THE MARVELS And 9 More Of The Biggest Superhero Movie Box Office Flops In The Genre's History

THE MARVELS And 9 More Of The Biggest Superhero Movie Box Office Flops In The Genre's History

The Marvels recently crashed and burned at the box office, but it's far from the only superhero movie to underperform in that way. In this feature, we look back at more of the genre's biggest flops...

Feature Opinion
By JoshWilding - Nov 21, 2023 11:11 AM EST
Filed Under: The Marvels

Until fairly recently, the vast majority of superhero movies were considered untouchable at the box office. Unfortunately, a combination of the pandemic, diminishing interest in China, and moviegoers wanting more from the familiar formula has seen that change. 

Down the line, that may go a long way in helping this genre shrug off claims of so-called "superhero fatigue." Right now, though, Hollywood insiders and box office analysts alike are struggling to figure out why The Marvels looks set to go down in history as the MCU's lowest-grossing movie. 2023 as a whole has been a disaster, though, and one need only look at the DCEU's failings for proof of that. 

Presented here - in no particular order - are the most surprising box office disappointments from the Marvel and DC Universes (and beyond). As well as delving into their dire domestic and international cumes, we take a crack at trying to figure out where these movies went wrong.

This might shock you, but not all of them were bad, and we also delve into why at least some of them deserved better. So, to take a look through some of the biggest superhero movie flops, click on the "Next" button below...
 

10. Jonah Hex

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With a stellar cast that included Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, and Megan Fox, it's hard to believe Jonah Hex has a lowly 12% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The 2010 movie being written by Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor was a dead giveaway that their take on the DC Comics hero would disappoint fans, though no one could have predicted how poorly this movie would perform at the box office.

With a paltry $10.5 million in the U.S. and $350,000 overseas (we're assuming it went direct to DVD in most places), Jonah Hex didn't even come close to making back its $47 million budget. The character would later appear in Legends of Tomorrow but hasn't been used in a solo project since.
 

9. Green Lantern

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Despite some concerns about the quality of VFX in the trailers, there was an awful lot of excitement surrounding Green Lantern ahead of its release in 2011. After all, Green Lantern was one of DC's best titles thanks to Geoff Johns!

So, with Casino Royale director Martin Campbell at the helm, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Unfortunately, nearly everything that could, did, and it was an unmitigated disaster.

Boasting a massive $200 million budget (a nearly unprecedented figure at the time), it was always going to be tough for the DC Comics adaptation to turn a profit. However, it crashed and burned with $116.6 million at the domestic box office and a mere $103.25 million internationally. And yes, that's exactly why Green Lantern has been on the shelf ever since.
 

8. Catwoman

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Female-led superhero movies didn't receive much love before the likes of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel came along, and the blame can mainly be attributed to studio bosses having a clear lack of understanding about what makes these characters tick.

Take Catwoman; focusing on Patience Phillips instead of Selina Kyle, it took the cat burglar down a bizarre, supernatural route. A generic action flick (and not a very good one at that), Catwoman's A-List cast resulted in the budget ballooning to upwards of $100 million, and this early 2000s blockbuster didn't do Batman numbers at the box office.

Accumulating just $40.2 million in the U.S. and another $41.9 million internationally, Halle Berry's hopes to follow Storm with a major DC role were quickly dashed. 
 

7. Dredd

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Opening to positive reviews back in 2012, Dredd massively exceeded expectations and was a tense, action-packed low-budget thriller that did the comic books justice.

Karl Urban proved himself the perfect choice to play this character, and the bad taste left in our mouths by the version starring Sylvester Stallone quickly vanished while watching this badass interpretation. Unfortunately, it seems the character simply doesn't appeal to a wide audience as Dredd only managed to earn a, ahem, Dredd-ful $13.4 million in North America.

Overseas numbers weren't much better at $22.2 million, and with a $50 million budget, we're not surprised those sequel talks have never led anywhere. The 2000 A.D. world remains largely unexploited on screen, and this is a big reason why.
 

6. Morbius

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A major embarrassment for Sony after the success of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home., Morbius wasn't a movie anyone seemed to enjoy sinking their teeth into. 

A perplexing mid-credits scene set the stage for the Living Vampire to join the Sinister Six, though we can only hope that nightmare never becomes a reality. Likely ensuring Leto never gets to indulge in "Morbin' Time" ever again is the fact this Marvel movie not only earned the wrath of fans and critics alike but also stood out as one of 2022's biggest flops. 

