5 Superhero Movies that Failed

The Phantom
If one looks at the reviews of this film, you'd be surprised that it did so poorly at the box office. Not that the critics are always right, but I thought it was at least as good as one of the Mummy films with Brandon Fraser. With a budget of almost 50 million, anyone should have expected more from this superhero movie. The Phantom pulled in only 17 million dollars.

The problem tends to fall into two areas. The first is the superhero. How many people on the street know who the Phantom is? For those that do, what are his powers? When Batman pops on the screen, we at least have a passing knowledge of the character. We have the Adam West history behind him. The Phantom is practically unknown.

The second problem is the cast. Not that the cast ended up doing a bad job, but when the biggest star in your film is Billy Zane, you have a problem. The man was in Back to the Future I and II, but who remembers him that? How many people think the best part of Titanic is the villain? I think you get the gist.

Could The Phantom be a success now? It's just not that great of a superhero. A ship of pirates killed his father and now the Phantom seeks to end piracy, injustice, and other typically bad things. It could be success, but a lot of the Phantom would have to be explained. And, he's really similar to Batman and you probably can't outdo Batman at the moment. So, leave the Phantom on the shelf.

Catwoman
Two Academy Award winning actresses, a big budget, and link it all up with a proven franchise, how could you go wrong? The director, Pitof, is virtually unknown, the writer, Theresa Rebeck, is virtually unknown, and let's face it, the Academy gets it wrong sometimes. Sharon Stone shouldn't be allowed out of the house. Not one person in the U.S. could name the last five films she was in. Halle Berry was finding some success with Die Another Day and X2, but she wasn't the lead in either one. Gothika was her big lead role, but that movie only had lukewarm success. Batman was a proven franchise, but it was still waiting for Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale to resurrect it.

It would have been a much better film if they had gotten rid of the director, the writer, and Sharon Stone. The backstory changes and mythos attached to this Catwoman were ridiculous. They made up this whole line of Catwoman that had been around throughout history brought about by an Egyptian goddess. Why was Patience Phillips chosen to be the next in the great line of Catwomen? She went out on a balcony to save a cat. Shouldn't there be firemen everywhere turning into Catmen then?

Catwoman could have been done correctly. It needed to wait until after Batman Begins came out. Back when Catwoman came out the only Batman on most people's minds was George Clooney. Yikes. Now, there is a market for it. Throw in a small role for Batman and there could be an awesome Catwoman movie. But that's probably not going to happen any time soon.

Batman and Robin
Speaking of Clooney, thanks for killing Batman.

Most people blame Joel Schumacher for being the one to put the final nail in the coffin. I've heard that the studio had tons of pressure on him and it really wasn't his movie in the end. The studio wanted to make more toys and action figures to market the movie. If you watch the movie, they succeed in cramming it with all types of gizmos, gadgets, and odd characters that seem to litter Gotham. Unfortunately, they tried to do too much. Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, and Batgirl were just too many characters to debut in one film. Mr. Freeze, done correctly, is a good enough character to stand alone as the soul villain. And, Batgirl was unnecessary.
We helped England greatly during World War II. How have they repaid us? They saved Batman. Look at Christopher Nolan's Batman films for how to do Batman correctly. He was intelligent and passionate about making this work. That's what it takes, but in Hollywood both are so rare.

Spawn
Let's take a character and send him to hell where he makes a deal with a demon, but his real nemesis is a clown and Martin Sheen. I know it's more complicated than that, but that's what I can recall not having seen it for quite a few years. However, I like the movie. At the time, it had the most computer effects of any film made and is still a visually impressive movie.

The acting by most of the players is well done. Michael Jai White does a good job playing a normal guy that becomes a burn victim with tremendous powers. Martin Sheen is a good corporate bad guy that performs well as usual. I think the film loses it when it comes to Clown played by John Leguizamo. It's a strange character that comes from hell that is there to guide Spawn toward evil, but comes off as a goofy villain that is just difficult to believe.

At the time, Spawn was a big hit in the comic book world. Unfortunately, the comic book was only five years old. A big hit in the comic book world is still not a big mainstream hit. Most people didn't know what Spawn was and most people therefore took a pass when it came to choosing it at the box office. It was one of the more successful films on the list costing 40 million dollars to make and bringing in 55 million dollars.

Spawn is still being done today. However, it is now in cartoon form. Spawn could do well on the silver screen if the bring it back in about twenty years. By then the fans of the cartoon will have grown up and will be able to spread the word that this is something no one should miss. It was just too new at the time of the first film and didn't have an audience to play to.

The Shadow
I'll be honest. I haven't seen The Shadow except for about twenty minutes over ten years ago. I was fifteen then. I should have been the target audience. But I just remember it being incredibly boring. In the preview, there was a knife that had a face on the handle that screamed at the camera. I never made it far enough to see it in the film.

I blame Alec Baldwin for the failure of this film. He is the male version of Sharon Stone. If you ever take a gander at Baldwin's filmography, it makes you shake your head and wonder how he became a movie star. Every movie that he is the lead in fails. It's one of the undeniable truths of life. He has now joined the list of failed movie actors that find success on television. Good for him.

Fortunately for The Shadow, there is promise. Sam Raimi has acquired the rights to make a new Shadow movie. Raimi is the man that directed all of the SpiderMan films and brought us the great Evil Dead trilogy. Raimi is a huge fan of The Shadow and tried to make the film earlier, but failed on getting the rights to do so. He made Darkman instead which was pretty good little film. There is hope for The Shadow. Great hope.

Sources
Catwoman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327554/
The Phantom http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117331/
Batman and Robin http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117331/
Spawn http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120177/
The Shadow http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111143/