Cliffhangers That Never Got Resolved

While everyone enjoys the might of Marvel Studios today, in the '90s, Marvel Comics faced far darker times, and even potential bankruptcy. One of the few bright spots was Spider-Man: The Animated Series, starring NYC's favorite web-slinger (along with just about every Marvel character you could ever hope to cosplay as). After four years, Peter Parker marries his beloved Mary-Jane, only to discover she's actually a clone, and the real MJ had been thrown off a bridge into an inter-dimensional portal by Green Goblin. Marriage is hard.

Spidey rushes off to save his wife (who he never really married, because Goblin) but we never find out what happens. The series ended up an unfortunate victim of Marvel's then-tumultuous business dealings. Seeking to make cash, the series was licensed to Fox to help Marvel sell their toy line. Marvel's Ari Avad ended up at odds with Fox Kids' Margaret Loesh, who ordered the series canceled to get at Avad. So as it turns out, Spidey's greatest nemesis wasn't J. Jonah Jameson, but disgruntled, dueling TV execs.

Plans for Spidey to find MJ in colonial England were shelved, and series writer John Semper Jr. later apologized for traumatizing viewers with the finale, realizing that the implication MJ was never rescued wasn't actual, proper closure. As for Marvel, it was rescued from doom and morphed into a powerhouse, Disney-owned uber-studio. Many Spidey-fans still celebrate the series, despite realizing that Marvel's got Avengers tunnel vision, and will never turn back the clock to save Cartoon Spidey's fair, red-haired maiden.

You probably know a lot about My Name is Earl — it was quite the successful show. But if you had stuck around to the end, you'll know Jason Lee never completed everything on his list of do-gooding, karma-building tasks. See, after four seasons of wacky adventures, we got a literal "To Be Continued" graphic, promising to reveal the parentage of Earl Jr., who was obviously not Earl's. Problem is, with costs rising for a fifth season, NBC opted to cut bait. Series creator Greg Garcia snarked, "It's hard to be upset about being thrown off the Titanic" in response. That's one of saying many viewers had not stuck around to the end.

TBS sought to pick up the series, but finances were the one thing Earl couldn't cross off his list. Depending on who's telling the story, either TBS or Garcia cut off discussions, for fear of what it would cost to mount Season Five. Yep, despite winning the lottery, losing his ticket, and then finding it again, it was ultimately cold hard cash that led to Earl never getting to complete his list. Garcia would go on to make Earl references aplenty on follow-up series Raising Hope (even having one character kick a NBC exec in the groin for canceling Earl) but poor Lee is trapped forever in syndication purgatory, his heroic journey left unresolved.

28 Days Later begat 28 Weeks Later, which ended on a cliffhanger that foretold what would almost certainly be 28 Months Later. At the very end of Weeks, survivors fleeing London get chased out of their helicopter by ravenous zombies, and as the furiously chaotic shaky cam settles down, you see the Eiffel Tower in the background. The plague has spread to Paris and will probably soon encompass the rest of France and all of Europe. Sadly, to date, nobody's followed up on this massive plot thickening at all.

Part of the issue is that Alex Garland, who wrote Days but not Weeks, typically abhors sequels and has no real interest in returning to his zombie world. In addition, as he explained in a 2010 interview with Worst Previews, the rights to Days (and presumably, the franchise) were "frozen between a group of people who are no longer talking to each other." In a 2015 interview with IndieWire, Garland elaborated that "group" was himself, Fox, director Danny Boyle, and producer Andrew McDonald, but also said that he had an idea for Months that he effectively gave to Boyle and McDonald, who will likely take Garland's ideas and build an entire film around them. Maybe. There's no word on when or if Months will ever grace theaters, but let's hope it's soon. That way, Fox can get around to finishing the rest of the saga. 28 Centuries Later, anyone? Millennia? Epochs? Eternities? Sequels forever.

