The Worst Superhero Movies Ever Made

The leather costume that Pamela Anderson squeezed into for the 1996 adaptation of Dark Horse Comics' Barb Wire was deemed "unnecessarily revealing" by The Telegraph, though for fans of the buxom blonde pin-up, this was the only highlight. The plot revolves around bartender and bounty hunter Barb (Anderson) attempting to escape the devastation of the so-called Second American Civil War of 2017. The leading lady's acting was heavily criticized in reviews, with her inability to deliver believable lines and lack of comedic timing proving a major sticking point for critics. According to the Baywatch star, what should have been a campy classic was ruined by the interference of the movie's backers, Polygram.

"It wasn't supposed to turn out like it did," she told Interview. "When I saw the comic book the movie's based on, I thought, 'Oh my God, she's on a motorcycle in leather, crazy, with big hair, glamorous. This is hysterical. It's totally me.'" Anderson signed on for what she thought was going to be "a dark comedy, real cartoony," but execs changed direction just before production kicked off. "More action, less humor, a different director," Anderson said. "They changed the script six million times."

Interest in one of Marvel's stranger characters, Howard the Duck, spiked after the anthropomorphic bird popped up in a Guardians of the Galaxy post-credit scene, but those who decided to check out his standalone '80s outing after seeing this were more than likely highly disappointed. Howard the Duck was produced by George Lucas and starred Lea Thompson, who was still riding the Back to the Future wave at the time. Thompson had high hopes for the project, but over the course of the frustrating shoot, she realized it wasn't going to live up to the hype.

"They got all obsessed about having you see the words coming out of the lips of the duck," Thompson told Yahoo!. "Like anyone was going to believe it was real!" After Robin Williams declined, the job of voicing Howard fell to theater actor Chip Zien, who knew something was wrong when Universal neglected to throw a premiere party. "The day the movie opened was the first time I had seen it," Zien revealed. "I paid for my ticket. I went in and was horrified because it was relatively empty. There was no line. By the end of the movie, I was all alone with my friend Roy in the theater. It was just the two of us sitting there."

Marvel's Black Panther was quite rightly lauded for bringing together a cast that was 90 percent African or African-American, but King T'Challa wasn't the first black superhero to make it to the big screen. People often overlook the fact that Shaquille O'Neal beat Chadwick Boseman to the punch when he starred in the 1997 adaptation of DC's Steel, though nobody can really be blamed for forgetting about this downright awful movie. Twenty years after its abysmal release (it pulled in $1.7 million against a budget of $16 million), Steel director Kenneth Johnson apologized for his creation, admitting that he probably should have walked away once he found out who his star was going to be.

"I said, 'Guys, if you're gonna put Shaq in the lead, then you've got to at least have a major movie star next to them," he told Vice. "Yes, he was a big persona and a great role model for kids and all that, but he's no movie star. But these people just wouldn't budge a dime to place an actual movie star in the role." Johnson went on to reveal that Warner Bros. co-president Bill Gerber (who was fired the following year) opted for O'Neal over the likes of Wesley Snipes and Denzel Washington because he knew Shaq would "sell more toys."

When you sit down to watch a DVD commentary and the first thing the director says is "you can blame it all on me," it doesn't bode well. That's exactly how Mark Dippè introduces himself in the Spawn commentary. A former Industrial Lights and Magic employee, Dippè was known as a visual effects wizard at the time, but he'd never directed a movie before — and it showed. Badly. "Spawn is a staggeringly poor film," Den of Geek said when they revisited the botched adaptation in 2015. "[It's] an effects movie, but a good number of the effects aren't good. Some are flat out awful."

As a former ILM staffer, the one thing that Dippè ought to have been able to get right was the visual effects, though as far as he was concerned, the CGI wasn't the problem. Speaking to Wired in 1997, the outspoken filmmaker lashed out at censors for forcing him to change parts of the movie he felt were perfectly suitable for PG-13 audiences. "The MPAA is driving a stake through my heart with this, because they're making me take this movie down so much," he said. "They're a bunch of buttheads. They should stand up for something like this because deep down, Spawn is a very positive story."

Long before he donned the Dark Knight's cape and cowl in the DC Extended Universe, Ben Affleck made his ill-fated foray into the superhero genre with 2003's Daredevil. The blind vigilante is a favorite among Marvel fans, who by and large hated Affleck's take. The critics weren't convinced, either, with the majority of them finding the film lacking compared to Tobey Maguire's debut outing as Spider-Man the previous year. Interestingly, the backlash Daredevil received made Affleck say yes when the opportunity to play Batman came along.

