Listen to the haters and you'd probably be convinced that "superhero fatigue" is currently in full effect. While the genre is going through some growing pains, the heroes of the Marvel and DC Universes aren't ready to go the way of Western gunslingers quite yet.
Over the years, there have been a lot of bad superhero movies but the genre has managed to survive them all. Batman and Robin, Fantastic Four, and Black Adam may all instantly spring to mind, though there are heaps of other examples which came much closer to killing our beloved comic book adaptations.
Thankfully, they didn't manage to do so, though they did leave a lasting impact...in the worst way possible. In this feature, we look back at some of those blockbusters, from the box office bombs to the movies which clearly didn't understand their subject matter.
To see which movies we've singled out, you just need to click on the "Next" button below.
8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
We've all spent the past couple of years celebrating Andrew Garfield's return as Spider-Man, largely because the actor desperately needed redemption after 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
A jumbled, overstuffed mess, Avi Arad attempted to expand this corner of the Marvel Universe in the laziest way possible, throwing as many villains - and their tech - into one movie as possible. The budget spiralled out of control and the sequel was deemed a box office disappointment despite a respectable $709 million haul.
Sony bosses scrapped plans for at least three more movies - including Sinister Six - and fired Garfield. What could have marked the end of Spidey's time on screen for an extended post-Batman and Robin-like period was thankfully avoided when Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige took the opportunity to convince the rival studio they should allow him to bring a new Peter Parker into the MCU.
7. Green Lantern (2011)
Many of you will look at the image above and scoff, but back in 2010, a lot of us were very excited about Green Lantern. While Ryan Reynolds was an unexpected choice to play Hal Jordan, it really did appear as if Warner Bros. was bringing this character's world to life on screen in a movie that, visually, could rival Avatar.
The opposite was true, of course, and the movie sucked. Very little about it worked and as one of the most expensive blockbusters ever made at the time, all it could really do was flop.
Had Warner Bros. not found such great success with Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, this might have been it for the DC Universe on screen. The studio was already prioritising Harry Potter and The Hobbit at the time and Green Lantern was arguably bad enough to make them think these DC characters just wouldn't work on screen outside of Batman and Superman. It actually took until 2016 for a DC movie to be released which didn't star either of these heroes.
6. Catwoman (2004)
Essentially a cash-grab cobbled together by Warner Bros., Catwoman may have featured one of the world's biggest movie stars at the time - Halle Berry - but almost nothing about it worked. For starters, there was no sign of Batman, even after this was originally developed as a vehicle for Michelle Pfeiffer.
Cheesy, borderline nonsensical, and just poorly made in almost every conceivable sense, Catwoman is largely blamed for why, even now, there are so few superhero movies with female leads. For many studio execs, this movie's failure was enough to convince them that people simply weren't willing to buy a ticket for a comic book adaptation where a woman is front and centre.
Catwoman also did little to help Berry's career and, while this didn't doom the genre, it also did nothing but damage it in the long run.
5. Daredevil (2003)
While there had been superhero movie hits like Blade and X-Men, it wasn't until Spider-Man that Hollywood finally realised it might be on to something with these costumed do-gooders. That movie broke box office records at the time and was a clear indication that, yes, spandex sells!
Coming out a year later with a darker tone, Daredevil had the potential to be another hit. The cast impressed and the story of a blind lawyer who fights crime is undeniably intriguing, even to those who have never picked up a comic book. Alas, despite a few minor redeeming qualities, it's an absolute dumpster fire of a movie.
The CG-heavy final act looked like a video game even two decades ago and, for 20th Century Fox, the movie was bad enough that they shelved Daredevil completely. Years later, Marvel Studios offered them the chance to keep the Man Without Fear in exchange for Galactus and Silver Surfer and, despite having no tangible plans for those characters, they held Matt Murdock in such low esteem, that the offer was declined.
As for the ill-fated Elektra movie, that was every bit as damaging as Catwoman for the reasons mentioned above.
4. Dark Phoenix (2019)
If you want to talk about franchise-killing movies, Dark Phoenix very much fits the bill. After a better-than-expected reboot with X-Men: First Class, it appears the series was back on the right track with X-Men: Days of Future Past (even if failed to do the comic books justice).
X-Men: Apocalypse attempted to follow the MCU's example and couldn't pull it off. So, what did Fox do? They got the guy who dropped the ball on that movie - and several other Marvel adaptations - to take over and direct Dark Phoenix. After writing X-Men: The Last Stand, "filmmaker" Simon Kinberg ruined the Dark Phoenix Saga for a second time on screen, delivering a movie that would have ended this series for good had the Disney/Fox merger not happened.
The New Mutants wasn't good but is a mere footnote compared to the sheer crappiness of this effort. It felt like X-Men on a budget with a director who has zero vision, and that's exactly what it was. It was, in fact, so bad, that Marvel Studios will have waited nearly a decade before finally rebooting the characters.
3. Superman Returns (2006)
Bryan Singer left the X-Men franchise to make Superman Returns, a spiritual sequel to Richard Donner's classic movies (while conveniently glossing over the less-than-stellar sequels). The problem was, those were a product of their time and that tone and approach to the Man of Tomorrow didn't work decades later.
In a movie light on action and heavy on human drama, Singer and Warner Bros. mistakenly believed comic book fans wanted to see Superman being a crappy dad and pining for Lois Lane rather than taking advantage of 2006's VFX to show the hero actually punching someone!
It was too tame and, for some, cemented the opinion that Superman was outdated and didn't work on screen. The studio went in the opposite direction with the action-heavy Man of Steel, of course, but outside of small screen interpretations, it feels like we still haven't seen a definitive take on Kal-El in theaters. With any luck, James Gunn can change that with Superman: Legacy...
2. Morbius (2022)
We've already mentioned Avi Arad once here, and the fact he's still producing comic book movies...well, it's a crime. He no longer has access to the live-action Spider-Man - something we know he's unhappy about - and is instead intent on building a slate of projects revolving around the wall-crawler's villains.
Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius...each of those movies has had at least a few good points, but for the most part, they're lousy. That's definitely the case with the latter, a blockbuster which felt like it had travelled in time from the mid-2000s. An absolute embarrassment, by rights, this should have actually killed Sony's future Marvel plans.
Instead, we have the likes of Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web to "look forward" to. As for Morbius, for proof Avi is no Kevin Feige, look no further than the movie's abysmal post-credits scene setting up the not-so-Sinister Six.
1. The Flash (2023)
The most recent movie here is also one of the worst. Yes, we appreciate not all of you will agree with that sentiment, but c'mon, it didn't exactly live up to its promise or the ridiculous level of hype created by studio execs in advance of its release this past June.
Problematic leading man aside, The Flash featured visual effects worse than many of the movies featured here which were released in the mid-2000s. A tacked-on ending landed with a thud, as did fan service that boiled down to ghoulish cameos of dead actors brought to life with more of the aforementioned abysmal CGI. It was also the latest in a long line of DCEU flops for Warner Bros.
Honestly, had the studio not got new leadership, the performance of this (one of the biggest box office flops ever released), Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Blue Beetle would have been enough for any reasonable studio exec to pull the plug on making movies based on this damaged brand.
Years of mismanagement very nearly killed the DCEU; now, it's up to DC Studios to fix it.