One Spider-Man had to die so another might live. In this case, Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man franchise skidded to a stop midstream, and in its place we got Tom Holland's take on the Wall Crawler in Homecoming. That's certainly not a bad thing, but it does make you wonder what could've been.

The last thing we saw in Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the introduction of Rhino, him terrorizing New York City, Spidey leaping into battle to fight him, and the screen cutting to black. According to Hollywood Reporter, the plan was for ASM3 and ASM4 to continue the story. In fact, according to Deadline, the plan was for Sony to build an entire cinematic universe around everyone's favorite Garfield (cats and presidents excluded) — there would have been Spidey films, Sinister Six films, and Venom films. Unfortunately, ASM2 underperformed and Sony sought out a deal with Marvel to take Spidey in a new direction. This deal — which involves confusing rights and money issues best summarized with "Spidey hangs out with Iron Man now, so hooray" — placed the hero smack-dab in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sent him back to high school, and canceled out any need for Garfield's Amazing-verse. Some of the spinoffs, such as Venom, may happen yet, but they'll have nothing to do with Marvel's Spidey. What happened to Sony's Spidey post-Rhino will forever remain a mystery.

In 1969's The Italian Job, the dream team of Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill team up to steal $4 million worth of gold, angering the Italian mob and authorities alike as they make off like bandits after some great car chase scenes. In a complete last-second twist, the bus they use to camouflage their escape skids off a mountain road, and teeters off a cliff. Efforts to reach the loot fail as Caine slowly crawls for the gold, helpless as it slides away. Thinking for a moment, Caine declares, "Lads, I have a great idea," but whatever this plan was, the idea is never revealed. Instead the film ends.

Obviously, the idea was to film a sequel. Director Peter Collinson had ideas on how to rescue the crew and run afoul of the French Mafia. So, why didn't it happen? Two words: Michael Caine. He refused to do publicity for the film in the United States because the American poster featured a naked woman beside a gun-toting gangster. Feeling the marketing turned off any potential audience (clearly, he doesn't understand Americans), Caine declined to help the film and helped to sink it Stateside. When it failed to make bank in America, future plans were scuttled and it was all left to oblivion.

Oddly enough, neither the poster nor the plot to Jaws: The Revenge gave Caine any pause. Even odder, The Royal Society of Chemistry would later put out a call, seeking answers as to how the crew might have escaped with the gold intact. Ah, science.

You think you're optimistic? You've got nothing on the makers of the Super Mario Bros. movie. Despite clearly making one of the dumbest films ever, they actually ended on a cliffhanger. Daisy returns to the brothers, gun in hand, saying she needs their help again. Obviously, a sequel never came to fruition, thanks to the critical and commercial lambasting the original took. (It made $20 million on a $48 million budget, and most critics didn't think it was worth watching.) Since then, we've had to fill the void with awesome Mario video game after awesome Mario video game.

If you truly must know what might have happened in Super Mario Bros. 2, then turn to fan fiction. In 2013, two fans named Steven Applebaum and Ryan Hoss spoke with Parker Bennett, one of the film's writers. They turned what they learned in that conversation into an unofficial sequel comic, which you can read for free. In it, Mario and Luigi encounter a new threat: a monster named Wart ruling from inside an area of Dinohattan called Subcon. Yes, it's Super Mario 2, kind of. Oh, and the comic also ended on a cliffhanger, perhaps the most fitting tribute to the original movie imaginable.

When World War II allegory/alien invasion opus V debuted on NBC as a mini-series in May 1983, it captured the imagination of the United States, with an astounding 40% of the country tuning in. But while creator Kenneth Johnson pushed for the story to continue with a series of two-hour movies, NBC wanted a sequel mini-series, followed by a new, weekly series. So Johnson did what any creative type might: he balked and exited the show.

