Further proof that a successful video game franchise does not equate to success in any other media.
As terrible as Advent Children was, at least by then SquareEnix had realised that you might as well give people what they want. Back in 2001, when Square were still single, they were treating spin-offs like they were new FF games – i.e. gave them entirely new worlds and stories each time. Which is admirable, but when they still ended up with guff like this and Spirit Within, you can’t help but think if you were making crap, you’d be better off making crap with a built in worldwide audience. Had they done a FFVII tv show or film then, they’d have probably made a killing. Not to say it wasn’t a modest success commercially, it’s FF after all, but there was a lot more potential there in the existing game worlds.