List of Crap #131 Worst Superhero Movies Ever

[stethacantus]

#10

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ( 2016 )

40 points, 2 lists, #1 Darth Geek

Studio: Warner Bros.
Script: Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer
Producer: Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck ( Bruce Wayne/Batman ), Henry Cavill ( Klark Kent/Superman  ), Amy Addams ( Lois Lane ),  Jesse Eisenberg  ( Lex Luthor), Diane Lane  ( Martha Kent ), Lawrence Fishburne ( Perry White  ), Jeremy Irons  ( Alfred Pennyworth)  Holly Hunter ( Senator June Finch ), Gal Gadot ( Diana Prince/Wonder Woman  ), Scott McNairy  ( Wallace Keefe  ), Callan Mulvey  ( Anatoli Knyazev ),   Tao Okamoto ( Mercy Graves ),  Robin Atkin Downs ( Doomsday )

TRAILER

This is either the best worst superhero film ever, or the worst best superhero film ever. It's the sort of film you had a great time watching, then agreed it sucked. Where those who said they loved it will then concede it had a lot of parts that didn't work, and those who hated it will then praise a lot of it's scenes. Intertwined with Warner Bros. rush to establish a DC cinematic universe, is bits and pieces of the best Batman movie ever made, a worthy sequel to Man of Steel, a spectacular introduction of Wonder Woman, and a lot of other great nuggets that should have been in their own film. This draped in a plot that is more forced than logical,  the worst incarnation of Lex Luthor ever, the groanworthy plot point of the two Marthas, a half dozen unnecessary dream sequences which are either dead ends or spoilers for future films, and the overwhelming feeling that this all doesn't matter because Warner Bros. is just going to end up rebooting the entire cinematic universe anyway. 

I won't give much of a synopsis of this film as there are spoilers. Even the outcome of the title battle would be a spoiler.  But the plot is basically this: Tech billionaire Lex Luthor turns evil for no particular reason and decides to trick Batman and Superman into fighting each other. In the DC cinematic universe,  Gotham is conveniently just across a bay from Metropolis.  Clark Kent doesn't like the vigilante known as Batman because he takes the law into his own hands, often killing criminals.  Bruce Wayne doesn't like Superman because during his fight with General Zod, Superman inadvertently knocked down one of Bruce Wayne's buildings, killing most of his employees.  So it doesn't take much for Lex to turn them against each other.  Lex is also building a dossier on superheroes, and Wonder Woman is in town to steal back a photo of her that Lex has in his possession.  Which is all just an excuse to set up the Justice League movie. Because why give every individual superhero their own origin movie like the MCU did before they assembled as The Avengers, when you can lump the introduction of everyone into the same Man of Steel sequel? Want to introduce The Flash? How about an incoherent flashpoint appearance. Want to introduce Aquaman? How about a video in an e-mail attachment. It should also be pointed out that Warner Bros. butchered this film when they cut it from 183 minutes down to 151 minutes for the theatrical release, resulting in a lot of baffling jump cuts and plot holes.


ORIGIN:
On March 2, 1945, Superman spotted an unconscious boy floating down the river in a rowboat. Upon rescuing him Superman discovered he was none other than Batman's sidekick Robin. Batman had been kidnapped, and Robin needed Superman's help to find him. Batman was eventually found in a wax museum, encased in wax, but still alive. Batman thanked Superman for his help, and offered his services if ever Superman needed them. Batman and Superman would team up many more times. But not in the comic books. This all happened on The Adventures of Superman syndicated radio show. Originally airing for 15 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the show became so popular that by the mid 40s it was a half hour long and aired five nights a week. The addition of Batman to the show came as a solution to a problem.  Voice actor of Superman Bud Collyer needed vacation time.  But as the show ran the entire year with no breaks, there just wasn't any way to do any episodes without Superman in them. The original solution was Kryptonite, invented by the shows writers as a way for Superman to be incapacitated for a week while his friends solved the latest crime for him. And one of those friends was cub reporter Jimmy Olsen, another invention of the radio show. Realizing listeners were not happy when Superman spent an entire week or two passed out while team Lois and Jimmy kept Metropolis safe, they decided to ask National Comics to license one of their other superheroes as a Superman fill-in. Not only was Batman there whenever Superman needed extra help, but would show up to take the lead in an investigation whenever Collyer needed time off.

As for the comic books, Batman and Superman had not yet been properly introduced. While they had appeared together on promotional material, war bond ads, and even comic book covers, there characters had not only never met in any story, but never mention the other existed. That all ended in May of 1952 in issue #76 of Superman. After years of letters asking why Batman and Superman never shared adventures together in the comic books, they finally met for the first time in a comedic story where Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent find themselves on the same overbooked cruise ship, and forced to share the same cabin. Each worries that the other will guess their secret identity, that is until a criminal sets a fire, and both Batman and Superman leap into action at the same time, inadvertently exposing their identities to each other.  Agreeing to keep each other's identity a secret, they team up to catch the criminal responsible for the fire. Readers were pleased, so Batman and Superman began having more adventures together, becoming a legitimate team. Of course the ultimate team came in 1960 when they formed the Justice League of America along with DCs other superheroes. 

Batman and Superman were depicted as friends.  That is until the 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which takes place in another alternate universe, had Batman and Superman in a fight to the death. There had been talk over the years of having Superman and Batman in the same film, but Warner didn't get the rights to Superman back until the 90s, by which time the studio was seriously thinking of adapting The Dark Knight Returns. In 1999 the studio was developing a movie called Batman vs Superman which had a plot very similar to The Dark Knight Returns. There was such enthusiasm over the proposed film that another Superman film in development, Superman Flyby, was canceled.  However, the studio ended up fawning over a rewrite of the Flyby script, called Superman Returns, and decided to make that movie instead.  In the meantime, Batman and Superman had met for the first time again when the animated Batman and Superman series had a crossover episode. This was the umpteenth version of how Batman and Superman met each other. But for the first time their  meeting was not on good terms. Batman used his detective skills to uncover Superman's secret identity, and Superman used his X-ray  vision on Batman.  They distrust each other until nearly the end of the crossover where they need to team up to stop Lex Luthor. Is it any wonder that any film going forward with Superman meeting Batman would have them as adversaries?

While Superman Returns ( 2006 ) was not the franchise saving film Warner Bros. had hoped for, the Christopher Nolan reboot of the Batman franchise, the Dark Knight trilogy, was both critically acclaimed and financially successful.  So Warner Bros. put the Superman franchise into Nolan's hands. Furthermore Marvel's MCU was shattering box office records. Warner Bros. had the rights to the DC comic book universe, so hoped the Nolan upgraded version of Superman would be the first of a DC cinematic universe, leading up to a Justice League movie. Nolan stepped back as producer and handed the film to Zack Snyder.  Man of Steel ( 2013 ) was not the film they had hoped for. Much like Superman Returns, it made money, but got mixed reviews.  Still, it faired better with the audience than The Green Lantern ( 2011 ) had, and Warner had already decided The Green Lantern would not take place in their DC cinematic universe.  If they decided the same with Man of Steel then they would be back to square one on building the DC cinematic universe. So happy with it or not, they green lit the sequel, which would introduce Batman. It had already been set in stone that if Batman was to be in the sequel, then there would be a fight. But Warner Bros. had also grown impatient on building their DC cinematic universe, so the next film was to also introduce the other superheroes that would make up the Justice League.  Wonder Woman would get a major role in the ending battle, and the others to be introduced via surveillance footage. Also, they wanted to get the Doomsday story arc out of the way. So basically jam everything they wanted to do with the DC cinematic universe into one film so they could get to a Justice League film a lot faster.


Reviews
"A near-total drag, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice plays like a loose, unofficial quarter-billion-dollar remake of The Odd Couple, in which Oscar and Felix are literally trying to kill each other." ~ Chicago Tribune

"Shouldn't all this geeky property colliding still at least be entertaining? Shouldn't it play to the cheap seats instead of wallowing in the murk?" ~ AV Club

"A joyless slog." ~ Seattle Times

"The studio has, in the usual way, begged and bullied critics not to reveal plot points, and I wouldn't dream of denying you the thrill of discovering just how overstuffed and preposterous a movie narrative can be." ~ New York Times

"For all its overcranked spectacle, I emerged from Batman v Superman in a soporific state; foggy of head, heavy of heart, wondering if it was all just a bad dream." ~ Observer (UK)

[stethacantus]

#9

Spawn  ( 1997 )

41 points, 3 lists, #4 RVR II

Studio: New Line Cinema
Script: Alan B. Mc mElroy
Producer: Clint Goldman
Director: Mark A. Z. Dippé
Cast: Michael Jai White ( Agent Al Simmons/Spawn ), John Leguizamo ( Clown/Violator ), Martin Sheen ( Jason Wynn ), Therisa Randie ( Wanda Blake ), Nichol Williamson ( Nicholas Cogliostro ), D. B. Sweeney ( Agent Terry Fitzgerald  ), Melinda Clarke ( Agent Jessica Priest  ), Miko Hughes ( Zack ), Sydni Beaudoin ( Cyan Simmons Fitzgerald  ), Michael Popajohn ( Glen ), Frank Welker ( voice of Malebolgia )

TRAILER

With most of these, all I need do is write a synopsis of the film for the reader to see how the it all went wrong. It will either have dumb plot elements, or stray too far from the source material, or be too campy, or too dark, or spend most of the movie not having the superhero do anything superhero-ish. But that is not the case with this film. Spawn creator Todd McFarlane had a lot of creative control over the production.  The script was written by Alan B. Mc mElroy, who was the show runner for the acclaimed Spawn animated series.  If I was to describe the plot right here, Spawn fans would not find any fault with it.  It was not the writing, or the source material that made this movie a failure. It was the execution of that material. The direction itself.  But lets describe the film anyway.  CIA special agent Al Simmons  is starting to grow wary of the civilian casualties on his missions. Casualties his superior Director Jason Wynn has no problem with. Simmons wants out, so Wynn agrees to let him go, after he completes one last mission. During the mission Simmons is double crossed by Wynn who has him shot, then blown up in an explosion. Years later a severely burned Simmons wakes up in an abandoned church, with no memory of his own death, or the years since.  He is met by an old man named Cogliostro  who asks him to stay with his group of homeless squatters who inhabit the alleyway next to an abandoned church.  But Simmons insists on returning to his home, only to discover his fiancée is married to his best friend, He is dragged away to an alleyway by a sadistic clown demon called The Violator who restores his memories. He had spent five years in hell, where he had accepted a deal with the Devil ( called Malebolgia in this movie  ) to lead his army of demons against the gates of Heaven, if he is allowed to return to Earth to see his fiancée. Now on Earth, he begins to change into an armored clad demon called The Spawn, and do the devils bidding. The first mission given to him by the Devil's second in command, The Violator.  Kill Wynn. It turns out the Devil has a reason for Wynn to die. Wynn has created a bio-weapon designed to be deployed across the globe that will kill billions, and only he and those who agree to follow him will be given the antidote.  It was The Violator who talked Wynn into this plan, as well as talking Wynn into attaching a monitor to his heart so that if it ever stops beating, the weapon will be deployed. Which is why the Devil wants Wynn dead, so that the bio-weapon will be deployed and trigger the Apocalypse.  The movie continues as Simmons as the Spawn attempts to kill Wynn, but eventually from guidance from Cogliostro, who turns out to be a knight and former Spawn himself who is hundreds of years old, turns on the Devil, and returns to Hell where both Cogliostro and Spawn battle The Violator in his true form.


