Everyone knows that the toughest thing for filmmakers to pull off is a franchise's third go-round—so in honor of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans here's a handy guide to the red flags that indicate your three-quel is likely to be teh suxor.

1. The Stars Go Out

"Hey, folks! Did you enjoy watching Kate Beckinsale kick ass in leather for two Underworld movies? Awesome, then you'll really love Rhona Mitra kicking…What's that? No, no. Kate's not in this one. Neither is the guy from Felicity. Hold on…come back! We've still got Michael Sheen! Hey! No, screw you, buddy!"

2. The Director Bails

Worse than failing to sign the leads on the dotted line is having the person who guided the first two movies to success—well, "success" enough to warrant a third movie at least—decide that another round of increasingly flimsy storytelling just isn't worth his time. This usually means the studio has to scramble to find any hack with two months to kill to point a camera and half-ass a movie in time for their pre-set release date. We call this "Pulling a Ratner."

3. The Studio Gets Cocky

It's pretty commonly known that movie studios know as much about movies as the guy at Foot Locker knows about how to manipulate rubber and plastic to create a buoyant sole. So it's a major red flag when they start thinking they know more about what makes a franchise work then, well, the people who actually make a franchise work. They start second-guessing to death ("Listen, Mr. Raimi, if you don't find a way to shoehorn Venom into this flick, we're pulling the plug. You think those toys are going to sell themselves?") and the "movie by committee" results speak for themselves.

4. You've Gone Prequel

Nothing indicates a complete creative brownout than the inability to think up one more logical plot line for the characters you've spent two movies developing. The handy solution? "Hey, let's show them all as kids!" or "Know what's more interesting than the guy with the sword? The guy behind the guy behind the guy who made the sword!" It's like a TV series having a clip show midway through its first season.

5. You Suddenly Think You're Funny

There's a difference between a movie with moments of humor and a comedy. An action movie that occasionally takes a break from the running and the shooting to crack a joke is fine—but it's the death knell for the franchise when the filmmakers start incorrectly thinking that the jokes and not the thrills were what people really came to see. That's why you get Riggs and Murtaugh suddenly becoming Laurel and Hardy. That's why Marcus Brody and Sallah—two characters with dignity in Raiders of the Lost Ark—suddenly become retarded errand boys in Last Crusade. You're. Not. Funny. Make with the blowing of things up.

6. You're DTV - Dead To Virtually everyone

This is the lowest of the low. The third go-round is bad enough to offend the sensibilities of studio execs—that's right, the guys who released Meet the Spartans—so completely that they can't even bring themselves to shovel it into theaters. Welcome to the "employees recommend" rack at Blockbuster—you're assistant manager Devin's "ironic" selection that says, "I hate this job and can't wait to quit, so fuck you, customers."