The saying "money talks" is relevant in many walks of life, but perhaps nowhere more so than in Hollywood. Reviews are important, but we've seen plenty of Rotten movies earn untold millions while far too many Fresh titles crash and burn.
Ultimately, if a new release is going to spawn sequels and spinoffs, it needs to make money, and that's also the case for comic book adaptations. In recent weeks, both Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of the Gods flopped critically and commercially, and that got us thinking about other huge superhero movies which have bombed.
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 they deserved better. So, to take a look through some of the biggest superhero movie flops, click on the "Next" button below...
10. Green Lantern
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.
9. Jonah Hex
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.
8. Catwoman
Female-led superhero movies really 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
Opening to positive reviews back in 2012, Dredd massively exceeded expectations and was a tense, action-packed low budget thriller that definitely 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 isn't one that appeals 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
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
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
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. Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania
While they may not have reinvented the wheel, the first two Ant-Man movies were still good fun. With this third instalment promoted as more than just a palette cleanser, we had high hopes, especially as it promised to introduce Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror.
Alas, the threequel serves as proof that a movie should not be made almost entirely within the confines of The Volume, with the CG Quantum Realm proving a turn-off for fans and critics alike. That was reflected in a huge second-weekend drop and, as things stand, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is unlikely to turn a profit.
With a current haul of $470 million, it will fall short of both Ant-Man ($519 million) and Ant-Man and The Wasp ($622 million), a disaster considering it needs at least $600 million to break even. It's time to move on from Peyton Reed.
2. Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman 1984 is something of an enigma, especially as it didn't receive a traditional theatrical release back in December 2020.
With the pandemic still raging, Warner Bros. decided to have the sequel debut in theaters at the same time as HBO Max, and with the option to watch from the safety of home when the big screen experience wasn't remotely appealing, most people chose the former. As a result, the movie grossed just $46.5 million in the U.S. and $120 million overseas.
With a $200 million budget, Warner Bros. was estimated to have lost upwards of $100 million on the sequel (we hope it was worth those extra HBO Max subscribers). It almost feels unfair to include this movie here as many pandemic-era superhero movies underwhelmed, but this was arguably the most noteworthy example.
1. Fantastic Four
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 definitely 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 end 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.