Rejoice: No More 'Pink Panther' Movies!

I am heartened by director Shawn Levy's white flag of surrender, not so much for me, but for the children. Levy says there will be no more Steve Martin Pink Panther movies, and it's really, really hard to contain my excitement. Really. The irony in all of this is if the first movie had been as good as the second - which is a relative statement - then I wouldn't have minded it as much. It's still one comedian graverobbing a better, more influential comedian and stealing his signature character, but the second flick, in theaters earlier this year, was just dumb. The first one was dumb and offensive. Here's where it gets curious: The first movie made a ton more money, even though it's a plague on quality. “I think we’ve likely seen the end of this iteration of the Pink Panther films,” Levy told MTV. “Obviously, the sequel did not strike the chord that the first movie did.” The sequel made about $35 million, which is not enough to be considered successful, given that the first one made around $80 million. We did our part (read our open letter to Steve Martin pleading with him to make good movies again), and apparently, so did the audience.