Sin City was one of the most inventive and celebrated comic book adaptations in years, but its sequel helped self-destruct the franchise. The first movie was based on the brilliant graphic novels by Frank Miller, with Miller teaming up with Robert Rodriguez to make it. It even won the Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nine years later, Rodriguez and Miller returned to Sin City with A Dame to Kill For, and it fell apart from the start, underperforming at the box office and earning poor reviews from critics and audiences alike. For a neo-noir movie that was so celebrated to end up failing to capitalize on it, the once-promising franchise died a terrible death.

Sin City’s First Movie Was The Start Of A Very Promising Franchise

What Robert Rodriguez did with Sin City was groundbreaking in Hollywood. One year later, Zack Snyder copied this when he adapted the Frank Miller story 300 into a film that was primarily sH๏τ in front of a green screen with the comic art as the inspiration for the backgrounds. Snyder did the same thing again in 2009 with Watchmen.

However, Rodriguez created something that was more visually stunning than 300 with a better story. It was also more faithful to Miller’s story than Snyder’s Watchmen was to Alan Moore, who refused to allow his name in that movie’s credits. With Sin City, Rodriguez and Miller created the start of a franchise.

Sin City took place in a sinful city where criminals ruled the streets, and even the police were corrupt. The main character was Bruce Willis’s Detective John Hartigan, one of the few honest cops on the force. The cast was immense, with Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, and more.

Sin City was also an anthology movie, with each of the stories of crime in the city interlinked and serving to show how there might be a light at the end of the tunnel and that punishment would eventually come for those who deserved it. This was a brilliant film and deserved a long and storied franchise. It never happened.

Sin City’s Source Material Meant The Franchise Could Have Run For Years

Sin City had enough material to create a long-lasting franchise that could have run for years. With Frank Miller involved in the filmmaking, the creator was on board, and Robert Rodriguez proved he could do it for cheap. Even with all the big names in the cast, Rodriguez still made the first movie for only $40 million.

Frank Miller created Sin City for Dark Horse Comics, eliminating the need to go through a major corporation like DC and Marvel required. Miller wrote the series from 1991 to 2000, and had a total of seven collected editions of the stories, meaning there was plenty of material to choose from for the movie franchise.

The first Sin City movie was based on stories from the first, third, and fourth books in the series. The second movie, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, was only based on the second book in the series. Although there were plenty of options for more movies, the failure of the second movie killed the franchise.

What Went So Wrong With Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Sin City: A Dem to Kill For did something a little different. It took the main story from the second book and added a subplot from the seventh book, Booze, Broads & Bullets. Miller also added two original stories he wrote specifically for the movie. This was a good way to ensure there would be more stories for sequels.

Alas, this Sin City sequel only made $39.4 million, despite having a higher budget than the first movie ($65 million). Even worse, it received poor reviews from critics, at 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, and similarly negative reviews from the audience, at a low 44%. So, what happened?

One thing that hurt it was that the first Sin City was groundbreaking, and this followed the Zack Snyder movies, making the green-screen technique no longer fresh. The movie had to live and die by its story, and it didn’t come close to the original film’s brilliance of taking neo-noir and adding it to this dark world.

While the first movie was a solid noir story, with the villains getting what they deserved, Sin City: A Dem to Kill For instead focused mainly on the violence and corruption, and it never offered the ambiguity and flaws of the first film’s characters. It still looked great, but it failed to connect with viewers, who ultimately tuned out.

What Sin City 3 Would Have Been About

The problem was that Frank Miller ignored most of his stories in the sequel, trying to create more in the world for the movie, but it just didn’t connect as well as what he had written over a decade earlier. That is disappointing since there was still good material to mine from his comics for a Sin City 3 sequel.

There was still the last book, Hell and Back, and several one-sH๏τ stories from Booze, Broads, & Bullets that the third movie could have told. Hell and Back is a story about a former war hero and current artist who sets out to save a kidnapped woman that he had just met. It could have been a great third movie.

At the same time, when Sin City 3 was axed, rumors emerged of a Sin City TV show in a soft reboot, set in a world more like the comics. However, there has been no news on this project in years.

Sources: Rottern Tomatoes, The-Numbers