ORIGIN:
Initially a celebrated artist for Marvel, Todd McFarlane pressured the company into allowing him to write his own comics, which they did with a brand new Spider-Man series. However, he became disillusioned with editorial interference and his work constantly being altered. He finally quit in 1991. He joined other disgruntled comic book creators Erik Larson, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Whilce Portacio and Marce Silvestri in forming Image Comics, a comic book publishing company that allowed comic book creators to retain the rights to their own works. Image wasn't the first comic book company to do this, and Marvel themselves had a creator owned imprint at the time called Epic Comics. But no creator owned comic book company had this powerhouse  lineup of talent. Image immediately became direct rivals to Marvel and D.C. For Image, Todd McFarlane created Spawn, the origin of the character already explained in the synopsis. With Image being so high profile, Spawn became a best seller, which got Hollywood interested in the property. Almost upon release of the first issue, agents for Columbia Pictures came sniffing around McFarlane's door. There were soon serious negotiations, which inevitably broke down as McFarlane insisted on creative control. He eventually worked out a deal with New Line Cinema, selling them the rights to the character for just $1. In return, he had full creative control over the movie, and the entire merchandising rights. To their credit, New Line only demanded two changed to the film. One was for McFarlane to tone down the story so it would qualify for a PG-13 rating. The other, a request for him to change the character of Terry Fitzgerald from African American to White. With Spawn and his fiancée already being black, New Line feared Spawn may be stigmatized as a black movie. Of course, one f the few things McFarlane did not have control over was the casting. Something else he had no control over was the rights to the character Chapel, who in the comic book was the agent who killed Simmons under the orders of Wynn. Chappel was a character created by Rob Liefeld for his book Youngblood which debuted a month before Spawn. Despite all the comics being creator owned, there was an attempt to tie all the Image books into a single unified universe te same way Marvel and D.C. had.  However, Liefeld had already made a deal with  a company called Roustabout Productions for the rights to the characters in Youngblood, for a Fox series that at the time was in production hell for a Fox series.  At McFarlane's suggesting, a brand new character was created. Once again white, and this time a female, the character Jessica Priest was created for the movie to be Simmon's assassin. McFarlane would eventually retcon the comic book so that  the Priest character was his assassin in it's cannon as well. With all the Image creators signing their own production deals with various media companies, the crossovers between the books was becoming a problem.  For example, The Maxx animated series for MTV which closely followed the comic book's plots,  was constantly forced to alter or omit crossover characters Sam Keith did not own the rights to.

The downfall of this movie came from New Line's choice in director, Mark A. Z. Dippé, who had never directed a film before.  The story behind Dippé being hired goes like this: New Line realized a book like Spawn would need what were then extremely advanced visual effects to pull off. Normally this would be handled by Industrial Lights & Magic, but that company had a full workload  ad the time that included Tim Burton's Mars Attacks, Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Men in Black also for Spielberg's production company, Starship Troopers, the remake of Flubber for Disney, and James Cameron's Titanic. However, they did find a company available to do the effects, Pull Down Your Pants Pictures, which had recently been founded by former ILM employees Steve Williams, Clint Goldman and Mark  Dippé.  They were the team responsible for the groundbreaking effects of the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day ( 1991 ) and the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park ( 1993 ).  In fact, the visual effects would be so complicated that New Line asked if one of the Pull Down Your Pants team could direct, and out of the three Dippé was chosen. While Dippé's expertise was in effects, it was not in generating performances from his actors, or casting, or proper editing and pacing of a film. He did know how to stage a scene so that the effects could be added in later. The problem was, that those effects just were not good. Pull Down Your Pants Pictures[/i] was overwhelmed, even though they eventually ended up farming out their effects to other companies including ILM. And as an effects man himself, Dippé let a lot of mistakes slip by as he knew how much work even a botched effect took to pull off. Here is one of the more notorious effects mistakes from the film. Notice the glow surrounding the amulet, and how it is suddenly flat above the top.

Many effects were never finished or poorly rendered. While most CGI effects from the 90s have since dated, many of the effects on Spawndidn't look state of the art on release. Helland all it's inhabitants including the Devil himself,  looked like a cut scene from an N64 game. Spawn's cape looked like animation rather than an actual cape. Still, some critics were dazzled. Roger Ebert said Spawn had some of the most innovative effects of the era, and gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars. One questions what Roger was smoking when he watched the film, as it has all the appearances of an under budgeted movie. As director, Dippé threw most of the $45 million budget into the effects, short changing sets. For example. the church where Cogliostro  and his followers reside appears to exist as just the narrow section where the spiral staircase is. Most directors would have built an entire interior of the church for Simmons to transverse. Even the opening montage and credits appear to have been generated and edited on video to save money.  You would never think $45 million had been spent on this movie, but with exception to a few effects, somewhere around $1 million.


Reviews
"A moodily malevolent, anything-goes revenge fantasy that relies more upon special visual and digitally animated effects for its intended appeal than any comics-derived sci-fier to date." ~ Variety

"It's simply a parade of toys and tricks, without a jot of playfulness, knowing humour or campery to endear itself." ~ Empire Magazine

"Dipp, an old SFX hand, needs to think about how to tell a story." ~ Time Out

"A misguided attempt to sanitize a concept whose most distinctive trait is its darkness." ~ TheMovieReport.com

[stethacantus]

#8

Ghost Rider ( 2007 )

45 points, 3 lists, #7 RVR II

Studio: Columbia Pictures
Script: Mark Steven Johnson
Producer: Avi Arad, Steven Paul, Micael De Luca, Gary Foster
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Cast: Nicholas Cage ( Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider ), Eva Mendes ( Roxanne Simpson ), Wes Bently ( Blackheart/Legion ), Sam Elliot ( Carter Slade/ Caretaker  ), Donal Logue ( Mack ), Peter Fonda ( Mephistopheles/The Devil ), Brett Cullen ( Barton Blaze ), David Roberts ( Captain Jack Dolan )

TRAILER

With a hero who turns into a demon with a flaming skull, drives a flaming motorcycle, and wields a chain that can burn foes into ash, there seems no way you can ruin this movie. Except maybe if you allowed the writer and director of Daredevil to write and direct this as well, and cast Nicholas Cage as the lead. Other than that....

PROLOGUE:  In the old west, there was a demonic horseman called The Ghost Rider who did the bidding for the Devil. ( technically the Marvel villain Mephistopheles, who is not quite Satan. ) One day the Ghost Rider was sent to collect a parchment called the Contract of San  Venganza which gave whoever held it ownership of thousands of corrupt souls. Realizing the Devil would use them to conquer Earth, the Ghost Rider decided to hide them instead.

SECOND PROLOGUE: in the 80s, a seventeen year old stunt cyclist called Johnny Blaze discovers his father ( also a stunt cyclist ) has cancer. The Devil shows up and offers Johnny a deal.  Sign a blood pact selling him his soul, and he will make sure his father does not die of cancer. The next day Johnny's father is killed during a stunt. Johnny accuses the Devil of cheating him, but is reminded the contract is valid, and the Devil will some day collect.

PRESENT DAY: Johnny Blaze has become a successful stunt cyclist  who has a knack of walking away from accidents without a scratch.  After a particularly dangerous stunt where he jumps over several helicopters with their blades spinning, he is interviewed by news reporter Roxanne Simpson. Roxanne was his old girlfriend who he abandoned the day after his father died, and he decides to rekindle their relationship by asking her out to dinner.  He ends up not making it to the date when the Devil shows up to collect on his contract, turning Johnny into his new Ghost Rider. The Devil's son Blackheart has gone to Earth to find the Contract of San Venganza so he can rule Hell, and the Devil wants him stopped.  If Johnny succeeds then his contract will be fulfilled and he can have his soul back. Ghost Rider tracks Blackheart down, but is sidetracked by one of his henchmen, an fallen archangel who controls the elements of Earth, which Ghost Rider ends up destroying.  He then finds himself attracted to common criminals who he kills off by staring at them.

Johnny wakes up the next morning in a graveyard, whose caretaker knows everything about Ghost Riders and explains to Johnny every that has happened so far.  He can only turn into the Ghost Rider at night. He is drawn to men with dark souls, who he instantly kills with something called the Penance Stare. And if he is near anyone evil at night time, he will turn back into the Ghost Rider. Later that day the police somehow figure out that Johnny is the same maniac who has been riding around killing muggers and locks him in jail. There he is surrounded by other inmates who try to beat him up. But their dark souls cause Johnny to turn into the Ghost Rider, and he kills them all, after which he easily melts the jail's bars and walks away. After another fight with a fallen archangel and another encounter with the police, Johnny returns to his apartment to find his friends dead and Blackheart waiting for him, telling him he has kidnapped Roxanne and will kill her unless the Ghost Rider finds and brings him the Contract of San Venganza.  Johnny turns into Ghost Rider and tries to kill Blackheart with his Penance Stare, but it has no effect on him as he has no soul.

Everything seems set up for a spectacular climax.  Johnny seeks the graveyard caretaker for advice on how to locate the contract, only to discover he was Carter Slade all along, cursed to immortality until his own contract is fulfilled.  Carter gives Johnny the contract, and then getting on his horse he transforms into a Ghost Rider with a flaming horse, while Johnny makes the same transformation on his motorcycle.  The two ride off to confront Blackheart and.... apparently this was the moment when the studio decided to cut the budget for the visual effects. Because out of nowhere the cowboy Ghost Rider turns back into Carter Slade and tells Johnny that this is as far as he can go.  He only had enough power left to transform into a Ghost Rider one last time, and ride with him halfway to the abandoned desert church where  Blackheart is. So Johnny's Ghost Rider arrives there solo. But the sun comes up, and he finds out that he cannot be a Ghost Rider in the sunlight.  While Johnny is able to partially turn into Ghost Rider in the shadows of the church, the eventual defeat of Blackheart is due to Johnny using his wits rather than an all out battle.  Because why have an exciting set piece to end your flaming motorcycle demon film when you can make it anticlimactic? Once Blackheart is defeated, the Devil returns to return Johnny's soul to him and take back the Ghost Rider curse. But Johnny more or less says "No thank you. The executives at Sony want a franchise." Okay, so it is more like Johnny decides to continue being a Ghost Rider in order to combat evil like the Devil. But you get why he makes this decision.

As much as this is considered one of the bad superhero movies, can you really call it that? Ghost Rider is awesome whenever he is on screen.  The entire premise of Ghost Rider is too cool not to be entertaining no matter what film the character is in. This is one of those films that deserves its status as awful, yet is also some great entertainment despite everything.  It is just a shame Ghost Rider was never given the film he deserves.


ORIGIN:
The original Ghost Rider debuted February 1967 in Ghost Rider #1. His secret identity was Carter Slade, a vigilante crime fighter in the old west who aside from horsemanship and shooting skills, had no advanced abilities.  The character name and costume was lifted from a character of the same name that appeared 1949 in issue #11 of the western comic book Tom Holt. That version of the Ghost Rider was supernatural, but was discontinued when the Comic Code Authority banned horror. When the copyrights to the character expired, Marvel began publishing their own version of the comic, but eliminating the supernatural elements. When the CCA updated their guidelines to allow horror, a decision was made to revive the character again, but once again making him supernatural. Since Westerns were not as popular, the new Ghost Rider would take place in modern times, and ride a motorcycle instead of a horse.  The new Ghost Rider debuted August 1972 in issue #5 of Marvel Spotlight, and soon after in his own book. The new Ghost Rider was stunt driver Johnny Blaze, who sold his sole to the devil to cure his father of cancer, and ended up cursed as the Ghost Rider. When Marvel decided to reprint the original Ghost Rider series, to keep readers from confusing the titles, they renamed him the Night Rider, resulting in complaints from readers as the Night Riders was the original name of the Ku Klux Klan.  The character was renamed again, this time as the Phantom Rider. When Marvel started publishing new Phantom Rider stories, they revealed that Carter Slade had been killed, and his sidekick had taken over for him. The Phantom Rider would pass down to others, usually descendants of Slade. Similarly, the Ghost Rider curse was passed on to other hosts over the years.

Throughout the 90s there had been negotiations for a Ghost Rider theatrical film. Finally in 1997 producer Gale Ann Hurd announced that she would be bringing Ghost Rider to the screen, and had signed Johnathan Hensleigh, the screenwriter of Jumanji, to write the script. However, after the success of Blade, it's screen writer David S. Goyer was hired to write the script, as was Blade's director Stephen Norrington hired to direct. Crystal Sky Entertainment became the production company, and Johnny Depp was on board to play Johnny Blaze. Dimension Films signed on as the studio. Producers for Dimensions and Marvel attached themselves. Hurd was phased out, but would end up producing other Marvel properties. Marvel's producer Avi Arad kept suggesting they cast Eric Bana in the lead. Nicholas Cage announced that he was interested in playing the lead. And since at the time he was a bigger star than either Depp or Bana, he got the role. A year went by without a scheduled start. Stephen Norrington had to drop out due to commitments with other production companies. Cage also got fed up waiting and dropped out. Because off their success with Spider-Man, Columbia Pictures decided they wanted to make more superhero films, and offered to buy out the film rights to Ghost Rider. They also wanted Ghost Rider to be in the same tone as Spider-Man, so threw out Goyer's script and had a new one written.  Which didn't matter much because they hired Mark Steven Johnson, who was at the time directing Daredevil, to direct Ghost Rider, and he decided to write his own script.  Negotiations were made to get Cage as the lead again, but meant filming could not begin until mid 2004 as Cage was scheduled to film The Weather Man. Filming was further delayed due to Johnson's script being deemed "unworkable". Among the things the producer wanted changed was Johnson's decision to use a minor Marvel villain called Scarecrow, completely ignoring that Batman Begins would be released the same year with a villain called Scarecrow.  Arad suggested Blackheart as a more suitable Ghost Rider villain. The script needed to be rewritten to replace Scarecrow with Blackheart.


