10 Film Characters Who Deserved Their Own Spin-Off

These are the scene-stealers who deserved top billing

Image created by Dee in Canva

Some characters spend an entire film battling evil, overcoming trauma and saving the world.

Others stroll in for six minutes, say something deranged, wear an excellent coat and become the only person we care about.

There have been many characters in films I’ve seen whose personalities or shenanigans have had me wishing they had more screentime. Sometimes these side characters are so good that I audibly groan when they’re shoved aside so the main character can have yet another moment.

In my eyes, some supporting characters deserved their own films, and not a three-minute web reel, or a prequel series dumped onto a streaming service such as Tubi.

Here is my list of those icons who should have been given a proper film, with a cinema release, a marketing budget and at least one unnecessarily dramatic poster.

1. Emily Charlton from The Devil Wears Prada — Played by Emily Blunt

Emily is starving, furious and one mildly inconvenient scarf away from committing a workplace felony.

While Andy is learning important lessons about ambition and integrity, Emily is surviving fashion’s answer to The Hunger Games on cubes of cheese and concentrated resentment.

Her spin-off should follow her through Paris Fashion Week as she attempts to manage six impossible designers, three international scandals and one junior assistant who keeps calling Hermès “Her-mees.”

Thankfully, Em got the extra screen time she deserved in The Devil Wears Prada 2, and I think it’s safe to say that she carried the entire film.

2. Megan Price from Bridesmaids — Played by Melissa McCarthy

Now, I’m not a huge Melissa McCarthy fan. I’ve never particularly enjoyed comedians who seem to think every joke needs to be delivered at maximum volume to get a laugh.

However, her character Megan stole every scene in Bridesmaids while radiating the confidence of a woman who has never once wondered whether people like her.

Gif by Giphy

Megan deserved a spin-off.

She has government connections, an unexplained history involving cruise ships and enough chaotic life experience to fill a cinematic universe.

Her spin-off could be a spy comedy, an action film or simply two hours of Megan travelling through Europe and becoming accidentally engaged to a de-throned royal.

Honestly, the plot is irrelevant.

Give her a van, a secret mission and access to classified information.

3. Dionne Davenport from Clueless — Played by Stacey Dash

The film Clueless defined my teenage years. I was sixteen years old when this film was released, and had it not been for this film, I might never have been brave enough to wear plaid in public.

Alicia Silverstone’s character of Cher may be the main character, but her best buddy Dionne had the wardrobe, the confidence and a relationship dramatic enough to shut down an entire Los Angeles freeway.

Dionne’s presence alone made her worthy of a spin-off.

A Dionne spin-off should follow her moving to New York for fashion school, where she immediately takes control of the social hierarchy, redesigns her dorm room and declares war on people who wear fleece voluntarily.

Her boyfriend, Murray, would arrive halfway through with fourteen suitcases and an opinion nobody requested.

It would be glorious!

4. Oda Mae Brown from Ghost — Played by Whoopi Goldberg

I realise Oda Mae had a starring role in Ghost, but I wanted more.

She starts in the film as a fake psychic, and by the end discovers that the dead are actually real, extremely needy and incapable of respecting business hours.

I want to know what Oda Mae did after Ghost ended. Because I’m willing to bet it would be way more entertaining than watching a ghost and his alive lover squish pottery mud together.

Her spin-off could follow her attempting to run a legitimate psychic service while being harassed by ghosts with unfinished business. Every case would begin with a mysterious murder and end with Oda Mae demanding additional payment because nobody mentioned demonic possession on the phone.

She solved Sam’s murder, survived multiple criminals and still had to give away the money. Let the woman keep her fee next time.

5. Rizzo from Grease — Played by Stockard Channing

Rizzo was always the stand-out star of Grease, and I shan’t hear any objections about this.

Rizzo was sharper, funnier and considerably more emotionally complicated than everyone bouncing around her in matching jackets.

Gif by Giphy

She was far more interesting than Sandy, who probably plummeted to her death alongside Danny when their completely road-unworthy car took off into the sky.

We already know Frenchy dropped out of beauty school, only to resurface in Grease 2 as the Pink Ladies’ resident elder and dispenser of unsolicited wisdom. Meanwhile, Marty would still be in court fighting to get Vince Fontaine charged with statutory rape, and Jan would still be wandering around looking for snacks.

But Rizzo, she deserved a film about what happened after graduation, when the songs stopped, and somebody had to develop an actual personality beyond “owns a car.” Rizzo could move to Chicago, become a nightclub singer and systematically destroy every man foolish enough to underestimate her.

No magical makeover required. She already knew who she was.

6. Aunt Voula from My Big Fat Greek Wedding — Played by Andrea Martin

Aunt Voula can turn any conversation into an alarming medical anecdote before you have finished chewing your appetiser.

