Out-protegeing the protege

"According to Deadline's Mike Fleming, a soft opening for Knight probably won't mean the cancellation of M:I:4, though it might inspire the studio to "beef up the subplot that introduces a new and younger agent who becomes Ethan Hunt's protege." — Vulture

Has the whole "young protege" plot spruce-up ever worked, to anyone's knowledge? Someone believes so. They've been at using it from Son of Frankenstein through to Die Hard 4. La Beouf has already been its beneficiary twice, once as Harrison Ford's protege in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and then as Michael Douglas's protege in Wall Street 2. Cruise, of course, himself did it in The Color of Money, which just goes to show that what goes around comes around — the once protege been out-proteged. Scorsese's film aside, has it ever really worked, though? Which is to say: has this cunning move ever managed to convince the nation's notoriously fickle yoof that they are not being palmed off with some creaky old geezer's franchise? How many of those little pups went on to have their own movies? The whole thing glistens with the flop-sweat of middle-aged movie executives. From what I can remember of youth, the one thing I can remember not being too charmed by was the sweat of old people.