While many superhero movies continue to find great success at the box office, the genre is one that's never been immune to the odd massive financial flop.
Sometimes, it's because certain characters don't resonate with moviegoers. On other occasions, a comic book adaptation is so bad, people simply don't want to spend their hard-earned money on them, despite the popularity of franchises like The Avengers and Spider-Man.
In recent weeks, much has been said about the struggles the DCEU faces this year. Warner Bros. has delivered three superhero movie flops in a row, with The Flash one of the latest examples. However, if you thought things have gone badly for that movie...well, it may pale in comparison to some of those you'll find here!
So, in no particular order, we present to you 8 of the biggest superhero movie box office flops.
8. Shazam! Fury of the Gods
2019's Shazam! remains one of the DCEU's best-reviewed movies, but excitement for the sequel, this year's Fury of the Gods, was muted at best.
Too much time had passed since the first instalment was released, and the charm of seeing these kids transform into superheroes was lost when Billy Batson actor Asher Angel looked like a better fit for the title hero than lead star Zachary Levi. Reviews were mostly negative and releasing this movie after Black Adam bombed and DC Studios announced a line-wide reboot ultimately doomed the sequel.
With a reported budget of $125 million, Shazam! Fury of the Gods made a mere $133 million worldwide. This was a dismal result even after a forgettable marketing campaign which would have still cost Warner Bros. tens of millions of dollars on top of that production budget.
7. Fantastic Four
While the promise of a Fantastic Four movie which leaned heavily into the body-horror element of the team's powers, fans were unhappy about this reboot from the start. A grounded take on Marvel's First Family wasn't what they wanted, and both the costumes and Doctor Doom design were an immediate turn-off.
Filmmaker Josh Trank had a lot of goodwill among comic book movie fans after helming Chronicle, but producer Simon Kinberg stepped in and essentially reshot half of the movie. As a result, the director disowned Fantastic Four, right before it arrived in theaters, wiping millions off its projected opening weekend.
It was a crazy moment in time for this franchise, but when all was said and done, Fantastic Four made just $167.9 million worldwide. We haven't seen the team since and won't until they return in Marvel Studios' 2025 reboot.
6. Dark Phoenix
Sticking with Fox's Marvel Universe, when news broke that Kinberg would helm Dark Phoenix to redo the story he'd previously f***ed up in X-Men: The Last Stand...well, you can probably remember how poorly that went down.
Multiple delays later, and the movie - originally meant to be a two-parter - was released at a time when fans knew the X-Men franchise was going to be rebooted by Marvel Studios. Interest became minimal and talk of issues behind the scenes (ironically, Kinberg also had to reshoot his movie's entire final act) did little to help matters when Dark Phoenix's opening weekend rolled around.
Grossing only $252.4 million after racking up a budget of $200 million or more saw this franchise end on a bum note. There was still one more flop to come, of course, but we'll get to that a little later.
5. Green Lantern
It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time Green Lantern was among the most anticipated superhero movies ever. A number of leaks - many of which originated on this very site - showcased the members of the Green Lanterns Corps and the response to those designs was positive.
All signs pointed to the movie being superheroes meets Star Wars, and while not everyone was on board with Ryan Reynolds playing the title character, most fans were happy to give him a chance. Then, the trailers came along. With poor VFX and an overly goofy tone, the online narrative took a sudden shift and it started looking like Green Lantern might not be the epic adventure we'd all expected.
Costing Warner Bros. a whopping $200 million (a rarity at the time), a global haul of $220 million guaranteed this movie's status as a flop and was the first of many blows the DC Universe would deal to Warner Bros.
4. Justice League
Despite Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice's record-breaking opening weekend, the movie suffered a massive second-weekend drop and, due to what Warner Bros. had spent, was deemed a financial disappointment. As a result, the studio made sweeping changes to Suicide Squad and Justice League.
In the latter's case, The Avengers director Joss Whedon was enlisted to "save" the movie by writing and directing a series of reshoots. As we now know from watching the "Snyder Cut," he somehow made it considerably worse and, based on what we've heard, acted in a way that's killed his career. Why that happened remains a mystery, but not helping matters were greedy studio execs determined to not delay Justice League so they'd receive their bonuses.
So much money had been spent on Justice League by the time it was released, it needed to make $750 million to even break even. Instead, it grossed $657 million, a great result in normal circumstances, but an utter disaster for this one after the budget spiralled out of control.
3. The New Mutants
After Dark Phoenix, any interest fans might have once had in The New Mutants rapidly vanished. After yet another series of clashes between a Marvel movie's director (Josh Boone in this instance) and 20th Century Fox, release date delays followed. Then, the pandemic came along.
The sheer number of times The New Mutants was pushed back transformed it into a meme, and with a Marvel Studios reboot beckoning, fans oddly embraced talk of the movie either being scrapped or sent straight to Disney+. Eventually, it dropped during the pandemic, albeit without the reshoots that had been meant to get this spin-off where it needed to be (a number of cameos, including Mister Sinister, were scrapped).
While the odds were stacked against The New Mutants thanks to COVID, a $49 million haul on an $80 million budget was truly the final nail in the coffin for this iteration of the X-Men franchise.
2. Supergirl
By the time Supergirl came along in 1984, the Superman franchise was running on fumes. The Christopher Reeve-led franchise had fallen from grace, but the studio clearly hoped this spin-off would go some way in restoring interest in the DC Universe (that wouldn't happen until Tim Burton's Batman came along 5 years later).
Helen Slater may look like she's stepped straight out of the comic books, but this movie wasn't good and felt like a soulless cash grab. Of course, we can't ignore the fact Supergirl was released at a time when female-led action movies weren't the norm, so the odds were always going to be stacked against it. When all was said and done, though, it made a mere $14 million despite costing $35 million to produce.
While Supergirl has since returned on television, her big screen adventures ended here. However, a CG Slater was shown in The Flash's divisive Speed Force scenes, marking the second time the character has appeared in a box office flop.
1. Morbius
Sony Pictures has found great success collaborating with Marvel Studios on its Spider-Man franchise, but still wants to expand the wall-crawler's world...without him. No doubt spurred on by Venom's success, the studio had high hopes for Morbius, especially with Jared Leto signed up to star.
What Sony failed to understand is that while the Lethal Protector can stand on his own two feet, fans don't care about Spidey's B-List baddies when he's not there to beat them up. In Morbius' case, it always looked like B-movie trash, and that became evident when the reviews started rolling out (it's also never good when a post-credits scene meant to tease something hugely exciting becomes a subject of ridicule).
After a record-breaking second-weekend drop of 74%, Morbius made only $167 million worldwide, a shocking result after Spider-Man: No Way Home had grossed just shy of $2 billion months earlier. Even a re-release meant to cash in on the memes failed and we don't anticipate seeing this Living Vampire again.