Reviews
"Mainly the movie's about riding a bike at the speed of sound while your head is burning. They can do anything these days, which isn't quite the same as saying they should do anything these days." ~ Washington Post

"Rarely in Hollywood have so many labored so hard with so much time and such financial resources to fill a movie screen with as vast an array of spiritual gibberish, literary poppycock and pure flummery as Mark Steven Johnson's Ghost Rider." ~ New York Daily News

"Is the world ready for a flaming Nicolas Cage?" ~ New York Times

[stethacantus]

#7

Supergirl ( 1984 )

50 points, 4 lists, #4 stansimpson

Studio: Pueblo Film AG Productions/Warner Bros.
Script: David Odell
Producer: Timothy Burrill
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Cast: Helen Slater ( Kara Zor-El/Linda Lee/Supergirl ), Faye Dunaway ( Selena ), Peter O'Toole ( Zaltar ), Hart Brochner ( Ethan ), Mia Farrow ( Alura In-Ze ), Brenda Veccaro ( Bianca ), Peter Cook ( Nigel ), Marc McClure ( Jimmy Olsen ), Maureen Teefy ( Lucy Lane )

TRAILER

Supergirl has the dumbness of Superman III and the cheapness of Superman IV, but the one thing it doesn't have is Superman. The best the producers could do is have a Superman poster in a character's bedroom Out of the entire Superman cast, only Marc McClure could be coaxed into appearing in this film, reprising his role of Jimmy Olsen who is in the same small town as Supergirl for no good reason.

Krypton may have been destroyed, but somehow Argo City and all of it's residents have survived. In the comic book, Argo City was on a chunk of Krypton that was blown clear of the planet when it blew up, and thanks to a protective shield, retained it's atmosphere.  The film Supergirl did not have the budget to show how Argo City survived, so the movie opens decades later, and the only explanation given is that the city was somehow transported into a different dimension. In the comic books, Argo was Krypton's biggest city. But in this movie it appears to be a single short  street or alleyway with a population of a few dozen. At least that was all the budget would allow. We are introduced to Kara Zor-El, the cousin of Kal-El, who is Superman on Earth. Not only are the residents of Argo aware of Earth and that Kal-El is there, but that he is Superman, and that any Kryptonian who goes there will gain super powers. Yet aside from a single small space craft, the citizens of Argo have made no attempt to build any ships to take them to the safety of Earth. The entire city is being powered by a small magical globe called the Omegahedron.  Kara  decides to play with the Omegahedron, and causes it to fly out of the city and out of their dimension. Without the Omegahedron everyone in the city will be dead in a few days. Grabbing the city's only space ship, Kara goes after it.

The Omegahedron emerges on Earth where a witch named Selena finds it. Kara follows it to Earth and crashes her ship into a lake. She emerges from the water wearing a Supergirl costume for no good reason, and begins to realize she has powers.  She decides to adopt a secret identity as a cousin of Clark Kent named  Linda Lee, and have herself enrolled in  a midwestern boarding school  where she coincidentally discovers her roommate is Lucy Lane, sister of Lois Lane. And for the next hour "Linda" completely forgets she is on Earth to find the Omegahedron before her parents and everyone else in Argo dies, and instead enjoys learning to be a human teenager. Meanwhile Selena uses the enhanced powers the Omegahedron has given her to put a love spell on a landscaper she wants a one night stand with, and he wanders off in a daze before the spell takes effect. An attempt to get the landscaper back via a possessed backhoe, but it ends up destroying  half the town near the boarding school. Linda changes into her Supergirl costume to stop the backhoe, and the landscaper falls in love with her. Selena becomes furious and decides to send an invisible monster after Kara, but she defeats it in her Supergirl persona. So basically most of the film is Selena using her magic to try to kill Kara because the landscaper fell in love with her, and Kara is clueless that Selena has the Omegahedron. It isn't until the climatic fight with Selena that Kara  actually tries to get the Omegahedron back.  An unusual plot that has the hero ignoring her quest, and the villain, out of stupidity,  unintentionally forcing the hero back onto her quest. Supergirl feels like a film that should not exist. As if the Salkinds felt obligated to make a Supergirl, so pounded this out as fast and cheaply as possible. The result is the dumbest film in the Superman franchise.


ORIGIN:
Kara Zor-El made her debut August 1958 in issue #252 of Action Comics. When Alexander Salkind purchased the motion picture rights to Superman and various characters in the Superman family, he also acquired Supergirl with the original intention of her turning up in a sequel should the series go beyond two instalments. The Salkinds gradually decided that Supergirl could be a spinoff film series within the same Superman franchise, and the original script for Superman II had Kara's space ship landing on Earth at the end of the film as a setup for the Supergirl film that was to follow. However, the Salkinds eventually gave up on that idea. It wasn't until after Christopher Reeve let the Salkinds know he was reluctant to reprise his role as Superman in a fourth movie that they decided to revive their plans for a Supergirl spinoff.  However, they were unable to get Reeve to agree to even shoot a cameo. Out of the core Superman cast, only Marc McClure would agree to be in Supergirl. While the producers felt his presence was important to establish Supergirl was in the same cinematic universe as Superman, the script writers were unable to give the character anything to do in the film. The Salkinds intended to produce this film without the participation of Warner Bros. and attempted to finance it themselves, hence the drastically lowered budget of $35 million. A lot of the budget came from product placement. An entire Popeye's Chicken restaurant set was built just to promote their food. Another company financing the film through product placement was A&W, although I am sure they didn't realize one of the characters prominently wearing an A&W t-shirt was a rapist. While the Salkinds successfully financed the film themselves, ultimately they could not get out of their deal with Warner Bros. to be the distributor, and it ended up being a Warner Bros. film. However, while the Salkinds were pushing for a Christmas 1984 release, Warner wanted to delay the opening in America to the summer of 1985. It had already been released in Japan months earlier, and by December was already on home video in Japan. Imported copies of Supergirl on VHS began showing up in American video stores. The movie needed to be released as soon as possible. Warner already had their slate full for the Holiday season, so relinquished the distribution rights to the Salkinds, who in turn got a distribution deal wit Try Star Pictures. Meanwhile, D.C. Comics officially killed Kara Zor-El off in the mini-series Crisis on Infinite Earths a few months after this movie debuted.


Reviews
"This is one comic-book feature that doesn't fly." ~ Chicago Reader

"A festering dump of bad ideas, corny lines and Hollywood excess." ~ Mania.com

"Why even go to the trouble of making a movie that feels like it's laughing at itself?" ~ Roger Ebert

[stethacantus]

#6

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  ( 2014 )

51 points,  3 lists, #6 RVR II

Studio: Paramount Pictures
Script: Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Evan Daugherty
Producer: Michael Bay, Ian Brice, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Scott Mednick, Glen Walker
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Cast: Johnny Knoxville ( voice of Leonardo ), Jeremy Howard (  voice of Donatello  ), Alan Ritchson ( voice of Raphael ), Noel Fisher ( Michelangelo  ), Megan Fox ( April O'Neil  ), Tony Shalhoub ( voice of Splinter ), Will Arnett ( Vern Finwick ), Tohoru Massamune ( The Shredder  ), William Fichtner ( Eric Sacks ), Whoopi Goldberg ( Bernadette Thompson  ), Minae Noji ( Karai )

TRAILER

Is this really a bad movie?  I guess it all depends on what  you like and don't like. For example, if you don't like Michael Bay films, then you won't like this. If you don't like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then you won't like this. If you do like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then you won't  like this. However, if you are a fan of big dumb movies with over the top CGI and explosions, then this is another Michael Bay film. The whole point of any Michael Bay film is the visual effects and actresses off the cover of Maxim.  Sure his films are bad. The only question is if the effects scenes are exciting enough to make up for it. If I am having fun watching a robot blow up a city, then was  it worth sitting through a dumb plot and basement level acting to get to those scenes?   Long time fans of the Turtles will complain that their favorite cartoon characters are being ruined. But who did they expect would interested in making a movie based on an animated cartoon that promoted action figures? Steven Spielberg? Had Spielberg been involved, he would have just passed the project off to Michael Bay anyway, as he did with The Transformers.

The film does open on a positive note. The origin of the Turtles is explained in a one minute animated cartoon. None of this waiting until the final reel to see superhero action with the other 100 minutes going to a long slow origin tale. We are then introduced to television reporter April O'Neil. So who did they get to play April? Emma Watson? Kristen Stewart? Jennifer Lawrence?  Well, this is a Michael Bay film, so Megan Fox. Look, we are not casting Lady Mac Beth here. This wasn't going  to be a role that gave the actress who played it an Academy Award. The April O'Neil in this film was going to be a hot news reporter who does stories that have her jumping up and down on trampolines in a t-shirt.  Her partner is cameraman Vern Fenwick , because Michael Bay wanted April to have a comedian sidekick for comedy relief, and the closest they could come to an actual comedian was Will Arnett. Throughout the film Vern fumbles through bad  jokes, as if the director kept asking Arnett to improvise   the humor, and he kept drawing a blank. April gets a tip that something is going down at the docks   that night, and goes by herself.   There she witnesses a criminal group known as The Foot Clan robbing containers. That is until some unseen vigilantes throw an entire cargo container at the Foot Clan. Once again, a Michael Bay  film. The next day April tries to get her station to run the story, but is turned down as there is no evidence this happened. Meanwhile the leader of the Foot Clan,  Shredder, wants the vigilantes who foiled his clan's robbery attempt captured. So he has foot clan soldiers raid a subway station and hold everyone there hostage to draw the vigilantes out. Among the hostages, April. The vigilantes show up, and defeat the clan. April follows them to the roof, only to discover that they are all turtles. And since this is a Michael Bay film, they are all the size  of The Hulk, with muscles to match. And instead of the familiar TMNT faces, they all have human faces. I am not sure if this was because Michael Bay wanted all the turtles to look like Bruce Willis, or if it was a matter of Paramount wanting to merchandise toys based off the movie, so needed a new turtle design, or if this was due  to some sort of technical limitations on the motion capture technology. But for  the first time in TMNT history, including every cartoon, every animation, every puppet and costume, for the first time we have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that do not look anything like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

April overhears two of the turtles call each other Raphiel and Leonardo, and realizes they are the turtles from her father's lab. When she was ten, her father  had lab turtles named Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphiel, as well as a rat named Splinter. He had been injecting them with a mutagen in order to create a cure for all known diseases. But one day the lab caught fire, and unable to save her father, April saved the turtles and the rat, setting them free in the sewer. April goes to her father's old partner Eric Sacks to find out more on what her father was working on when he died. She mentions to Sacks that the lab turtles mutated into talking ninja turtles.  Later the turtles bring April back to their sewer hideout where she meets Splinter, who has mutated into a large talking rat. He explains the rest of the origin story to her. He decided to raise the turtles as their father. The mutagen turned them all into half humans. He found a book in the sewer on Ninjitsu, so read it and became a master, eventually training the turtles as they grew older.  He also tells her that Sacks was the one who started the lab fire in order to kill her father. No sooner does April tell Splinter that she already told Sacks about the ninja turtles when Shredder and the Foot Clan raid the base. After Shredder defeats Splinter in a fight, he captures Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo. Thinking he had killed  Raphiel, he leaves him and Splinter behind. Realizing that Shredder and the Foot Clan are in league with Sacks, April, Raphiel and Vern go to Sacks mansion to rescue the other turtles. They find out that Sacks and Shredder  have created a virus which only Sacks has the antidote to ( scheme taken from the movie Spawn ) and plan to release it from a tower on top of a skyscraper ( taken from the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man ). With the help of April, the turtles defeat Shredder and save  the city.

