Star Wars, anyone?
Oh, they made four more good movies, with three of the sequels being great.
Pirates 1 - awesome, 2003
Pirates 2 - awesome, 2006
Pirates 3 - awesome, though I see a bit of pacing issue in the middle - 2007
Pirates 4 - uh, just good 2011, though mind you not terrible or franchise ruining
Pirates 5 - awesome, just a bit under 2 & 3 - 2017
I would not call it mediocre beginning, though. It actually was a big budget studio picture and despite fears of it bombing, its very first entry is Star Wars (1977) and it immediately became one of the biggest movies of all time.
That is one heck of a beginning.
Yeah, I suppose you are right.
I always thought that the first movie was nothing but a padded episode. It was better than no Star Trek, but not a very good movie. Fans I knew were hoping that ticket sales would prove that there was a market, so that a decent movie could be made.
I’m not sure that it counts as a “mediocre beginning,” IMO. Yes, the first film had a limited budget, compared to the later ones, and no, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the media empire (intentional pun) that it spawned.
However, the original film was a blockbuster hit from the moment it was released: it was generally very well-reviewed by movie critics at the time, it was the #1 film in the U.S. in its first three weeks of general release, and by the end of 1977, it was the highest-grossing film in U.S. history. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won six (all in technical categories), plus two additional special achievement awards.
Yeah, I suppose you are right. I was gonna edit my response, but was too slow.
But I don’t think anybody saw what was coming.
How about Lego? I was born in 1966 and at one point (I may have been about ten or twelve), we were visited by cousins from Germany, who brought these cool construction toys we’d never seen previously. My mother called the American office in Enfield, Connecticut to find out where we could buy them and we did (I think the 114-1 set) from a specialty toy store (for a lot of money at the time). Now, it’s the biggest toy company in the world (by revenue) and there are multiple movies, TV shows and of course theme parks.
Definitely confused, then. My apologies. The first Pirates is the best one.
That much is very true. Lucas, himself, despaired that he had a massive flop on his hands; it didn’t help that, in a private screening of a rough cut of the film, for his friends in the industry, nearly all of them told him it was bad – the one exception was Steven Spielberg, who believed that it’d be a hit.
I was just being a clown. I’ve only seen the first three movies and thought the first was suprisingly great but the second two were both big disappointments. But if you like 'em, that’s cool. No shade. There are plenty of things I like that I know are stupid.
It was such a big hit in 1977 that it made the news. As hard as it is to believe, circa 1985 the franchise was pretty much dead. Toy production had come to a halt, the Ewoks cartoon series ended in 1986, and from 1987 until around 1996 the only Star Wars merchandise that was readily available was whatever West End Games was making for their Star Wars table top RPG. In many ways, I do think it’s remarkable that Star Wars is so big but it hardly had mediocre beginnings. It hit a home run right out of the park.
And I think you could certainly argue for Star Trek having mediocre beginnings. It was a television show that strugged in the ratings and was cancelled after only three seasons. Overall I’d say it was a good show, but three seasons is kind of mediocre.
Good one!
That could be a whole nother discussion: major franchises that went through a period of almost complete dormancy.
The Godfather began as a middling novel by Mario Puzo, which spawned three critically acclaimed blockbuster films (ok Godfather III had its weaknesses). And arguably, led to such things like the Sopranos and Goodfellas.
Stretching the concept a bit: The Quarrymen —>> The Beatles
In any case whether or not it looks dated or unimpressive to us in hindsight, there is also the question of whether by the standards of the time it was clearly superior to the competition or was a perfectly mainstream work, with flaws like others, but that just happened to “click” when others did not because of right-time-right-place and run away with the success. And that “click” may not necessarily happen right off the bat – as mentioned, ST/SW each for its own reasons spent a considerable time hanging on in the niche fandom world before getting their second wind at the mass market.
Also there is the aspect of the evolution of what “franchises” look like. There was being Burroughs or Conan-Doyle and discovering the public can’t buy enough copies of your character’s adventures so you (happily or grudgingly) give them what they’re paying for, and now there is with every moderately successful property keeping in the back of your mind the potential for a whole multimedia/sociocultural ecosystem with sequels, prequels, movie/TV versions (if a book), novelized versions (if a film or TV show) , cartoon versions, “babies” version, spinoffs, licensed merch, conventions, possessive gatekeeping fans, etc.
It has been. But in an odd way that has helped in the sense that the public keeps wanting to know if the next one is one of the good ones or one of the lame ones. Plus of course it also has the element of every few years the fandom wondering how will “the new guy” change things.
It’s not that the show as such was cringey but it contained things that even in the time would be eyeroll triggers or peeved some older fans. But as Mijin states, at the time, it was giving fans and non-fans something new, different, so most of us were willing to overlook flaws that were not that different to everything else in media. (We must also remember, in 1987 the ST franchise already was going strong by the standards of the time: theatrical films of the original cast, licensed novels, merch, a vigorous fandom.)
On that note, I’d mention Robert E Howard and Conan (likely also applies to Lovecraft as well, but that’s more complicated). From a pulp character that amused Howard, it became a huge hit with fans and his publishers, so he ended up writing for the character long past his interest. Yet here we are with TV series (live action and cartoon), major motion pictures, countless novels and comics, board games, wargames, Computer games, and even an MMO.
And, speaking of @Chronos’ point on Warhammer 40k and those properties that are deliberate rip offs or homages of their materials, Conan also scores big in that category. 
Has the James Bond franchise really grown all that much? I mean, there was a series of novels, and has been a series of. movies. But have the movies become progressively more popular? Are there spin-offs? Fan fic? Conventions?
I acknowledge its success and longevity. But IMO does not compare to the likes of ST/SW/Marvel…
I’d have to say this is the very opposite. “Star Wars” was a monster hit, the biggest movie hit of all time as of that time, and was critically acclaimed. It won seven Oscars. Its immediate sequel is even better, one of the most critically acclaimed movies ever, and made additional gazillions of dollars.
It was after that the franchise slid into profitable mediocrity. But its beginnings were not at all humble.