"Part of it was I wanted for once to get one of these movies and do it right, to do a good version. I hate Daredevil so much," he revealed on TimeTalks (via NME). The character was resurrected by Charlie Cox in 2015 when Netflix started building their Marvel TV universe, which Affleck is evidently a fan of. "The Netflix show does really cool stuff," he continued. "I feel like that was there for us to do with that character, and we never kind of got it right."

This wasn't the first time that Affleck bashed his own film in public. When he sat down for an interview with Playboy magazine in 2013, he revealed that Daredevil was the only movie that he regrets making. "I love that story, that character, and the fact that it got f***** up the way it did stays with me," he said (via SlashFilm).

If you watch Halle Berry's notoriously terrible Catwoman movie and Christopher Nolan's game-changer Batman Begins back to back, it's hard to believe there was just a year between them. This very loose DC adaptation was nominated in seven categories at the Razzies and triumphed in four, including Worst Actress for Berry, who actually showed up in person to collect the award. With the Oscar she'd won two years previous in hand, she started off by thanking the studio behind this critical and commercial disaster. "First of all I want to thank Warner Brothers," the actress said through fake sobs. "Thank you for casting me in a piece of s***, godawful movie."

In 2018, Berry addressed Catwoman while accepting the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communication (via Glamour). Berry once again acknowledged how bad the picture was, but she defended her decision to accept the role, revealing that the "s***-load of money" she made changed her life. "While it failed to most people, it wasn't a failure for me because I met so many interesting people that I wouldn't have met otherwise, I learned two forms of martial arts, and I learned not what to do."

Dubbed an "ideological intervention from the Disney machine" by Time Out, 1981's Condorman is a camp cocktail of Cold War spy thriller, comedy and superhero movie, all watered down for family consumption. This misfire from the Mouse House stars Michael Crawford as Woody Wilkins, a comic book creator who insists on doing everything he writes in real life, just to prove it can be done. After accidentally getting involved with a seductive Soviet spy, Wilkins has to become the hero he created, flying and all. Stunt doubles were used for certain shots, but Crawford himself was in the ghastly Condorman suit for the most part, and he almost died in it.

"I was dragged along the river Seine by the boat ahead of me, and it nearly drowned me," he told SMH. "Being dragged underwater with thirty foot wings on, you could do nothing, because the wings were taking me down. I was really like a yellow legged submarine going to the bottom of the Seine, rapidly... I was so upset when I came up, because they didn't stop!" Crawford told Broadway World that the set got a little rowdy at times, thanks in no small part to co-star Oliver Reed. "He got in terrible fights with people," Crawford said. "He was a character and three quarters."

"Ghost Rider," starring Nicolas Cage, was no favorite of the critics, but its box office performance resulted in a 2012 sequel. Cage returned as motorcycle stuntman turned vengeful superhero Johnny Blaze in "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance." However, the sequel was an even bigger disappointment. After a screening in late 2011, reports suggested that it made the first "Ghost Rider" look better by comparison. 

Critics echoed these sentiments once the film went into wide release. Although Nicolas Cage is no stranger to bad reviews, Variety declared that the actor "is gifted a sublimely extended freakout moment that should slot in perfectly after 'Wicker Man' outtakes in one of the star's hall-of-shame highlight reels on YouTube." Box office performance was also disappointing compared to the first film, totaling approximately $51.8 million of its $57 million budget in its U.S. run. 

Not even Nicolas Cage was interested in continuing as the character. Soon after "Spirit of Vengeance" was released, Cage reiterated that despite being proud of his work on the film, he was putting Johnny Blaze behind him. The actor also believes the major flaw of "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was its PG-13 rating, stating the character would be much better suited in an R-rated film. 

After directing "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2," Sam Raimi is often considered the architect of modern superhero films. However, he had a rough exit from the Tobey Maguire-led superhero franchise with 2007's "Spider-Man 3," which, despite its box office success, divided critics. Many reviewers panned the movie's numerous villains, including Venom (played by Topher Grace), whose addition to the film was a suggestion from producer Avi Arad despite Raimi's reluctance to include the character.

The film was also a major tonal shift from the previous "Spider-Man" films. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker commented, "The problem with this third installment of the franchise ... [is] not that it's running out of ideas, or lifting them too slavishly from the original comic, but that it lunges at them with an infantile lack of grace, throwing money at one special effect after another and praying — or calculating — that some of them will fly."