ORIGIN:
After Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle III disappointed at the box office, New Line and Golden Harvest sold off the live action film rights to FHE who used it to release two 20 minute direct to video programs, one being the infamous We Wish You A Turtle Christmas.  The live action rights ended up with Saban Entertainment who used it to produce a counter  Saturday Morning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series that competed against the long running animated series.  The live action series, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation aired on Fox, and introduced a brand new female turtle called Venus de Milo.  It was loosely based on what would have been the fourth film in the Golden Harvest/New Line film series, which original TMNT creator Kevin Eastman had written a script for. This being Fox, the live action series was cancelled after one season. While waiting for the live action  rights to revert back to Mirage Studios, Warner Bros. found a way around the rights issue by announcing an all CGI Ninja Turtle  movie that was to be directed by John Woo. Of course, this being Warner Bros., the film languished in development hell for six years, during which time John Woo dropped out. TMNT was finally released in 2007. Shortly after the live action rights reverted back to Mirage Studios in 2009, it was bought by Viacom who shut down the comic book division and gave both the live action and animated  rights to the Turtles to Nickelodeon, who in turn announced their film division would be releasing a reboot of the Ninja Turtle film franchise for Paramount Pictures. Paramount was the original distributor for the MCU films, which at the time was still just the first Iron Man movie. So the Paramount executives hired the screen writers for Iron Man, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, to write the script for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot. Their idea was to have the turtles be aliens from another planet, and for Shreader to be changed to  Colonel Schrader. Paramount hired  Michael Bay to produce the reboot, and he in turn hired Jonathan Liebesman to direct. Apparently Bay knew absolutely   nothing about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles   as he was prepared to go along with the original concept of the Turtles being aliens, and Shredder being an army colonel. All he cared about was that Paramount was rebooting the franchise, wanted these changes, and as long as the movie had lots of CGI, explosions and an actress with big tits, he did his job. But then a script was leaked online, and the fanbase found out about the changes, and there was a backlash. All involved with the movie put out statements that the script was an early draft which was no longer the film they were making. Actor William Fichtner announced in an interview that he had been cast as Shredder, and once again fans complained that a character that was supposed to be Asian was now a white man. Once again Paramount claimed this was all a misunderstanding, and that Fichtner was playing another character called Eric Sacks.  After which  the release date was curiously pushed back six months. This has left fans to speculate that Paramount was retooling the film even as it was being filmed by splitting Sacks and Shredder into two different characters, and bringing in actor Tohoru Massamune  to shoot the new Shredder scenes. This theory would explain why Shredder wears robotic armor, which would have allowed Fichtner's Sacks character to wear the same armor. The movie was finally released in August of 2014. And while it was a box office success, it got mostly bad reviews and was generally hated by TMNT fans across the globe. Paramount and Michael Bay announced a sequel, and to appease TMNT fans, put everything in the movie the fans demanded. This included long time TMNT characters such as vigilante Casey Jones, mad scientist Dr. Baxter Stockman, mutants Bebop and Rocksteady, and the alien Krang. Out of these four characters, only Casey Jones had previously appeared in TMNT films. The movie would also have Krang's Technodrome. However, while the sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows ( 2016 ) finally had everything TMNT fans had wanted in a live action movie for decades, Paramount and Michael Bay still got a lot of it wrong. And as this was a sequel, they were stuck with the design of the Turtle's from the previous film. Although earning over $100 million for Paramount, the sequel made only half the money as the first movie, and Paramount decided the reboot would get a reboot.


Reviews
"This is as generic as Hollywood gets" ~ Time Out

"Cowabunga? Cowabuggeroff!" ~ Observe ( U.K. )

"Heroes in a half-arsed shell." ~ Empire Magazine

"If you thought Michael Bay had forgiven Megan Fox for saying he was 'like Hitler,' this new April O'Neil role is proof he hasn't." ~ L.A. Weekly

"There is something half-hearted about the entire film, as if those behind it were involved not because they wanted to make it, not because they should make it, but just because they could." ~ Los Angeles Times

"Attached to this movie, the title no longer sounds zany; it looks like a series of keywords." ~ New York Times

[stethacantus]

#5

Batman & Robin ( 1997 )

56 points, 4 lists, #3 Pac-Man

Studio: Warner Bros.
Script: Akiva Goldsman
Producer: Peter MacGregor-Scott
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger ( Dr. Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze), George Clooney ( Bruce Wayne/Batman ), Chris O'Donnell ( Dick Grayson/Robin ), Uma Thurman (  Dr Pamela Isley/ Poison Ivy ), Alicia Silverstone ( Barbara Wilson/Batgirl ), Michael Gough ( Alfred Pennyworth ), Pat Hingle ( Commissioner Gordon ), John Glover (  Dr. Jason Woodrue ), Elle Macpherson ( Julie Madson ), Vivica A Fox ( Mrs B Haven ), Vendela Kersibom ( Nora Fries ), Elizabeth Sanders ( Gossip Gerty ), Robert Swenson ( Bane )

TRAILER

It was the day after. I had not yet gone to see Batman & Robin.  I was waiting for it to screen at one of the theaters that still charged $3.50 for tickets, and not one of those $10 theaters. But most of my friends just had to see it on opening day. And the day after, one by one, all of them came to me to tell me how bad it was. Never before and never since has any movie had me spending an entire Saturday listening to criticism of the same movie over and over again for the entire day. It was as if a national tragedy had happened. It would be two decades before I actually got around to seeing what my friends were complaining about.

The two films Schumacher directed were a reboot of the series, but with the same continuity.  They both opened the same way. A close-up of Batman's hands  and utility belt as he removes various bat themed weapons from his arsenal and arms himself.  The full reveal of Batman as he walks stoically to the Batmobile. The mood is then shattered with  a joke. In Batman Forever it was a joke about Batman taking the Batmobile to a drive through restaurant.  In this film, as Batman and Robin walk stoically to the Batmobile, robin suddenly quips: "I want a car. Chicks dig the car." In response Batman turns to the camera and says to the audience "This is why Superman works alone."

This is followed by Batman and Robin's first encounter with Mr. Freeze, which was one of the best action scenes in a superhero film up to that point, which culminates with Freeze trying to escape in a rocket and Batman and Robin climbing into the rocker after him. This including what should have been an iconic moment in the Batman franchise; Batman and Robin using the doors from the rocket to air surf their way back down to the ground. Except that the audience is distracted from this amazing action scene by Freeze's constant cold themed puns. Which brings us to this movie's biggest problem.  It is a comedy.  And it is never funny. It was the same story with the previous Batman film, but no one seemed to notice.  Perhaps new Batman George Clooney made the difference.  Val Kilmer ignored the script and played Batman seriously.  Clooney recognized what the film was, and played Batman with a wink. He didn't ham up the one liners, or make them obvious.  But his demeanor for most of the film was "yea. This scene is corny."

The script was once again given to Akiva Goldsman, who in the previous Batman film had the task of rewriting an already existing script, to change it from dark and dramatic to a campy comedy. This time around Goldsman had the script all to himself.  But even with the advantage of a blank slate which would allow him to write a comedy instead of converting a drama to comedy, this film wasn't funny. Goldsman simply doesn't know how to write comedy. His idea of humor is Mr. Freeze forcing his henchmen to sing "I Am Cold Miser", and adding comedic "Boink" sound effects during fights.

Aside from this being a terrible comedy, fans of Batman, especially those of the animated series ,  were also incensed at how the characters were treated.  And not just Batman going from dark and brooding back to fun and campy. There was an unfortunate selection of villains.  Warner Bros. insistence of loading a Batman film up with multiple villains hit a record with this film with five. Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, Floronic Man and Scarecrow.  Although both Scarecrow and Florinic Man were only presented as their alter egos, Dr. Jason Woodrue and Johnathan Crane.  Fans were expecting the version from the Animated series, not the wisecracking Schwarzenegger version. Bane was another bad choice for a comedy. He had made his first appearance a few years earlier, in a historic issue where Bane defeats Batman in a fight by breaking his back and seemingly permanently paralyzing him. In the comics Bane was a genius with superhuman strength.  Goldsman shoehorned Bane into the movie by making him an unintelligent brute, who becomes the sole henchman of Poison Ivy. Exactly what was the point of having Bane in this movie if he wasn't going to be Bane? At least Poison Ivy was written pretty close to her comic book and animated character.  Unfortunately, Uma Thurman's over the top performance wasn't. And then there is Batgirl. Not the original Batgirl, but a new character called  Barbara Wilson, who after accidentally discovering the Batcave and realizing Bruce and Dick are Batman and Robin, immediately decides that she should also be a superhero. And without any superhero training at all, gets to be part of Batman's team, complete with her own Bat costume and Bat vehicle. ( despite the movie opening with Robin complaining that he didn't have his own vehicle.  ) So I guess the key to becoming a superhero is to stumble into the Batcave where a costume will be waiting for you?

I should also mention another character from the comic books who was in this movie. Julie Madison. Although we get no introduction to the character at all. She just shows up in Bruce Wayne's bed, and we are left to assume they had been a steady couple for some time. The good news is that Julie never figures out that Bruce is Batman, a first for a love interest in this Batman movie series. But like most of the characters Goldsman shoehorned into this film, is completely wasted.

Like I said, in my opinion this is nowhere as bad as Batman Forever. Maybe for fans of the comic book and animated series. But for anyone more interested in fast forwarding to the action, this movie was far superior.  So despite it being bad, it doesn't commit that ultimate sin of being boring.  Still, this will always be the ultimate  F$%K YOU! to the Batman fans.

[stethacantus]

( continued )

ORIGIN:
Batman Forever broke box office records, and became the highest grossing film of the year, which convinced Warner Bros.  executives that they were right all along, and Batman should be campy and comedic. Originally Schumacher had pushed for a darker take on Batman, even advocating for an origin story where we see Batman's first year. But the studio felt they had just covered Batman's Year One with Mask of the Phantasm. And besides, how do you have a light comedic Batman film that is fun for the whole family when it opens with a child watching his parents get murdered? Schumacher was lucky enough to get what little dark material he could into Batman Forever, mostly thanks to the script originally being written for Burton to direct, and then lightened up by Goldsman. By the time Schumacher was signed to direct Batman & Robin, he was fully committed to delivering the colorful campy comedy Warner Bros. wanted their Batman franchise to be.

The Warner Bros. executives weren't the only ones who wanted a family friendly Batman. According to Schumacher, executives from the toy companies sat in on scriptwriting meetings with their own suggestions. The toy companies had more creative control over the film than Schumacher did.  To add to this, Warner wanted the movie fast tracked for a 1997 summer release. This made it impossible for Val Kilmer to be recast as  Batman as it would have meant him giving up the opportunity to work with Marlon Brando in Island of Dr Morau. Although Kilmer would later claim he had no intention of returning to the role, and only used the scheduling conflict with the Brando film as an excuse.  He was replaced with Clooney, who Bob Kane himself approved of as he claimed Clooney was the only actor to play Batman up to that time to look like how he had envisioned Bruce Wayne.  Oddly, Kane also approved of both Schumacher's Batman movies.


Long before any script existed, it had been decided by Warner Bros. to introduce five specific D.C. villains and one hero in the next Batman film. Why so many when in the previous film Warner Bros. insisted on only two villains? Executives from Kener, the toy companies releasing the Batman & Robin line of merchandise, had creative input throughout the production, and at one point wanted a lot more characters for a fuller line of action figures. his was before the focus shifted to Bat Vehicles for the action figures to drive around in. Since Robin had been introduced in Batman Forever, it made sense to them that the next film should be called Batman & Robin and introduce Batgirl. And by that logic, the next film would have been called Batman, Robin and Batgirl and introduced Bathound, with the next film in the series after that being called Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Bathound while introducing Batmite. Never the less, it was understood that Batman 4 would center around the origin of Batgirl. Which sort of did happen.

