Long before the term "franchise" was thrown around, Dean Martin had one of his own- the Matt Helm films. Matt Helm was a swinging James Bond type who drank, indulged in relations with sexy women and maybe stopped crime and espionage along the way.
Nobody mistook these films as Oscar caliber productions; as a matter of fact, the first two films- The Silencers and Murderer's Row came out in the same year- 1966.
Additionally, it was no secret that Dean Martin was mostly playing himself. The Matt Helm films were paycheck films that allowed him to travel to exotic locales on the studio's dime, all the while boozing it up and ogling some broads. Dean Martin treated these films as a party and the studio didn't mind because they were raking it in. While not huge successes at the box office, they were highly profitable.
Audiences loved seeing Deano be Deano and he was more than happy to oblige. He could have continued making these films for years to come.
So why did Dean Martin walk away from this lucrative franchise? It was all due to the last film in the series, The Wrecking Crew, which co-starred the lovely and beautiful Sharon Tate. Dean Martin loved working with her and made it clear that he wanted her to return in any future Matt Helm films. Sadly, they never got another chance after Ms. Tate was brutally murdered. Dean Martin was heartbroken and decreed that he would never make another Matt Helm film. The studio attempted to reboot the franchise as a television show in the mid-1970's, but it failed to catch on.