While some fans now consider "Spider-Man 3" a cult classic, Raimi isn't necessarily proud of the finished product. The director admitted years later that he was the wrong choice to direct the film, considering that he didn't strongly believe in the characters or their motivations. However, he made a highly-anticipated return to superhero films with 2022's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."  

One of Marvel's earliest on-screen successes came in 1998 with the R-rated "Blade," starring Wesley Snipes as the titular vampire hunter. The film was a huge commercial success, prompting Marvel to follow it up with two sequels in 2002 and 2004. Although the sequel, "Blade II," garnered praise for Guillermo Del Toro's direction, the same cannot be said of the 2004 film "Blade: Trinity," helmed by the screenwriter of the first two films, David S. Goyer.

Although it performed well at the box office, "Blade: Trinity" did not garner the same critical acclaim or cult appreciation that the first two films had. The film's production also experienced many controversies, particularly related to the behavior of Snipes, who was unhappy with the script and refused to shoot scenes that weren't his close-ups. As Goyer told The Hollywood Reporter, "I don't think anybody involved with that film is happy with the results. It was a very tortured production."

Sadly, the poor reception and controversy surrounding "Blade: Trinity" put an end to the Snipes-led franchise, though the trilogy is now seen as a benchmark for early superhero movies. Marvel Studios plans to reboot the franchise with Mahershala Ali as Eric Brooks, though that film has also seen production difficulties. Hopefully, it won't turn out as poorly as "Blade: Trinity." 

Jonah Hex is a relatively obscure character in the DC Comics universe, making his print debut in 1972. Hex is a former Confederate soldier turned bounty hunter who becomes a protector of the innocent, though he's been pitted against the Justice League on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, the character got a chance at mainstream fame with the 2010 film "Jonah Hex," directed by Jimmy Hayward, whose prior work included animated Pixar films. 

Despite the film's all-star cast, which includes Josh Brolin as the titular character and Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, and Will Arnett in supporting roles, the film was a major box office disappointment, only grossing $5 million during its opening weekend against a budget of $47 million. In an ironic twist of fate for Hayward, "Jonah Hex" had the misfortune of opening against "Toy Story 3." The film ended up grossing $10 million for its international theatrical run. 

"Jonah Hex" had little going for it, according to reviewers who criticized it for being messy and disjointed. Brolin later described the experience of making the film as miserable, alleging that they ended up reshooting over an hour of the film over 12 days. Sadly, it seems all that extra work went to waste, but at least Brolin got the opportunity to redeem himself as the Mad Titan Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Marc Webb's reboot of "Spider-Man" is divisive among movie fans and comic book geeks. Despite Andrew Garfield's talent and charisma, he seemed to many to be the wrong choice for the nerdy and closed-off Peter Parker, though some fans have come around to his incredible performance. However, the biggest strength of Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" and its sequel, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," lay with Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy, one of Peter Parker's most iconic (and tragic)  romances.

 However, despite adhering to the comics, killing off Gwen Stacy at the end of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was unpopular. Webb defended the decision, telling Entertainment Weekly, "Emma is beloved, and that relationship is the heart of these movies. But that's also why we couldn't shy away from that."

Unfortunately, fans and critics didn't share that sentiment. A reviewer for Rolling Stone called the film's final act in which Stacy meets her fate, "a shambles of FX overkill, frenzied editing, and desperate plot contrivances," while also criticizing the film's abundance of villains, including Jamie Foxx's Electro. Thankfully, both Garfield and Foxx got to redeem themselves and their characters' unfinished arcs in 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home." 

"The Green Hornet" originated as a radio drama in the 1930s before becoming a film serial and comic book in the 1940s. The character got a short-lived television series in the 1960s and has since made many other appearances across media in pop culture, one of which was a film adaptation written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the scribes behind the blockbuster comedies "Superbad" and "Pineapple Express." However, the two were out of their league with "The Green Hornet." 

The film, which stars Rogen as the titular vigilante, was released in 2011 to middling reviews. The Los Angeles Times said the film "may be the most tedious superhero movie ever — the competition is admittedly tough — but it is certainly in the running." Other reviewers criticized the film's supporting cast, including Jay Chou as Kato, the Green Hornet's sidekick; Cameron Diaz; and Christoph Waltz. Given how expensive the film was compared to its box office returns, Columbia Pictures decided not to move forward with "The Green Hornet" as a potential franchise.

This news was likely a relief to Rogen, who would later describe the experience of making "The Green Hornet" as nightmarish. Although pursuing a mainstream action movie was initially enticing, Rogen and Goldberg quickly found themselves in over their heads. 

