed or will it have a box office fall off next time and have everyone wishing they never green lit the movie?
I guess my point is, Sony typically sucks as a studio unless they are being guided by Marvel Studios.