At that point in time, there had been two Batgirls in D.C. Comics. In Detective Comics #233 published July 1956, Kathy Kane made her debut.  A circus acrobat who retired after inheriting a fortune,  she becomes inspired by Batman and decides to use her skills to fight crime herself as Batwoman. Meant as a one shot story, Kathy retires from crime fighting when Batman deduces her identity, and convinces her that criminals looking for revenge could easily do the same. However, D.C. was forced to retire Catwoman due to the Comic Code Authority rules decided, and decided Batwoman would make a suitable replacement, resulting in Kathy coming out of retirement to join Batman on the odd adventure.  April of 1961, in  Batman #169, Kathy was visited by her niece Bette Kane, who after snooping around, discovered her aunt was Batwoman, and then proceeded to use that information to blackmail Kathy into allowing her to be the sidekick Batgirl. At the time Batman and Robin were being accused by religious activists of being closeted homosexual lovers, so Robin needed a girlfriend of his own to quash those rumors. The original Batgirl and her aunt Batwoman were recurring characters until 1964 when Aunt Harriet was introduced.  Comic book critics were noting that the Batwoman and Batgirl relationships were platonic ( they had to be. CCA rules prohibited any form of sex, ) and they were just beards for Batman and Robin. And besides, readers complained about the intrusion of the Batwomen in what was originally an all male team. The new solution; kill off Alfred and have Dick Grayson's aunt replace him as the manor's caretaker. No chance Bruce and Dick would be up to hanky panky with an elderly white woman walking around the house. Batwoman and Batgirl were immediately abandoned for good.

The second Batgirl, and the one everyone remembers, was the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Barbara.  In 1966 ABC asked producer of the Batman television series, William Dozier, to create a spinoff series. Dozier had a habit of reviving characters for the television series, such as Catwoman and Alfred, which forced D.C. to revive in the comics as well. Since spinning Robin off into his own series was not an option, Dozier decided instead to bring back Batgirl as a sort of hybrid between the original Batwoman and Batgirl. Meetings were held with D.C., and the Barbara Gordon character was created who was to debut in the comics seven months before her television debut. Barbara Gordon's first appearance was in the story The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl  published January 1967 in  Detective Comics #359. Her television debut was September 14, 1967 in the season opener for Batman Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin, portrayed by actress Yvonne Craig. A pilot episode for a Batgirl series had been shot, with Batman and Robin as guest stars, and The Killer Moth as the villain. But by September ABCs enthusiasm towards the Batman series had waned as two back to back seasons airing in the same year, a feature film in between and ABC having Adam West guest star as Batman on several of their shows, the overexposure caused the ratings to plummet.  Not only didn't ABC want a spinoff series any more, but wanted to cut Batman from an hour a week ( split into two nights with a cliffhanger ) to one half hour episode a week.  But they loved Batgirl, and insisted she be in the third season. Meant to be in her own series, and stories now jammed into a half hour, Batgirl seemed more like an intrusion than an asset to the series. The series was canceled at the end of the season, but Batgirl remained part of the D.C. comics. That is until 1988 when The Joker decided to drop by Barbara Gordon's house and shoot her, paralyzing her for life. She later re-emerged as Oracle, a computer wiz and hacker who aided superheroes with tracking down villains. 

Neither Batgirl ended up being used in the movie. Instead, a new character was created, Barbara Wilson, a relation of Alfred. The official reason for changing the character, they wanted Alicia Silverstone to play Batgirl, and Pat Hingle, who played Commissioner Gordon, was too old to believably have a teenage daughter.  Although another theory emerged that D.C. didn't want to license Barbara Gordon as part of the Batman film series because that would prevent them from licensing her as part of the Birds of Prey to a different producer.

The five villains included Poison Ivy, who made her first appearance June 1966 in Batman #181. Pushing the boundaries of what the CCA would allow, Poison Ivy had the ability to make men fall in love with her. Allowable as long as she never actually had sex with them. While Dozier never used Poison Ivy in the television series, he did invent a character with similar abilities called The Siren. Poison Ivy would not become one of the popular villains until the FOX cartoon series, where by this time her plant controlling abilities was her signature power. Originally DC's plant controlling villain was Dr. Jason Woodrue, who debuted June 1962  in The Atom #1 where he went by the name Plant Master. By the 90s his new villain name was Floronic Man. In the movie Jason Woodrue is responsible for turning Pamela Isley into Poison Ivy, ( in the comics it was Professor Marce LeGrand who turned her into Ivy during a botched attempt to Poison her, ) but the movie never uses his plant villain alter identities, and instead portrays him as just another mad scientist who accidentally turns Pamela into Ivy when he shoves her into a shelf of random chemicals. Nor did it make sense that Woodrue created Bane in a Frankenstein style experiment. Bane was the newest of the Batman villains, having only debuted four years earlier in January of 1993 in the mini series Batman: Vengeance of  Bane. Specifically created to be the villain who would break Batman's spine a few months later, leading to the story line where Bruce Wayne becomes a paraplegic ( for a while ), Bane neither acted as an intellectual nor broke Batman's back in this film, but rather acted as Ivy's mindless henchman.

Another villain that would not have been considered in the Tim Burton films was Mr. Freeze. Just as with Poison Ivy, Mr Freeze had only grown in population due to his appearances on the animated Batman series, which didn't exist until 1992. He made his comic book debut as Mr. Zero in February of 1959 in Batman #121 as a one shot comedic villain who was a parody of The Flash villain Captain Cold who debuted two years earlier. The character was revived for the 1966 Batman television series, but renamed Mr. Freeze.  Actor George Sanders had agreed to be cast as a villain, but would only agree to do a single episode, so Dozier didn't want to cast him as one of the popular villains. Otto Preminger, and later Eli Wallach, would also star as Mr. Freeze for single episodes. His comic book counterpart, Mr. Zero, more or less vanished from the comics, as he was part of the gimmicky and comedic era of Batman that DC wanted forgotten. And besides, they already had Captain Cold. It was the Animated series that saw the tragic potential in the character, giving him the name Victor Fries, and introducing his wife on ice, Nora. Much of the animated canon was used to write the screen version of Freeze, and eventually became the canon of the comic books as well. Originally Patrick Stewart was the frontrunner for the role of Mr. Freeze. That was until a false rumor  made it to the papers that Schwarzenegger had been cast. Arnold denied the rumor, but added that he would have loved to play the role had it been offered to him. That was all Warner Bros. needed to hear, and within hours Stuart was out and Arnold was in. There are some who suspect Schumacher himself leaked the rumor as he wanted Schwarzenegger all along. Suspiciously, the script seemed tailor made for him, with Mr. Freeze making Schwarzenegger style quips throughout the film.


The fifth villain was Scarecrow... sort of. Burton had been wanting to use Scarecrow for a long time, and had intended him to be in Batman Forever. However, Schumacher decided to replace him with Two-Face, who was not to appear until at least the fourth film. Scarecrow was pushed back to the fourth film. However, with Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane and Floronic Man already packed into the same film, a decision was made to reduce Scarecrow to an emerging character. Just as they had done with Harvey Dent in the first film, Johnathan Crane was introduced as a minor character.  Johnathan Crane, a.k.a. The Scarecrow, made his comic book debut September 1941 in the third issue of Worlds Finest Comics. After appearing in a second story, the villain was permanently abandoned. It wasn't until the late 60s that the character was brought back, and with the updating of CCA rules in the 70s, became a regular Batman villain. According to Coolio, who played Johnathan Crane in Batman & Robin, he had agreed to do the cameo because he had been promised to be cast as Scarecrow in the next film. But as with the case with Billy Dee Williams and Patrick Stewart, just because you were offered a role as a Batman villain doesn't mean you will actually get it if a more popular celebrity wants the part. Supposedly Howard Stern was being courted by Warner Bros. executives to play the role after he joked on the air that he was interested in playing a villain in a superhero film, but thought the only villain he looked like was Scarecrow. 


Batman & Robin opened strong, earning nearly $43 million on it's first weekend, but then dropped off to $14 million the next weekend, then down to a few  thousand by it's third week. The historic box office drop off is usually cited as the reason Warner pulled the plug on the Batman film franchise.  However, the next installment was still in the works even after the financial meltdown and universal negative critical response of the first weekend.  There was even a brief showdown between Schumacher and Warner over the casting of Scarecrow.  Warner wanted Howard Stern. Schumacher already offered the role to Nicholas Cage, and told reporters Stern was a terrible actor and would never be in any of his films. On reading Schumacher's comments, Stern said he was never offered the role, but he would never work for Schumacher because he was a terrible director who ruined the Batman film franchise.  No explanation as to why Coolio, who played Johnathan Crane in Batman & Robin, was being recast. He would be the second African American actor to have a cameo role as the alter identity of an upcoming villain, only to be recast with a white actor.  One actor the studio refused to recast was Jack Nicholson.  The script for the next Batman film was to have Scarecrow shoot Batman with his fear gas, causing him to have a nightmare where the Joker came back to life and attack him, along with every villain from the previous films. Had Nicholson agreed to reprise his role as the Joker, Warner would have gone ahead with the next Batman film. Nicholson turning down the role was the final  straw, and Warner announced soon after that the franchise was canceled.


Reviews
"Noisy, campy, overproduced, it's abdicated all solemnity in pursuit of a boom-kaboom videogame esthetic." ~ Newsweek

"Schumacher piles on the action, but this is still the least satisfying entry in the series." ~  Radio Times

"Warner Brothers owns the Batman character; you would think they would have a vested interest in doing a good job of the films, but the films themselves prove that they don't -- and this film provides the most numbing, sickening, inane proof of all." ~ Netflix

"Schumacher's intention appears to have been to make something so awful, so corny, so campy, so preposterously bad that audiences would simply laugh at it. Sorry. Bad is bad." ~  Movie Metropolis

"A limp, excruciatingly shallow knockoff that leaves viewers cringing at the unavoidable one-liners." ~ Austin Chronicle

"Like a wounded yeti, Batman & Robin drags itself through icicle-heavy sets, dry-ice fog and choking jungle vines, before dying in a frozen heap." ~ Washington Post

[stethacantus]

#4

Son of the Mask ( 2005 )

56 points, 4 lists, #2 Pac-Man

Studio: New Line Cinema
Script: Lance Khazei
Producer: Erica Huggins, Scott Kroopf
Director: Lawrence Guterman
Cast: Jamie Kennedy ( Tim Avery/ The Mask ), Alan Cumming ( Loki ), Traylor Howard ( Tonya Avery ), Kal Penn ( Jorge ), Steven Wright  ( Daniel Moss ), Bob Hoskins ( Odin ), Ben Stein ( Dr. Arthur Neuman ), Ryan Falconer, Liam Falconer ( Alvey Avery )

TRAILER

   

Somewhere along the way the executives at New Line decided the sequel to The Mask should be a children's film. So the stars of the film are a baby and a little doggie. The plot: Odin has ordered Loki to Earth to find and retrieve the mask, and not to return to Asgard without it. Meanwhile the Mask is found by Otis, the cute little doggie owned by Tim and Tonya Avery, who brings it home with him. On the night of his companies Halloween office party, Tim finds the mask and puts it on, only to be turned into the green faced magic demon known as The Mask. He is a hit at the party, as everyone assumes Tim is wearing some sort of elaborate costume.  The owner of the animation studio Tim works for is so impressed with The Mask that he decides to turn the character into an animated television series. Meanwhile, The Mask returns home and has sex with Tonya.

Whoooah! Did I mention that this is supposed to be a kid's film? Because now you are stuck explaining to your 5 year old the next plot point.

After having sex with Tim when he was The Mask, Tonya becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a son with the same powers as The Mask. And now you have to explain to your kids why Tim is not the daddy of the cute baby on the front of the DVD box. But who knows. Maybe you never got that far. Because the film opens with Loki maiming and killing a bunch of people at a museum. There is a lot in this film that will frighten young children, or have you scrambling to explain the birds and the bees.

Okay, so we have established that this movie is inappropriate for young children.  And yet, it is also inappropriate for adults. You know that lazy poorly written humor found in films for children that relies on potty gags recycling the same overused broad humor? The stuff you may have found funny as a child, but realized was pure garbage when you saw the same kids film as an adult? This film is full of it. So you have something as bad as the worst film made for kids, but with plenty of stuff which would frighten them and a plot that is too adult for them to understand.

The night after the party, Tim removed the mask and Otis buries it in the yard. But when Baby Alvey begins manifesting his mask powers and the parents are oblivious  to it, Otis goes back into the yard, digs up the mask, puts it on, and for a good chunk of the movie it is Alvey acting like a possessed demon having a magic road runner cartoon style battle with Otis as The Mask Dog.  Actually, that is a poor description.  The Road Runner cartoons were funny. This wasn't.  All this magic attracts the attention of Loki, who kidnaps Alvey and demands the mask in exchange.  This leads to a magic battle between Tim wearing the mask and Loki, and an unnecessary and forced sappy ending.