Gif by Giphy

I don’t know about you, but I need way more information about that lump! A spin-off would answer so many questions.

Her spin-off should follow her taking charge of a family wedding in Greece after the venue collapses, the priest disappears, and somebody discovers that the groom’s grandmother has been feuding with Voula since 1978.

By sunset, Voula would have repaired the church, exposed three family secrets and treated a suspicious rash with Windex.

7. Leslie Chow from The Hangover — Played by Ken Jeong

Leslie Chow enters The Hangover by leaping naked from the boot of a car and attacking everyone with a crowbar, which is an exceptionally efficient way to establish that a character cannot be trusted around money, vehicles or basic social situations.

Roll out the red carpet for Leslie, because he could easily carry an entire spin-off franchise!

His spin-off should follow him pulling off an international casino heist with a crew assembled entirely from people who owe him favours or are too frightened to refuse. Naturally, Chow would betray every member of the team, lose the money, steal it back and spend half the film hiding inside luggage.

And in a second spin-off, we could watch him accidentally becoming the leader of an international crime syndicate after stealing the wrong suitcase at an airport. By the end, Chow would have started a gang war, faked his own funeral, escaped three assassination attempts and somehow ended up owning the airport.

It would be loud, ridiculous and almost certainly illegal in several countries. In other words, a perfectly respectable Leslie Chow adventure.

8. The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad from Kill Bill- Played by David Carradine, Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah (IMDb cast listing)

Before Beatrix Kiddo started crossing names off her revenge list, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad travelled the world killing people under snake-themed code names and the management of a man whose leadership style appeared to be part crime lord, part toxic boyfriend.

How and why were we audiences not privy to such a back-story?

How did Bill recruit them? What were their missions like before the group imploded? Did they have staff meetings? Was there an assassin performance-review process? Did Budd arrive late wearing that hat and insist it counted as tactical equipment?

Their spin-off should be a filthy, stylish prequel following one disastrous mission that sends Black Mamba, Cottonmouth, Copperhead, Sidewinder and California Mountain Snake into increasingly violent conflict with each other. The swords would come out long before anyone reached the actual target.

We know how the squad ended. Now show us the blood-soaked workplace dysfunction that made the collapse inevitable.

9 . Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom from Con Air- Played by John Malkovich

Cyrus Grissom is a criminal mastermind so terrifying that even a plane packed with murderers, psychopaths and one man named Johnny 23 agrees he should be in charge.

He plans an airborne prison escape, manipulates everyone around him and delivers threats with the calm irritation of a headmaster disappointed by the school’s exam results. Even when the plan disintegrates into flaming debris over Las Vegas, Cyrus remains convinced the real problem is everybody else’s incompetence.

This man deserves far more respect, and a spin-off of his own!

His spin-off should show how he became “The Virus”: the early crimes, the prison power grabs and the moment he discovered that speaking very slowly makes everything sound more sinister. It could follow Cyrus orchestrating an impossible escape without leaving solitary confinement, using nothing but library books, coded messages and several criminals too stupid to realise they are expendable.

Call it Patient Zero. Give John Malkovich two hours to make silence feel like a death threat.

10. Lieutenant Dan Taylor from Forrest Gump — Played by Gary Sinise

I love the film Forrest Gump. I love every character apart from Jenny.

However, it’s Lieutenant Dan who has my heart in his wheelchair gears.

He begins Forrest Gump as a soldier convinced he is destined to die heroically in battle. Instead, Forrest saves his life, leaving Dan to return home without his legs and with enough rage to frighten God during a thunderstorm.

This badass on wheels’ spin-off should fill in the years between that stormy night on the shrimp boat and his return as Forrest’s magnificently moustached business partner. How did he rebuild his life? When did he make peace with surviving? And at what point did he look at Forrest’s increasingly enormous pile of shrimp money and decide to invest it in a little fruit company?

It could be funny, furious and properly moving without turning Dan’s recovery into an inspirational montage. He was always far more complicated than the film had time to explore.

Call it Lieutenant Dan. No gimmicks required.

The Supporting Cast Has Entered the Chat

What does this list tell us? Apparently, we want fewer flawless heroes and more unhinged criminals, furious assistants, traumatised veterans, chaotic relatives and assassins with unresolved grievances.

These characters did not need to dominate the original film to make an impression. Leslie Chow brought the mayhem, Cyrus Grissom brought the menace, Lieutenant Dan brought the emotional weight, and the Kill Bill characters left enough revenge, history and unfinished business behind to fuel several more blood-soaked films.

The leads may have carried the plot, but these were the people we kept thinking about after the credits rolled.

Give them the budget, move them to the centre of the poster and let the chaos begin.

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