V moved on without him, but it was never the same. The creeping dread of the original was replaced with one-dimensional characters and recycled stock footage. By the end, complete scenes from earlier episodes were re-purposed — even footage of characters running. What started as smart science fiction, collapsed into a silly soap cartoon centered around what Jane Badler might eat that week. Spoiler: guinea pig lovers, beware

As you might expect, V couldn't be bothered giving the remaining viewers one last satisfactory scene. In the finale, The Visitors agree to peace, but only if human-Visitor hybrid "Starchild" Elizabeth Maxwell returns with their leader to the Visitors' planet. She agrees, breaking her boyfriend Kyle's heart to the point he stows away in the Leader's shuttle. As all of this alien 90210 drama plays out, Diana attempts to overthrow the leader — when foiled, the show makes it clear she's planted a bomb on his ship.

And then ... nothing. NBC just canceled the series, citing the expensive nature of the show, which cost a record breaking $1 million per show. A million for that? Imagine if they actually paid to film new scenes of characters running.

NBC heavily promoted The Event, built around the idea of an impending incident that would change humanity forever, namely aliens invading to rescue their fellow aliens, who have been imprisoned in an Alaskan gulag since crashing there decades ago. All sorts of intergalactic espionage and politics played out over the course of the series — in the end, it is revealed that "The Event" is actually that the aliens create a massive vortex that brings their entire planet into orbit next to Earth. Oh, and the President's wife reveals she's secretly one of the aliens, so Mr. President has an alien baby mama. Who wrote this, Springer?

The series' cancellation was not as much of a shock as the series going away, since the audience had considerably dropped since its big premiere, showing once again that a big marketing blitz will get you on the map, but not in the game. Series creator Nick Wauters promised that "one way or another," they would continue the story but in the end, the series was left without a partner seeking to continue the story. So, The Event actually turned out to be a giant plate of non-closure, with a side order of cancellation.

When famous explorer Emmet Cole disappears while seeking the secret of magic in the Amazon, his family decides to take a cruise up the Amazon River and find him in ABC's 2012 found-footage series The River, which had none other than Steven Spielberg and Paranormal Activity creator Orel Peli attached. The series featured angry tribes, cannibalistic zombies, mystical curses and malevolent spirits, but was missing one important thing — the secret of how to bring viewers in and get them to actually watch the series. The premiere had OK ratings, but everything after got sucked into a viewer-less whirlpool.

While we knew something obviously terrible happened to those who left the "documentary" footage recovered from the USS Magus, we don't ever find out exactly what. They rescue Emmet and appear to make their escape from the Amazon, only to stand there slack-jawed and powerless as the spirit of the Amazon, the Boiuna, traps them by shifting the very landscape and river itself, leaving them right back in the middle of nowhere, with no bars on their phones. "Can you hear me now?" No one ever does.

While Netflix toyed with continuing the series, in the end it opted not to go down with the ship. Neither did anyone else, which is why the series ended up sunk after just eight episodes. Dry dock never sounded so good.

Mork & Mindy "ended" in perhaps the most confusing way possible. By Season 4, the show had run its course with the fans, so ABC canceled it. Unfortunately, that season was set to end on an epic cliffhanger, where Mork and Mindy escape a renegade alien, Mork's alien identity becomes public, Mindy's apartment gets destroyed, and the two find themselves traveling through time to escape their enemy. They wind up in the prehistoric era, with seemingly no hope of returning. Since we never got a Season 5, they never did.

According to writer Brian Levant, in an interview with io9, Season 5 apparently had Mork and Mindy traveling through various points in time, meeting historical figures and presumably doing wacky things with them. Levant mentions photoshoots of Mork, Mindy, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, so clearly they were serious about this, until the big cancel anyway. Adding to the confusion, the show decided not to technically end the series on the cliffhanger, instead running a random "on Earth" episode last, one where Mork tries to earn a promotion from his Supreme Leader. The audience is left to assume they made it back to modern times, solved the villain problem, and fixed Mindy's apartment lickety-split, without telling anyone.