As we’ve seen countless times over the years, the best – and often most successful – family-friendly franchises appeal to the younger demographic and adults alike, cementing them as certified classics in the process. Unfortunately, down in the seventh circle of hell, we have repeat offenders like the dreaded Alvin and the Chipmunks series.
Driving an entire generation of parents round the bend, up the wall, and to the brink of abject despair, the four-film saga hung around way longer than it deserved, but at least it was put out of its misery when The Road Chip arrived to new record lows at the box office. In fact, the rights to the entire property are now up for grabs to showcase just how much Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have fallen out of favor, even if it does mean the terrifying prospect of a reboot will be on the cards eventually.
Despite being unrepentantly awful and scoring respective Rotten Tomatoes approval ratings of 28, 21, 12, and 15 percent across its existence, Alvin and the Chipmunks nonetheless conspired to rake in a frankly astonishing $1.38 billion from theaters, plus hundreds upon hundreds of millions more in home video sales.
Just when you thought it was safe to take those earplugs out, an entirely new set of infuriated parents are being pushed closer and closer to the edge by Netflix, after FlixPatrol dropped the bombshell that The Road Chip had secured itself a spot on the platform’s worldwide viewership rankings. If it’s not the worst billion-dollar IP of all-time – which may depend on how you feel about Michael Bay’s Transformers – then it’s certainly pretty damn close.
