The first entry in a 6-film franchise that’s never been anything less than awful gets double-crossed on streaming

The bare minimum for any movie to generate at least one sequel should either be some form of acclaim or a box office profit, although both would be handy. However, despite barely making any money at all from theaters and taking an absolute pounding from critics, 2007’s Rise of the Footsoldier somehow turned out to be the launchpad for a six-film series.

Co-written and directed by Julian Gilbey, the unflinchingly violent gangland thriller follows the rise up the ranks of Carlton Leach, a soccer hooligan who decides the next evolution of his nefarious career should come in the criminal underworld. From there, he ends up rising to power as one of the most fearsome and respected gangster the United Kingdom has to offer.

Rise of the Footsoldier brought in less than $350,000 from theaters and ended up scoring a diabolical Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of just 14 percent, but it’s the user average of 83 percent from upwards of 10,000 ratings that likely explains how an unlikely saga suddenly roared into life, and it’s one that doesn’t even show any signs of slowing down.

In the last 15 years we’ve been subjected to Rise of the Footsoldier Part II: Reign of the General, Rise of the Footsoldier: The Pat Tate Story, Rise Of The Footsoldier: Marbella, Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins, and Tate: Days of Blood, so there are quite clearly a lot of folks out there who devour the latest chapter in the never-ending saga whenever it arrives.

To hammer that point home even further, FlixPatrol has revealed the opener as one of the Top 10 most-watched movies among iTunes customers in the United Kingdom, so the staying power doesn’t seem to be waning in the slightest.