What other franchises could become as popular as Star Wars?

The Star Wars franchise rests entirely on the legacy of the first two films, with special emphasis on The Empire Strikes Back.

If we want to pare it right down, I think we could say the franchise rests on the conversation-fight between Luke and Vader.

Specifically
Darth Vader said:
No, I am your father.

Without ESB, Star Wars would be remembered as the first of the grand space operas of the Eighties, while another one would take the place of 'timeless space opera'. We'd have a world where practical effects veered more in the space opera direction than towards horror, I think, and their Jurassic Park would be a space film.
 
There were a couple of movies that set out to be franchises and with decent scripting and less of the "stupid stuff for the kiddies" attitude might have been:

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), as a thirties-era "Indiana Jones" with science. The problem with the movie was that they weren't quite sure if it was a comedy, and when they did include serious elements from the stories, they weren't quite the proper ones (i.e., references to Doc's "operation to cure criminality").

Or, its modern version, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) which also had the problem that Peter Weller (Buckaroo Banzai) was overshadowed by John Lithgow (Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin). In fact, a sequel is announced in the closing credits (which may mean that there was one planned and may be a joke), there was apparently a script for a sequel, and the novelization (written by the screenwriter, Earl Mac Rausch, so presumably somebody was planning) contains open-ended plot items that a sequel could be based on.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072886/
 
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