Earning a bloodless $73.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $93.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $167.5 million, Morbius was "rotten" in every sense of the word. It did, however, only cost $75 million to make...
 

5. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

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2019's Shazam! was a hit with critics and performed well financially. However, after a four-year wait for this follow-up, the magic had been lost and audiences no longer seemed interested in Billy Batson's story. 

After a dismal second weekend which saw it suffer a -68% drop, Shazam! Fury of the Gods made only $12.1 million, for a U.S. total of $56.1 million and, even more disappointingly, $102.4 million worldwide. With a $101 million budget, it's another disaster for Warner Bros.' DCEU, especially in the wake of last October's Black Adam

However, were it not for that movie's bloated $200 million budget, the $393 million it made is vastly more impressive than what this sequel looks set to manage. Why did it flop? There are countless possibilities, but we doubt Shazam will find a place in the new DCU.
 

4. Elektra

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2003's Daredevil wasn't a particularly good movie, but it had its moments, and Jennifer Garner did a fine job as Elektra. Her story was rushed, as was her death, but seeing her taken out by Bullseye was a nice homage to the comic books and a solid way to potentially set up a Daredevil sequel.

That never happened, but Garner was contracted to appear in a spinoff...whether she liked it or not. While Elektra only cost $43 million to produce, it disappointed with $24.4 million at the domestic box office and $32.27 million overseas. 

The movie may have earned a little more than it cost to make, but numbers like that aren't enough to convince a studio to greenlight a sequel, and the Man Without Fear was sidelined until 20th Century Fox let the rights to these characters revert to Marvel in the early 2010s. 
 

3. The Marvels

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Reviews for The Marvels have been largely positive (if not exactly glowing) but heading into the Captain Marvel sequel's opening weekend, it was clear interest in the movie was fairly limited. A poor marketing campaign? An audience unfamiliar with two of the three leads? The fact "Captain Marvel" was missing from the title?

Honestly, it's hard to figure out what went wrong, but we still think the movie deserved better than a dismal $47 million opening weekend. As things stand, it's expected to earn between $210 million and $240 million worldwide when all is said and done, making it the MCU's lowest-grossing movie to date.

There's a lot about this movie that works, but it may have been a misfire to deliver a silly team-up in place of an epic cosmic adventure. Not helping matters in The Marvels' case was the fact its budget ballooned to $275 million, a surprise when it clocked in at just over 90 minutes when all was said and done. 
 

2. The Flash

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We don't like to say a movie deserved to fail, but it was hard not to s[racial slur] when "the greatest superhero movie ever made" ended up, a) being anything but, and b) earning the sort of money which will send it down in history as Warner Bros.' biggest box office flop. 

Grossing $270.6 million worldwide on a budget which is thought to have ballooned way beyond $300 million, not even some last-minute reshoots courtesy of James Gunn's input could save the day. From terrible visual effects to those weird cameos and a problematic leading man, there was little here to love. 

However, Michael Keaton's return as Batman was largely a triumph and Sasha Calle made a lasting impact as Supergirl. Modern audiences just didn't have a big enough connection to Keaton's Caped Crusader, though, hence why not even Batman could help The Flash at the box office. 
 

1. Fantastic Four

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The first two Fantastic Four films were cheesy disappointments, and while fans weren't overly excited by Josh Trank's grounded vision for Marvel's First Family, his work on Chronicle inspired confidence.

Plagued by behind-the-scenes issues, this was one of the worst comic book movies of all time, and Simon Kinberg stepping in to helm reshoots completely decimated the filmmaker's vision. That left us with two separate takes on the Fantastic Four mashed together for a terrible result.

Trank disowned the Fox-produced Marvel Comics adaptation right before it was released, a move analysts believe knocked $10 million off its opening weekend. After costing $120 million to produce, it would later scrape up $56.1 million in the U.S. and middling $111.8 million internationally. 
 

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Matador
Matador - 11/21/2023, 11:19 AM
marvel72
marvel72 - 11/21/2023, 11:19 AM
Dredd is great movie,should have made more.

Matador
Matador - 11/21/2023, 11:21 AM
@FireandBlood - While this is 100% true it still made money for them; this other movies did not make any studio money.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 11:23 AM
@Matador - It lost them more in the long run than any of these movies will cost the studio, including being one of the reasons Flash was doomed to fail in the first place
Matador
Matador - 11/21/2023, 11:28 AM
@FireandBlood - No doubt, Zack Snyder was the wrong choice to spearhead DC Universe.
Matador
Matador - 11/21/2023, 11:20 AM
Dredd was actually pretty good though.

FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 11:21 AM
You can talk all the shit about The Marvels and The Flash, but there will NEVER be a bigger genre failure than Batman v Superman. DC are still reeling from that blunder

Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 11:29 AM
@FireandBlood - nah. That's definitely the marvels. People actually wanted to see bvs.
IronMan616
IronMan616 - 11/21/2023, 11:33 AM
@FireandBlood - Funny you should post that gif, speaking about blunders, another blunder was Deontay Wilder not taking that 3 fight/$100 million dollar deal DAZN offered him to fight Anthony Joshua, which were very winnable fights, instead of taking chump change to get KO'd by Fury. Hindsight is a MFer.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 11:42 AM
@Origame - They wanted to see it, but they never came back to see anything after. Batman v Superman was the catalyst to multiple reboots and a 7 year slate of movies failing. It cost WB more money than any movie has ever cost an any studio because it destroyed a brand.

The Marvels came and went. It’ll never have that effect on Marvel past, future or present. By this time next year, nobody will even remember it. Except you. You’ll still be talking about it.
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 11:45 AM
@FireandBlood - 1) wonder woman was the movie immediately after it, directly tying its story to that of bvs, and was not only loved by audiences but made about the same as bvs. Sure, the series eventually fell apart, but there were still solid film releases in the dceu. And the main problem is they gave a half hearted reboot attempt to justice league with no plan on how that would work, and no plan on where the franchise would go after Snyder.

2) dude, nobody went to that film. And that's with the brand recognition of the mcu. This is showing their brand recognition is gone. They're delaying films left and right, ordering massive reshoots, and completely starting over some of their biggest projects, including both avengers movies. And FYI, people still remember captain marvel.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 11:55 AM
@Origame - And they’re doing none of that because of The Marvels. Everything DC has done till this day started with a reaction to Batman v Superman failing. Literally everything, from reshuffling their slate, movies not even being made, down to multiple reboots, soft and hard (including Wonder Woman), to outright watching years and years worth of movies failing back-to-back. Or are you forgetting the fact that DC hasn’t released a DCEU movie that’s made a dollar profit in 5 years?

I know you’re pretty much as disingenuous as they come, but not even you can sit there and pretend that Marvel’s even close to being in a similar position to DC right now, and especially not because of a movie that came out less than two weeks ago.
GarthRanzz
GarthRanzz - 11/21/2023, 1:00 PM
@FireandBlood - BvS made close 900 Million. It set up Wonder Woman and Aquaman both were massive hits. David Ayer's Suicide Squad also came immediately following and also was a hit. Did the studio overreact? Absolutely and guess what? Most people can look back and say DC should have stayed course. Since Snyder split with the studio, only Aquaman has done good. A film by the way where Wan included Snyder in the process.
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 1:02 PM
@FireandBlood - ...what do you mean they're not doing that? They're deliberately changing the direction of the mcu because of flops like the marvels. Exactly what you claimed dc was doing with bvs. This is just changing the goal post.

And you call me disingenuous 🤣
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 2:14 PM
@Origame - They’re changing the direction of the MCU because their lead star might be going to jail and because of Disney+, not because of The Marvels. Literally every movie leading up to Kang Dynasty is still in production, nothing has changed at all on that front. Honestly, the rubbish you come out with. 😂

The problem is, you’ve spent so much time of your life putting so much importance on a movie Marvel cares less about than you, so now you’re trying to make The Marvels into this cataclysmic event that it’s not, when all the movie was, was glorified filler. It cost them money, but it changed nothing.
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 2:15 PM
@FireandBlood - ...dude, captain america and daredevil both are going through massive shifts in terms of reshoots, with daredevil effectively starting from scratch. And that makes no sense from a production standpoint to just recast Kang if it was just majors they worried about.