ORIGIN:
The Mask made it's debut September 1987 with the title  The Masque in Dark Horse Presents #10. The mask that gave those who wore it magical powers went through many hosts throughout the comics history.  By 1989 Dark Horse Comics had a deal with New Line Cinema to turn The Mask into a film franchise. However, the original intent was for it to be a horror series with The Mask possessing people and turning them into Freddy Kruger type killers. As the concept for the franchise was developed, it gradually shifted into a superhero film. Jim Carrey became director Chuck Russell 's first choice for the lead after he has seen him perform in a standup club. But while the script for The Mask was written with Carrey in mind, New Line sent out offers to other more well known actors, including Robin Williams and Nicholas Cage. Carrey was signed just before Ace  Ventura: Pet Detective became a surprise box office hit. In turn Carrey fans made The Mask another hit.

Russell was not interested in making a sequel unless Carrey would play The Mask again. While the Stanley Ipkiss character would probably not return, having been written out at the end of the film and killed off in the comic book, the plan was to have other characters from the comic book find the mask, each played by a different actor or actress in subsequent films, and to turn into Jim Carrey as The Mask when they put the mask on.  Production on The Mask II steamrolled ahead. In issue #77 of Nintendo Power, dated October 1995, a contest was announced that Nintendo, in conjunction with THQ who were developing a Mask II game, a contest where the prize was a small role in the sequel.  The winner was 12 year old Ryan Runk of Arbutus Maryland. But Ryan never got to collect his prize. After completing the second Ace Ventura film, Jim Carrey decided never to do a sequel again.  Despite being offered $10 million by New Line, Carrey refused to be in the sequel.  Production was put on hold indefinitely.  THQ sent Ryan an apology letter along with an official Mask II crew jacket. Nintendo gave Ryan the option of waiting for New Line to make the sequel, or accepting a check for $5,000. At Ryan's request,  Nintendo also threw in a Pilot Wings 64 cartridge. In the final issue of Nintendo Power published in 2012, Nintendo published a full apology.  "To whoever won that contest, we are sorry."

Mask II was  officially dead by the close of 1996. Neither director Chuck Russell  nor New Line were interested in doing a sequel without Jim Carrey. New Line still owned the movie rights to The Mask, and held out hope that maybe Carrey would one day change his mind. With the success of X-Men,  New Line was once again interested with having a superhero franchise, and wanted a new Mask movie whether or not they could get Carrey to return.  There was originally an idea that the Son of The Mask would be the son of Ipkiss via one of the women he impregnated as The Mask. This eventually evolved into what ended up on the screen.


Reviews
'"In the five years I've been co-hosting this show, this is the closest I've ever come to walking out halfway through the film, and now that I look back on the experience, I wish I had." ~ Richard Roeper for At The Movies

"Joyless tedium" ~ Empire Magazine

"No doubt extensive market research shows that there's an audience out there for movies like Son Of The Mask, but it's too depressing to speculate who that might be." ~ AV Club

"Kids aren't going to get the sexual innuendo, and not many adults will enjoy the blast of urine and splatters of snot and vomit." ~ Boston Phoenix

"Son of the Mask is an irredeemable mess, a computer-animated Punch and Judy show without wit, heart or a single memorable performance." ~ New York Times

[stethacantus]

#3

Catwoman ( 2004 )

58 points, 3 lists, #1 Pac-Man

Studio: Warner Bros.
Script: John Brancato, Michael Ferris, John Rogers
Producer: Denis Di Novi, Edward L. McDonnell
Director: Pitof
Cast: Halle Berry ( Patience Phillips/catwoman ), Benjamine Bratt ( Detective Tom Lone ),  Sharon Stone ( Laurel Hedare ), Lambert Wilson ( George Hedare ), Frances Conroy ( Ophelia Powers ), Alex Borstine ( Sally ), Michael Massee ( Armando ), Byron Mann ( Wesley ), Alex Cooper ( Gloria Ojeda ), Kim Smith ( Drina ), Peter Wingfield ( Dr. Ivan Stavicky ), Berend Mckenzie ( Lance )

TRAILER

Every now and then you get a movie that really should not exist at all. Clue, The Joy of Sex and  Battleship are just some examples of bad films based on properties that never called for movies being based on them. Films where you wonder why the hell the studio green lit their existence.  Catwoman is one of those films. A spin off of  the cancelled Batman franchise featuring one of his villains. Except that this isn't even the Catwoman from Batman, and this film has nothing to do with Batman whatsoever. The protagonist is Patience Phillips, a mousey employee of a cosmetic company. One night while working late, she overhears a conversation between Laurel Hedare, a former model who is one of the co-owners of the company, and the scientist who developed their latest anti-aging cream. It turns out the cream is toxic, and Laurel wants this covered up so she can continue selling the cream. Realizing Patience has overheard their conversation, Laurel orders goons to chase her, and she ends up falling in the river and drowning. After Patience's body washes up on the shore, a group of cats surround her. A rather unconvincing CGI cat scampers onto her body and breathing it's cat breath onto her, causes her to revive from death. Patience does not just realize she is alive, but that she has acquired cat like powers. This includes being able to use a whip, which makes no sense as cats do not have hands, and therefore can not use a whip. Pounce on it like a toy maybe, but not pick one up and use it.  Something else cats are not known for is stealing jewelry.  Yet somehow when Patience  becomes her alter ego Catwoman, she goes on stealing sprees.

Similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Patience wakes up the next morning with little to no memory of what she had done the night before, returning what she had stolen anonymously in a paper bag with the words sorry written on it. Wanting to figure out what has happened to her, she tracks down the owner of the CGI cat, who happens to be an eccentric female history professor who specializes in the history of Cartwomen. She tells Patience that there have been Catwomen going back to ancient Egypt, in each case a dead woman brought back to life by cats and given cat abilities.  To prove her point, she tosses catnip at Patience who goes nuts over it.  So Patience has little choice but to jump around the city as an unconvincing CGI character wearing a leather pants  and bra costume ( so much for this being a woman empowering movie ), and occasionally beating up criminals who are trying to steal the same booty she wants to steal. Laurel Hedare decides she wants to murder her husband who is the other co-owner of the cosmetic company, and has Catwoman framed for it. The police put out an APB for Catwoman, and Patience is immediately caught, because through the whole film she had been dating a police detective who noticed all her peculiar cat like tics, and becoming suspicious of her, has her DNA compared to the recovered DNA of Catwoman. Patience is put in Jail, but turns CGI and easily slips between the bars, which apparently is something cats can do. Donning he catwoman costume, which apparently the cops never bothered to gather as evidence, she confronts Laurel, who's skin has been turned invulnerable by the toxic youth cream. They have a climatic fight which ends  with Laurel plunging out a window to her death, and somehow Catwoman being cleared of Laure's husbands murder. Patience decides to dump her detective boyfriend, because their relationship could never work, and heads off in her Catwoman costume on the rooftops towards a CGI moon, cracking her whip at nothing.


ORIGIN:
A character called The Cat first appeared May 1940 in Batman #1.  For the past year Batman had been a backup feature in Detective Comics, and DC decide to give him his own comic book. Batman #1 included the full origin of Batman and the first appearance of The Joker. And while Batman now had his own comic book with multiple Batman stories, he and Robin continued to appear as a backup feature in Detective Comics for years, until one day they took over that book as well. Selina Kyle, a.k.a. The Cat, was created to be a love interest of Batman. A criminal with a pure heart who Batman would constantly attempt to redeem throughout their history together. By the early 50s she  had adopted the name Catwoman and a cat mask she wore while burglaring. Batman finally convinced her to give up crime, and for about a year she was an ally who helped him on missions. However in 1954 she returned to a life of crime. Shortly after, the adoption of the Comic Code meant D.C. could no longer have sexy woman characters, nor allow criminals to get away with their crimes, which was a problem as Batman constantly allowed Catwoman to escape. The character was officially abandoned in September of 1954.

In 1966 the producers of the Batman television series wanted to include a female villain, which by the 60s were absent from Batman comics. So digging back into Batman's past, asked to license Catwoman. In response, D.C. reintroduced Catwoman to the comic books. Producer William Dozier decided his version of Catwoman would fully adopt a cat persona, comit cat themed crimes, and steal only objects related to cats. As with most of  the other villains on the show, Catwoman no longer had an alter identity. Nor did she have a romantic relationship with Batman ( although in the 1966 Batman movie, Catwoman adopts a fake alter identity as Russian reporter Kitayna Ireyna Tatanya Kerenska Alisof, or Mrs. Kitka for short, and seduces Bruce Wayne in order to have him kidnaped as bait to catch Batman. ) Catwoman was a full time criminal without a pure heart who makes several attempts to murder Batman. It was this persona, along with the catsuit costume Dozier chose his Catwomen to wear, that began appearing in the comic books. Perhaps as response for Dozier needing female villains, D.C. created Poison Ivy. However, Dozier never used her for the Batman series, preferring to create his own female Batman villains.

Catwoman was chosen for the second Tim Burton Batman movie specifically because she was one of the popular characters from the '66 television series. The comic books had been revisiting the romantic tension between Batman and Catwoman in the comic books, which Burton used in Batman Returns, although only going as far as having Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle becoming a romantic couple without knowing each others secret identity until the final act of the film. As with Joker and Penguin, Catwoman was to have died, but Burton changed the ending to suggest she had survived. Despite being mortally shot, electrocuted and disappearing in an explosion, a shadowy figure that may or may not be Catwoman looks up at the Bat Signal as the movie ends. Burton was so enamored by Michelle Pfeiffer's performance as Catwoman that he wanted to make a spinoff Catwoman movie. Warner Bros. agreed to the spinoff, but most likely to occupy Burton enough to drop directing the third Batman film. Warner kept delaying production on the Catwoman movie, as it simply did not fit into their rebooted family friendly Batman franchise.  Eventually Pfeiffer  dropped out, after which Burton lost interest. Amazingly the project wasn't dead, with the studio signing Ashley Judd as Catwoman in 2001.  However, the Catwoman script had been rewritten from the one Daniel Waters had written for Burton, to one that was more in tune with the Schumacher Batman films. And after Batman & Robin, Warner Bros. decided  that they no longer wanted their Batman movies to be like that.  As studio executives turned down script rewrite after script rewrite, Judd's contract ran out and she dropped out. The movie was considered dead.

However, a series of events resurrected it. One was  the Superman vs Batman film which had been in development since 1999.  Inspired by the Dark Knight graphic novel, it was to be a dark movie  feature Batman and Superman at the ends of their careers, having a battle that was to have killed either one or both of them. However, Warner executives fell for a script called Superman Flyby in which would be a direct sequel to Superman II where Superman III and Superman IV: A Quest For Peace never happened. They loved the idea of reviving the Superman franchise, and decided to cancel the movie that was going to end both the Batman and Superman franchises. Suddenly there was a new urgency for a Batman movie. However, since no script was completed for the fifth Batman film that was to follow Batman & Robin, all they had was one of the many Catwoman rewrites. Warner decided to go forward with it, but only if in the next few weeks they could sign an A list actress as the star.  And they lucked out with Academy Award winner Halle Berry. Event #2. Halle had played agent Jinx Johnson in the Bond film Die Another Day and had agreed with Barbara Broccoli to return as Jinx in a spin off series that would have made her the equivalent of the female James Bond. However, M.G.M. suddenly decided to cancel the planned series just before filming of the first instalment was to commence, leaving Berry with a huge hole in her schedule and looking for a prominent film project to fill it. It was perfect timing. Halle Berry needed a film, and Warner Bros. just happened to have one. The script was another story. As during it's development Warner Bros. could not decide between a campy comedy or dark movie, it ended up an uneven hybrid of both. And since they needed to rush the movie into production immediately, there was no time for a proper rewrite. The character of Seline Kyle had ben written out shortly after Michelle Pfeiffer was replaced with Ashley Judd, as Warner still wanted the film to tie into the ongoing Batman franchise, and despite multiple castings of Batman, felt a recasting of Catwoman could only be explained  by her being a different character. Later rewrites distanced Catwoman from the Batman franchise after the disaster of Batman & Robin. So by the time this movie was being made, it had no connection whatsoever with Batman. A rewritten script, perhaps including Batman, or at least Gotham City, and removing the comedy, could have saved this film. But there was neither time for that, nor enough time for any good CGI effects.  it was rushed into existence, and is what it is.


