For a brief while, paying patrons were getting worried that the conclusion to every major franchise would end up splitting its final chapter in two. Of course, we were told it was a decision made entirely for creative purposes, but it’s not as if anyone bought the party line for even a second.
At the end of the day, the film industry is about making as much money as possible, so the call to cleave the grand finales to the Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games sagas in twain was about as transparent and cynical as it gets, even if the box office returns underline that folks were more than happy to take two trips to the theater anyway.
Splitting one film in half is a completely different thing from two standalone projects that exist as two parts of the same story, with Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, and The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions falling into the latter camp.
Combining both sides of the argument into one tidy and argumentative package, fans have been debating which flicks would have benefited the most from releasing as two individual features, with the epic The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King starting things off.
Waterworld is definitely the most curious addition to the discussion, but it makes sense given that the underrated epic shot more than enough footage to justify its inclusion. The overwhelming opinion is that there’s not much need to split one project in two at all for any reasons that aren’t commercially-driven, which is something we’d certainly have to agree with.