We know a lot of you don't put much stock in Rotten Tomatoes, but for many moviegoers, that all-important percentage can be crucial in deciding whether it's worth paying to see a new release.
Over the past couple of says, Eternals has been making headlines for becoming the lowest-rated Marvel Studios movie on the review aggregator. No one saw it coming, especially as the general consensus has been that Chloé Zhao would deliver an Oscar-worthy masterpiece. It's unlikely to slip into "Rotten" territory, but with hundreds of reviews yet to be counted, it is certainly a possibility.
In recent years, quite a few superhero movies have earned the dreaded green splat...some of which we definitely didn't expect to be so poorly reviewed. Here, we highlight those movies, breaking down what went wrong and why we initially expected them to at least be somewhere near "Fresh" status.
To take a look through this feature, all you guys need to do is click on the "Next" button below!
6. Fantastic Four (2014) - 9%
Chronicle was a refreshing change of pace for the superhero genre even back in 2012, so when news broke that Josh Trank would take the helm of a Fantastic Four reboot, we were all in.
The first trailer made it clear this would be the complete polar opposite to the cheesy movies of the mid-2000s, and the prospect of following a teenage version of this team with a body horror vibe was undeniably exciting. Unfortunately, the finished product was a disaster, and Trank even took to Twitter days before the movie was released to disown it.
Nothing about this reboot worked, but that can be blamed on studio interference. Simon Kinberg ended up taking the helm of reshoots that watered down the premise, and what could have been the start of an interesting new take on Marvel's First Family proved to be a complete and utter letdown.
5. Green Lantern - 26%
Green Lantern has become a subject of ridicule in recent years, and star Ryan Reynolds frequently makes it the butt of jokes (even in the Deadpool franchise). As a result, it might be hard to believe, but there was a time when fans were literally counting down the days to this movie.
The trailers did feature some questionable visual effects, but the response to the cast and characters was mostly positive. There was some scepticism surrounding Ryan Reynolds' casting, but Warner Bros. did a great job of getting us to want to see this movie. However, once it finally arrived, it instantly became apparent that Martin Campbell's vision wasn't the right fit for this franchise.
We hoped for something special and ended up with a complete and utter disappointment. Little to nothing worked about Green Lantern, and we still haven't gotten over that Parallax redesign.
4. Dark Phoenix - 22%
Look, we're just as happy as you that Marvel Studios has regained the rights to the X-Men. However, while X-Men: Apocalypse may have disappointed, X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past were both very good (if not overly comic accurate), so Dark Phoenix had some potential.
Prior to release, Simon Kinberg talked a lot about wanting to make up for the mistakes made in X-Men: The Last Stand, and those early shots of Sophie Turner's Jean Grey were pretty cool!
A series of delays left us with cause for concern, but little did we know Kinberg would actually deliver arguably the worst X-Men movie yet. This could have been a grand finale, but reshoots removed pretty much any and all cosmic elements, and even Mystique was killed off early on because Jennifer Lawrence was desperate to get the hell out of there. What a way to end this franchise, eh?
3. Justice League - 40%
By the time Justice League rolled around, it had become clear Zack Snyder's vision for the DCEU wasn't for everyone. However, when the filmmaker was forced to step away from the project for personal reasons, news that The Avengers director Joss Whedon would replace him was welcomed.
After all, he'd made two fantastic movies starring Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the MCU, so who better than him to put the finishing touches to this team-up and likely even improve it? That didn't happen. In fact, as we've learned since watching Zack Snyder's Justice League, Whedon - who seemingly lost the plot during those reshoots and ruined his career - just f***ed everything up.
As a result, even those who hate Snyder's work had to admit that Whedon made a worse Justice League movie than he ever could. As for what went wrong, your guess is as good as ours.
2. Suicide Squad - 26%
When a sneaky fan recorded that amazing Suicide Squad trailer at Comic-Con, Warner Bros. had no other choice than to release it online. We were all blown away, and while The Joker's new look was divisive, it felt like Warner Bros. might have something special on their hands here.
Later trailers doubled down on that unique tone, but reports soon surfaced about troubles behind the scenes. Comments from director David Ayer were also a turn off for fans, especially after he decided to proclaim, "F*ck Marvel!" at one screening. He was forced to eat those words, of course, as Suicide Squad may have been a commercial hit, but it certainly wasn't a critical one.
There was lots to like here, but it was such a jumble of a movie, nobody was really surprised when it bombed on Rotten Tomatoes. The "sequel" did much better, but struggled to find the same large audience.
1. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - 29%
It's always funny to look back at movies like this one, because while Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice frequently comes under fire now, there was a time fans were very much looking forward to it.
When Zack Snyder dropped the bombshell announcement that these two would square off in a movie inspired by The Dark Knight Returns, we all went nuts. As more was revealed, though, it was clear that Snyder had a very... unique vision for these characters (including casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, having Batman wield guns, and that awful design for Doomsday).
All that aside, there's really no reason a movie pitting these two icons against each other shouldn't have been a critical hit. Man of Steel was far from a disaster despite a divisive ending, but Batman v Superman just didn't resonate in the way any of us expected back in 2016.