You're denial of the situation is astounding. 🤣
Baf
Baf - 11/21/2023, 2:18 PM
@FireandBlood - You are absolutely right. Marvel is not even close to being in a similar position to DC right now. Marvel has nowhere to go but down.
Baf
Baf - 11/21/2023, 2:21 PM
@Origame - I remember when "dark and grounded" was a joke at the expense of DC. Now the Marvel narrative is "We need to be more grounded!"
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 2:53 PM
@Origame - And guess what? Daredevil is 1) A Disney+ show and 2) Was being retooled before The Marvels dropped. There’s no connection. And we all know Captain America is being retooled because of the Israel/Palestine conflict. This is what I mean about you being disingenuous. The Marvels has nothing to do with either of those projects or the reasons behind them being retooled, yet somehow, it’s a bigger failure than a movie that literally lead to the death of an entire brand. Haha, okay then, bud 🥴
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 2:56 PM
@Baf - DC is a joke at the expense of the genre. Half the reason people are sick of these movies is because outside of Marvel for the last decade, all WB/DC has been producing is straight trash, flop after flop.
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 3:22 PM
@FireandBlood - 1) so what if it's a disney+ series? That proves nothing. Marvel has always treated the series the way they've treated the movies. And you do know we had projections and online discourse when it came to the marvels, right? Even if it was on the high end for projections, it was still gonna flop because of the massive budget. Or do you think it's a coincidence the end credits with beast just leaked? Or all those reshoots for the marvels that happened?

2) everything pertaining to Israeli/Palestine would've been caught in filming. And since it's from a minor character who isn't even Palestinian in this version, it's not enough for a massive retooling. It's been confirmed they're doing the reshoots because the movie didn't work. The specific problem was lackluster action sequences, but let's face it. It's more than that.

3) bvs was released in 2016. It is this year, 2023 that the brand is now basically dead. That's 7 years it took. Ignoring the other factors, you're seriously saying a film that took 7 years to kill the brand had more of a negative impact on a movie that has only been out for 2 weekends, despite the one from 7 years ago actually making a profit? Ffs are you desperate 🤣
Baf
Baf - 11/21/2023, 4:15 PM
@FireandBlood - DC films are aleays divisive. They have had lows that Marvel are starting to get a first taste of. DC has also had highs that Marvel hasn't yet reached. The reason people are sick of these mo is because Marvel flooded the market, and DC tried to copy. Superhero fatigue is not a real thing. Bad movie fatigue is real. People say Superhero movies are going the way of the western. Most modern westerns are pretty awesome films. Just fewer, and farther between. Get used to losing and be surprised when it's good. It just makes it all go down easier.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/21/2023, 4:22 PM
@Baf - This is 100% true except when DC copied, they did it so poorly, they flooded the market with shit. They need to focus on the movie making, and forget prioritising all this shared universe rubbish. People loved Joker and The Batman for a reason.
Baf
Baf - 11/22/2023, 7:03 AM
@FireandBlood - All trash except for Best Picture
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 11/22/2023, 7:26 AM
@Baf - And which movie was that? Oh right, the one movie outside of their main canon. The one movie they actually put a lick of effort into, instead trying to “copy” Marvel for once. As I said, that works for them, and that’s what they should stick to. Instead, they’re out of here trying to copy Marvel again.
Baf
Baf - 11/22/2023, 8:15 AM
@FireandBlood - I totally agree.
Copying Marvel was always a bad Idea.
Now it's at the point where even Marvel shouldn't copy Marvel anymore.
Baf
Baf - 11/22/2023, 8:24 AM
@FireandBlood - DC more or less threw shit at the wall just to see what might stick. Marvel, however, is the one that straight up flooded the market. As the waters receded, you could smell the remains. The question is where in the Marvel timeline did things start turning sour? The answer to that is subjective.
NickScryer
NickScryer - 11/21/2023, 11:27 AM
How come The Flash is higher on the list than The Marvels? Surely it had made more than The Marvels will.

Also, Morbius more than doubled it's budget so I don't it qualifies as a flop.
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 11/21/2023, 11:30 AM
@NickScryer

The 300 mil budget has also since been debunked.
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 11:31 AM
@NickScryer - he's biased. Keep in mind after the first weekend of Indiana Jones 5 and after it's long been established the flash was a flop, Josh posted an article titled "the flash is still a flop, and Indiana Jones 5 had a disappointing weekend"
NickScryer
NickScryer - 11/21/2023, 11:35 AM
@Origame -
I remember. Is he someone's cousin? Are they paying him?
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 11:46 AM
@NickScryer - you see, he sold his soul to mephisto. Mephisto wanted his marriage, but Josh laughed and pointed out he's maidenless.
EZBeast
EZBeast - 11/21/2023, 11:31 AM
@JoshWilding WILL THEY BEAT THE PAW PATROL MOVIE!?!? We need an article to let us know!
Origame
Origame - 11/21/2023, 11:32 AM
@EZBeast - just FYI, Josh mightve blocked you.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/21/2023, 11:43 AM
@EZBeast - why do we need an article on Paw Patrol specifically though? Did I miss something
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 11/21/2023, 12:17 PM
@bkmeijer1 - he’s using a very loose version of sarcasm
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