But First

20th Century Studios – Credit: C/O

We aren’t including straight-to-video cash-ins or films promoted as sequels that don’t involve any of the original creative team from the first movie.

We also aren’t counting films that have just one sequel so far, such as the Avatar movies. We consider a franchise to consist of at least one film and at least sequel and/or prequel, plus some kind of spin-off. TV shows and video games count as spinoffs.

Disagree? Let us know in the comments. And now, here are the 15 most absurdly long breaks between films in a franchise.