Reviews
"Another hundred million dollars down the drain."  ~ New Yorker

"I loved basketball more than anything in the world until I watched the basketball scene in Catwoman. Now I hate basketball." ~ Mad About Movies Podcast

"Catwoman's director, a visual-effects specialist named Pitof, is not contained by the rules of filmmaking. Scenes that make sense? Nonsense. Characters with inner lives? Utterly passe." ~ Wall Street Journal

"I'm pretty sure an actual cat could have made a better film." ~ Big Picture Big Sound

[stethacantus]

#2

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III( 1993 )

64 points, 4 lists, #5 RVR II

Studio: New Line Cinema/Golden Harvest
Script: Stuart Gillard
Producer: David Chan, Kim Dawson, Thomas K Gray
Director: Stuart Gillard
Cast: Paige Turco ( April O'Neil ), Mark Caso/Brian Touchi ( Leonardo ), Jim Raposa/Corey Feldman ( Donatello ), Mat Hill/Tim Kelleher ( Raphael ), David Fraser/Robbie Rist ( Michelangelo ), James Murray ( voice of Splinter ), Elias Koteas ( Casey Jones ), Stuart Wilson ( Walker ), John Aylward ( Niels ) , Sab Simono ( Lord Norinaga ), Vivian Wu ( Mitsu ), Henry Hayashi ( Kenshin ), Travis A. Moon ( Yoshi )

TRAILER

Okay. So you have a superhero franchise that is based on a line of toys and the animated series designed to promote those toys, and millions of fans of both the toys and cartoons who want more of the toys adapted to the big screen.  So far the only villains used in the films were Shredder and the Foot Clan. You still have a lot more stories and a lot more villains from both the animated series and the comic book to get to.  So what do you do? You ignore the wads of source material, send your turtles back in time, and have them fight two villains you made up just for this film. Okay, now that you have crushed the expectations of 12 year old TMNT fans everywhere, slash the budget on the turtle costumes and effects, cut the number of fight scenes, add the worst puns and one liners you can think of and BAM! You have killed a superhero franchise off at the third film.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films of the 90s were bad. But the first two films had some nice fight choreography and decent action scenes to make up for  the bad jokes and dull stretches. And even though the costumes  didn't really look like the cartoon and barely like turtles, the mechanics in the turtle's faces that allowed them to talk and show expressions was impressive, thanks to the puppeteers at the Henson Creature Shop. But for this film, New Line decided to use the cheaper All Effects Company, who's turtle  costumes are a major step down. They were longer able to replicate the lip movements needed to replicate the turtles talking, or display a wide range of emotions. And they may have even been the reason why the turtles do far less fighting in this film than the past two films. Worse than the turtle costumes is the splinter puppet, which in this film needs to stand behind props, such as standing behind a window that for no reason is down in the sewer, in order  to conceal it's bottom half. Henson had a splinter puppet that stood out in the open, and even had a brief fight with Shredder.

April O'Neil has found a lantern at a flea market and buys if for the Turtles as a gift. But no sooner does she bring it into their sewer lair that it activates and sends her back in time to Japan, having her switch places with a Japanese prince who ends up in the sewer in her place. We find out the lantern is magic and caused April and the prince to switch places through space and time because both were holding it aloft. So basically there was a magic lantern which passed from one owner to another for hundreds of years and ended up dumped at a flea market, and in all that time only April and the prince held it aloft? So there is only one thing to do. The Turtles must all, at the same time, hold the lantern aloft themselves, and hope four people who are also in Japan in the exact same year as when April arrived there, also hold the lantern aloft at the same time. Plot convenience, four of the prince's attendants did hold the lantern aloft shortly after April switched places with him, and the turtles end up in feudal Japan.  Fortunately for both April and the turtles, this was a brief period in Japanese history where everyone spoke English instead of Japanese.

Once in Japan, the film doesn't improve. Where you would think that being in the land of Samurais and real ninjas that the Turtles would get into many more fights than the previous films. But the fights in this film are few, and usually of the variety where weapons are aimed not at the opponent, but to a safe point above each other's head. Villain #1 is Lord Norinaga, the evil and cruel warlord who rules over the fief April was transported to. Villain #2 is Walker, a European arms dealer and his henchmen who wants to sell cannons to Norinaga, and help him put down a rebellion. Of course the turtles end up fighting both of them. Neither villain is from the TMNT animated series or comic books. They are both what is known as stock villains, neither which belongs in a TMNT film. The plot, aside from the time travel, is what is known as formula. The turtles end up defeating both enemies, but by that time who cares. The producers of this film had hundreds of stories from the comic books and animated cartoons to pull from, and instead they came up with this?


ORIGIN:
The studio for the first film was Golden Harvest, although more as a financer and production company as none of the movie was shot at their Hong Kong studios, but in rented studios in North Carolina with a few outdoor scenes shot in New York City. New Line was only the distributor,  signing on as distributor after most of the scenes had been shot. By the third film New Line Cinema had taken over primary production. No further attempt was made to license additional characters from the comics. Golden Harvest, still the primary financer, called for the film to take place in Japan. The reason for this: Golden Harvest wanted the film distributed in Japan.  The country was their biggest market for their martial arts films, but had not taken the two previous TMNT films. It was New Line that came up with the time travel concept. But it made so little  money in the American box office that no Japanese distributor wanted it, and it ended up never being distributed to theaters in Japan.


Reviews
"The movie takes an excessively long time to cover short narrative ground, and the plot is muddled enough to confuse the target audience." ~ Miami Herald

"The music is overbearing, the camera and lighting too bright and obvious, and the production design borders on the cheesy. Performances range from competent to just plain embarrassing." ~ Variety

"This movie sucked when I was 12 and it sucks now." ~ Letterboxd

"By the film's final reel, there was a feeling sweeping through the auditorium that even the youngest children there would be glad when it was over." ~ Desert News

[stethacantus]

#1

Howard the Duck ( 1986 )

78 points, All 5 lists, #1 RVR II

Studio: Universal
Script: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Producer: Gloria Katz
Director: Willard Huyck
Cast: Chip Zien ( Howard the Duck voice ), Ed Gale ( Howard the Duck performer ), Lea Thompson ( Beverly Switzler ), Tim Robbins ( Phil Blumburtt ), Jeffrey Jones ( Dr. Walter Jenning ), David Paymer ( Larry ), Paul Guilfoyle ( Lieutenant Weller ), Dominique Davalos (  Cal, bass guitarist for Cherry Bomb ), Holly Robinson ( K.C., keytarist for Cherry Bomb ), Liz Sagal (  Ronette, drummer for Cherry Bomb  ), Tommy Seerdlow ( Ginger Moss ), Richard Edson ( Ritchie ), Miles Chapin ( Carter )

TRAILER

They blamed it on the duck costume.  But it was obviously the script.  Somewhere between realizing the duck costume would never work and Universal insisting they deliver a script that was E.T. with a spectacular special effects ending, Huyck and Katz realized the film Universal wanted would never work, and tried to cover it up by delivering a final script that was deliberately odd in order to make Howard the Duck a cult film. You can see one of those odd additions to the script in the beginning of the film. As Howard is being pulled through the multiverse, a narrator does the following voice over:

The cosmos. Countless worlds upon worlds. Worlds without end. In these galaxies, every possible reality exists. And what is reality on any one world, is mere fantasy on all others.  Here all is real and all is illusion.  What is...what was...and what will be starts with the words: In the beginning, there was Howard the Duck.

...at which the words Howard The Duck explode onto the screen.  A reasonable explanation of the nexus of reality capped off with a campy meta joke. Attempting to turn this movie into a cult film only made it worse.  The equivalent of trying to save a sinking boat by drilling holes in the bottom so the water drains out.

The movie opens with Howard in his apartment on Duckworld. It should be pointed out that Duckworld was a creation of writer Bill Mantlo who took over writing the Howard the Duck comic book when Howard's creator Steve Gerber was fired. Prior to that it was implied that Howard came from a world with anthropomorphic animals of all kinds.

While reading a copy of Playduck, Howard's armchair suddenly levitates and crashes through the apartment wall with Howard in it. He passes through a neighbor's apartment with a female duck taking a bath, AND SHE HAS TITS! Covered with feathers, yet with two nipples poking out. But aren't nipples only found on mammals? The armchair takes Howard up into the sky, through a vortex and into the multiverse, and eventually dropping him in Cleveland on Earth. There he sees a girl being mugged and deflects the mugger using Quack-fu ( at least they used something from the Gerber comics. ) The girl introduces herself as Beverly Switzler, but unlike the character she is based on in the comic book who was an aspiring model, this Beverly is the lead singer of the all girl rock band Cherry Bomb, who Howard ends up managing.

Most of the first half of the film has Howard trying to adjust to living on Earth, and the second half has him fighting a man possessed by an alien being called The Dark Overlord. So basically a fish out of water comedy for the first half of the film, and a special effects extravaganza for the second half. At no point does this film bother with the style of humor the book was known for. Instead we get slapstick, which isn't done well as the actor playing Howard is in a cumbersome duck costume, and annoying puns. On top of this all are occasional gags that seem to be geared towards the Midnight Movie crowd. So basically the first half is an awful comedy. If you can last to the second half of the film, it is no longer a comedy, but an action adventure  fantasy. This part is actually pretty good.  But not worth sitting through the first half of the film to get to it. For fans of the comic book, especially fans of Steve Gerber's original run, the film is insulting on top of being bad.

ORIGIN:
Howard made his debut December 1973 in issue #19 of Adventures Into Fear. Originally a book that reprinted short science fiction stories and pre-Comic Code horror stories from the 50s, beginning with issue #10 the book was used to publish new Man-Thing stories.  Assigned to the book was a talented freelance writer named Steve Gerber. Steve had introduced a wild story arc where the demon, Thog the Nether Spawn, had shifted the cosmic axis, throwing open a doorway to other dimensions called The Nexus of All Realities. Gerber had planned for the story to conclude with issue #20, but was then told that Adventures Into Fear #19 would be the last with Man-Thing, and beginning with issue #20 the book would be the home of Morbius, the Living Vampire.  Gerber was told not to worry, as Marvel planned to give Man-Thing his own book where his story arc would conclude in the first issue.

Feeling like Marvel could easily assign the new Man-Thing series to one of their own writers, and his carefully crafted saga with Thog could end up resolved by someone else, Gerber went a little nuts writing issue #19, with several monsters and demons coming through the Nexus and attacking a construction site. As a joke, he wrote in that one of the creatures who walked onto the site was a talking anthropomorphic duck dressed in a suit and smoking a cigar. At that time, Marvel did not have any anthropomorphic characters in their superhero universe, and more or less forbade their use. Gerber had expected his editor Roy Thomas to find the duck when he submitted the script and cross it out.  But for whatever reason, Thomas missed it. It wasn't until the artist drawing the issue wrote to Gerber with questions on how the duck was to be drawn that he realized he was in big trouble.  It was at the point in the book's production that it was too late to change the script. The only choices left were: A] miss the publishing deadline, or  B] reprint more of the early stories in the issue, or C] publish the issue with the duck in it.

Thinking he was as good as fired, Gerber took the script to the editor's office and admitted to him that he had slipped a duck into the script.  To his surprise, Thomas laughed when he read it. He then told Gerber that the duck would need to be killed off in issue #1 of Man-Thing. By this time the duck had a name: Howard. The issue had Man-Thing and his allies Korrek the warrior, Dakimh the Enchanter and Dakimh's apprentice Jennifer Kale, climbing enchanted floating steps that cross through the Nexus, on their way to battle Thog. Howard joins the group, but while climbing the steps, slips off and falls into the Nexus, where Dakimh pronounces Howard doomed. After the first issue of Man-Thing was published, Marvel was deluged with complaints from readers, demanding they bring Howard back to life. It was eventually  decided that, anthropomorphic or not, Gerber would write a stand alone story with Howard where he survives his plunge into the Nexus. Published in Giant Sized Man-Thing #4, two years after Gerber had killed him. ( Yes, the Comic Code Authority allowed a comic book with that title to be published.  ) The story, which had Howard landing in Cleveland and battling a genetically transformed villain called Man-Frog, got a lot of positive response.  So a second stand alone comic was written for Giant Sized Man-Thing #5 where Howard battles Hell-Cow. With the positive response once again overwhelmingly positive, Marvel decide to give Howard his own book, which they were legally obligated to ask Gerber to write.

