A smash hit fantasy that didn’t get sequels because it was so embarrassingly awful breathes new fire on streaming

The way Hollywood works – especially as it relates to a movie designed to be the first in a multi-film franchise – is that sequels will be given the okay should the opening installment turn a tidy profit. However, in some cases the first chapter is so unrelentingly awful that there’s no other choice but to abandon ship, which makes 2006’s Eragon such a fascinating case.

Released at a time where big budget fantasy and YA literary adaptations were all the rage, the $100 million epic based on Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle ticked both boxes, which gave it a leg-up over a lot of the competition. Despite so many of its contemporaries bombing hard, though, Eragon netted a respectable $250 million at the box office.

Not only that, but it shifted an additional $89 million worth of home video copies in the United States alone, so it was a long way away from being a financial disaster. And yet, the fact it found itself resolutely panned by critics and trashed by fans of the source material saw 20th Century Fox simply cancel the notion of continuing the story, with the studio washing its hands of the property altogether.

That was probably for the best, especially when readers have finally gotten what they wanted with a reboot set to be more faithful to the novels in the works at Disney Plus, but Eragon has nonetheless returned to breathe fire on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, the horrendous coming-of-age tale of a boy and his dragon has spread its wings on the Rakuten rankings, and you’ll quickly be convinced that Fox made the right call.