"The New Mutants" was a long time in the making. However, its release timeline indicated to fans that something wasn't quite right. Starring Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, and Blu Hunt, the film centers on a group of misfit mutants attempting to save themselves from a government laboratory. However, like many future box office bombs, "The New Mutants" ended up butchered from its original version.

Twentieth Century Fox demanded reshoots to make the film more like a horror-tinged "The Breakfast Club," and extensive rewrites and production delayed the film's release for years. Further reshoots were prompted by 20th Century Fox's success with films like "Logan" in 2017 and "Deadpool 2" in 2018. The final obstacle between the final cut and audiences was Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, which jeopardized the film's release, as Disney executives were unhappy with it. 

The film was finally scheduled for release in 2020. It was again postponed when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down movie theaters across the globe. Disney ended up giving "The New Mutants" a release without fanfare in August 2020. Critical response was lackluster, with The New York Times stating, "'The New Mutants' spent three years on ice before being allowed to escape into the slowest summer season in a century. That's fitting for a film that's all buildup and no bang," (via The New York Times). 

Released shortly after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, "Dark Phoenix" was meant to be the end of the studio's "X-Men" film franchise. The 2019 film is a follow-up to the divisive "X-Men: Apocalypse," which disappointed many critics but satisfied fans with new interpretations of characters like Quicksilver and Storm. "Dark Phoenix" centers on Sophie Turner's Jean Grey in the second film adaptation of the character's heel-turn storyline from the comics. 

However, the future of "Dark Phoenix" was uncertain after test screenings determined the film needed extensive reshoots. Reuniting the film's cast would not be easy. Due to the extended post-production, Dark Phoenix was delayed from early 2018 to early 2019. The film's huge tonal shift from previous "X-Men" installments appalled critics, with the Chicago Tribune calling it "a lavishly brutal chore ... featuring more death by impalement and whirling metal than all the 'Saw' movies put together."

While Turner's performance was praised by some critics, others felt the movie was condescending towards its audience and tediously written. Director Simon Kinberg took the blame for the film's failure, but he likely doesn't have to worry about his impact on the "X-Men" film franchise, as Marvel Studios is set to reboot it. Maybe this time, they will get the "Dark Phoenix" storyline right and perhaps recast Turner as Jean Grey to do the actress some justice. 

As the official kick-off to Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania" had a tremendous burden. Diverging from the light-hearted comedy of the first two "Ant-Man" films starring Paul Rudd, "Quantumania" excited fans with the prospect of Jonathan Majors appearing as Kang the Conqueror (who first appeared in the Disney+ series "Loki"), heralding the new Thanos-level threat for the MCU. However, the decision to raise the stakes for an "Ant-Man" movie didn't turn out so well.

The film mostly takes place in the sci-fi micro-dimension of the Quantum Realm, where Scott Lang and his family come across Kang's empire, as well as his minion, M.O.D.O.K. The introduction of M.O.D.O.K. to the Marvel Cinematic Universe was highly anticipated by fans, though the CGI effects that created Corey Stoll's version of the character were skewered by both audiences and critics. 

The rest of "Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania" also left a lot to be desired. In a review for Variety, the film was criticized for "[whisking] you through its visually zapping action without generating any real investment in it." Other critics lambasted the film for being too goofy given its stakes and lacking the strong humor of the previous two "Ant-Man" films. Overall, for a movie marketed as being incredibly important to the MCU's future, it wasn't enough to excite audiences. 

Sony had a lot of creative freedom with the "Spider-Man" universe after the commercial successes of "Venom" and its sequel "Venom: Let There Be Carnage." The company decided to develop spin-off films for other "Spider-Man"-adjacent characters, such as Kraven the Hunter, whose Aaron Taylor-Johnson-led film is expected to release in 2024. However, Sony's decision to bring the comic book villain Morbius the Living Vampire, played by "Suicide Squad" veteran Jared Leto, seemed strange to many. 

"Morbius" was initially scheduled for release in 2020. However, it was repeatedly delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time it was finally released in the United States (on April 1, 2022, of all days), many fans expected the film to disappoint — and disappoint it certainly did. Critics called "Morbius" soulless, incoherent, and outright terrible, with specific attention paid to the film's post-credits scenes featuring Michael Keaton as Vulture from "Spider-Man: Homecoming." 

What makes "Morbius" a legendary entry in the history of terrible superhero movies is the life it gained outside the theater. Despite its horrid box office performance, the film became the subject of viral Internet memes, resulting in the questionable decision by Sony to re-release the film in theaters to recapture its cult audience. In a hilarious twist of fate, this plan failed, and the film bombed for a second time in one year.