Because he was a freelance writer who didn't work for Marvel, he owned the character Howard the Duck. He had invented the character, and Marvel had disowned it. A decision they began to regret as the Howard the Duck became one of Marvel's top selling comic books. That was when the plot to steal Howard was hatched.  Marvel offered Gerber the coveted job of editor. It meant steady work, and being paid a salary instead of by the page of each book he wrote.  What Gerber didn't realize was by becoming an employee of Marvel, he ceded the rights to all the characters he wrote for them.

Around the same time, Marvel was negotiating a deal between 20th Century Fox and up and coming director George Lucas. The studio was making a space opera called Star Wars which they wanted to promote by releasing a comic book adaptation first. Since Marvel wanted the option to continue publishing issues of  Star Wars comics after they completed the adaptation, Lucas demanded a clause that not only prevented them from using the characters in any other book, but required Marvel to submit the plot for each new Star Wars comic for his approval.  The movie was a phenomenal hit, and Marvel continued publishing the comic. Then in 1978 Lucas learn that Marvel was publishing what appeared to be an unauthorized parody of Star Wars. It turned out to be a two issue arc of Howard the Duck, which by that time had abandoned it's horror roots and began doing  parodies of popular culture.  For the first time George Lucas was aware of Howard the Duck.

While Lucas ended up not objecting to the Star Wars parody, another company did object to Marvel parodying their property.  Finally realizing that Howard the Duck began as a parody of Donald Duck, Disney threatened Marvel with a lawsuit if they did not cease publishing the character.  Marvel did not want to discontinue a best selling book, so were prepared to go to war with Disney. Eventually both companies settled out of court when Marvel agreed to redesign Howard so he no longer resembled Donald. A big part of that redesign, agreeing that from that time forward Howard would wear pants. It was during these legal negotiations that Marvel completed their theft of the character from Gerber. He was fired in late 1978 for continuously missing writing deadlines, although Gerber claimed he was fired over his objection to Marvel wanting to turn the comic book into an adult black and white magazine.  The magazine was eventually published, but without Gerber as the writer, only lasted nine issues. In 1980 Gerber sued Marvel over the rights to Howard the Duck. The suit was eventually settled out of court with Gerber ceding ownership of all the characters he created for Marvel as Marvel characters, but limiting how Marvel could use the character, giving Gerber the credit as it's creator whenever it was used, and presumably a cut of any profits the character made.

With the lawsuit settled, Marvel was free to license Howard for motion pictures.  And George Lucas had been interested in making a Howard the Duck animated movie ever since he began reading the comic books.  Universe, who had passed on Star  Wars and regretted it, was eager to greenlight any film Lucas was connected to, and optioned the film rights to Howard. And it is at this point the history of the Howard the Duck movie gets blurry, as everyone involved has a different story as to who was at fault, and it is  never them. Perhaps the most entertaining thing about Howard the Duck was the boardroom fistfight at Universal between Sidney Sheinberg and Frank Price over which one greenlit the film.

Here is a breakdown of what is fact. From the start Lucas wanted his friends from film school, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, to helm the film, which for years they had planned to be animated, partially because an anthropomorphic character in a superhero style world did not translate out of cartoons, but mostly because the technology to recreate an anthropomorphic character in a live action film didn't exist. Lucas claimed a contractual obligation forced him into delivering a live action film.  Universal wanted specific elements in the film, notably having Beverly being the lead singer of a rock band to sell a soundtrack album, and for it to have a spectacular effects driven third act.  Much of the changes  they wanted to the script was to make Howard a bit more like E.T. Lucas had agreed to a live action version mostly because he had been assured a duck costume could be built that looked like a duck. However, the puppetry gizmos neede to work Howard's face meant Howard's head would be above the head of the dwarf actually wearing the duck costume.  To make matters worse, Universal wanted to avoid any possible lawsuit with Disney, so a Disney lawyer was brought in to approve of the final costume design. He reportedly rejected a bunch of the proposed designs, ultimately agreeing to a design that hardly looked like a duck. Both Huyck and Katz take full responsibility for changing Howard's personality from rude and obnoxious, to pleasant and nice so he would appeal to a wider audience.  But there is a disagreement over how much Steve Gerber contributed to the film. Lucas had hired him as a consultant.  Katz and Huyck claimed to have consulted him all the time. Gerber claimed they barely spoke with him, ignored the suggestions he made, and he was only on the set once during filming. It has been rumored that Lucas and company deliberately made Howard the Duck bad, both as retribution to Marvel for stealing Howard from his creator, and for a past grievance with Universal.  It's failure did result in top Universal executives fired or forced to resign, and over at Marvel, a planned revival of the character once the movie became a hit, was canceled.  So if this was an act of sabotage, job well done.


Reviews
"It's wildly overproduced and grievously underwritten: it's basically a duck Joke that cost as much as a small hospital" ~ Baltimore Sun

"Hey, what can I say? I hate this film." ~ Winningpeg Free Press

"Is audience abuse a federal crime? If not, why not?" ~ New York Daily News

"It's one of the worst movies ever made, but without the energy of the kind of bad movies that are fun to watch." ~ Boston Globe

"As you watch "Howard the Duck," you get the vivid sensation that you're watching not a movie, but a pile of money being poured down the drain." ~ Washington Post

[stethacantus]

And that was the Worst Superhero Movie LoC. Would have preferred a lot more lists to break those damn ties and include a few movies that should have been on this list, but I guess more people like voting for a topic than submitting a list for it. Before I end this, let's look at the films that somehow didn't make this list.

In alphabetical order, we begin with the Blaxploitation drama Abar, The First Black Superman ( 1977 ) which is just dull, and makes you wait until the very end of the film for Abar to get any powers. Barb Wire ( 1996 ) just barely counts as a superhero movie as whoever wrote the script stripped away the source material where in the comic book Barb lived in an alternate reality with superheroes, kept the only part of the book where her world was post apocalyptic, then set it in the future where Barb is reduced to bounty hunter. Universally hated by everyone who has seen it, this movie at least has the decency to show Pamela Anderson nude in the opening credits so there is no need to watch any more of the film, unless you want to fast forward to the other nude scenes with Pam. The more recently released Bloodshot ( 2020 ) was released when most theaters were closed due to the pandemic. What a way to burry a film. Also not doing well with critics was the film adaption of Bulletproof Monk ( 2003 ), a film which makes most worst superhero film lists, de[pending on if the writers of that list remembered that it was supposed to be a superhero film.   1990's Captain America was so bad that no distributor would touch it, so it went direct to video. Also getting the direct to video treatment was The Punisher ( 1989 ). In fact none of the three Punisher films made this list. Some other direct to video films not making the LoC were the Darkman sequels, Darkman II: The Return of Durant ( 1995 ), because why not bring back the one character Darkman completely destroyed in the first film, and  Darkman III: Die Darkman Die  ( 1996 ). Also avoiding this LoC are the two Crow direct to video sequels Crow: Salvation ( 2000 ) and  Crow: Wicked Prayer (  2005 ). Perhaps Doctor Mordrid ( 1992  ) would have mad someone's list had they seen it on MST3K, and had known it was actually a Doctor Strange film with the name changed because the production company lost the rights to Doctor Strange midway through production. The Guyver ( 1991 ) missed the list.  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ( 2003 ) took classic monsters and old pulp heroes and tried to turn them into The Avengers. The Lone Ranger ( 2013 ) did not make the LoC, perhaps because the Lone Ranger character is one that can marginally be called a superhero. Which is probably why The Green Hornet ( 2011 ), The Phantom ( 1996 ), The Shadow ( 1994 ) and Zorro, The Gay Blade  (1981 ) didn't make anyone's lists. I did leave wiggle room in the rules so such characters could be included. Or perhaps, like me, no one thought these films were that bad. The New Mutants ( 2020 ) was probably too new to make this list. Another film barely anyone had seen thanks to the pandemic. The Return of Swamp Thing  ( 1989 ) was the sequel to the just barely tolerable first movie with a cult following. Once again, another movie that brings back a villain we saw completely killed in the first movie. On top of that, change the tone to campy comedy and cut the budget. Star Kid ( 1997 ) didn't make the LoC, nor did the X-Men parody The Specials ( 2000 ). Who would have thought so many would not like a superhero film where the superheroes do nothing for the entire run time? Tank Girl ( 1995 ) is one of those films you won't admit you didn't like because it is pop-art... or one of those films you specifically hate because it is pop-art. And  Zoom: Academy for Superheroes ( 2006 ) dodged this list as well.

A lot of truly awful independent and obscure films escaped this list. I did my part to include the TomCat films, but with only 25 slots on my list and  somewhere around 40 films I wanted on that list, I needed to self disqualify three of them.    Iron Soldier ( 2010 ) is the only TomCat release that comes close to being watchable. It has better production than usual, an actual actor in the cast ( Joe Estevez ), and I thing they actually may have written a second draft for the script. But while this is supposed to be a superhero film, and even says so on the box, it is about an actual robot, so I disqualified it.   Disqualified Metal Man because he doesn't actually use the Metal Man armor to do superhero stuff,   and The Black Knight Rises ( 2009 ) because TomCat appears to have pulled it off the market prior to it's American release.  The only physical copies I can confirm exist  are German releases and a Hong Kong release ( and the Hong Kong release was pulled from shelves ). There was a Russian promotional poster, but I have found no evidence it ever got a Russian release of any kind. Amazon Prime lists it as a video rental, but the link says "This movie is no longer available." So with no official release I decided to self disqualify it to make room on my 25 list. The same reason I omitted Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, and I am glad someone else had it on their list.    Nightveil Media  released a bunch of ultra low budget superhero films produced by AC Comics. Those movies are bad, but decided to give them a pass as they were marketed directly to AC Comics fans who seemed to enjoy them. I did not expect anyone to have any of these movies on their lists as you really need to scour the direct to video market to find them, or even know they exist. Other direct to video films you may never have heard about include  Bunny Whipped ( 2007 ) which was shot on film but edited on video with transitional cartoons added that looked as if they were drawn on Windows Paint. It is a film about something, and I am not sue what. The title indicates it was originally about the protagonists bunny obsessed girlfriend who wants him to rescue a test rabbit from a lab, but tat was reduced to a sub, sub plot of just a few lines. Instead, the protagonist sees a report of a crime in the news and decides to become a superhero, beating up a mugger in a thrown together superhero costume in the very next scene. I suppose you can say most of the film is about the hero "Whip Man" fighting a gangsta rapper villain, but the final confrontation has the protagonist as his alter identity getting evidence against the rapper with a concealed wire.  Pizza Man ( 2011 )  turned Frankie Muniz into a pizza themed superhero, which is a funny as it sounds. Actually, less funny than it sounds as the writers never bothered to give him any pizza related powers. There was other serial killer superhero film, Hectic Knife ( 2016 ) which got a direct to video release by Troma. And two films I am currently watching, Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heros  ( 2004 ) and Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel (  2016 ), both which, aside from screenings at  film festivals, had a direct to video release. All bad films, but were not considered for my 25 list as I locked it months ago and only found out these films existed since then. I am sure there are a lot more out there I don't know about yet. There is a reason they are called "obscure".  I should also mention the Asylum mockbusters made to cash in on the MCU and DCEU. Asylum being the studio that brought you Sharknado and all the other really bad SyFy  exclusive movies. They began with  Almighty Thor (  2011 ) which is as fun as watching Thor walk around an abandoned industrial park for 90 minutes. Avengers Grimm ( 2015 ) which is just like the Avengers if they had Snow White, Cinderella and Littel Red Riding Hood as members instead of superheroes, and they spent the 90 minutes walking around an abandoned industrial park. Sinister Squad ( 2016 ) which is just like the Suicide Squad, if Alice from Wonderland ran it instead of Amanda Waller, and they used villains from story books instead of from D.C. Comics, and they spent the entire 90 minutes in the same abandoned factory, and  Avengers Grimm: Time War (  2018  ) if Alice from Wonderland was now in charge of the Avengers Grimm, and you get the rest, industrial park.

Also not making the list were a lot of films that seem to have mixed reviews among those who have seen them, with some loving them and others hating them. The Zack Snyder DCEU films are a good example of these films, but there were some others I had half expected to be n someone's top bottom 25 list.  These included Blankman ( 1994 ), Constantine  ( 2005 ), The Dark Knight Rises ( 2012 ), Handcock ( 2008 ), Kick-Ass 2 (  2013 ),  My Super Ex-Girlfriend ( 2006 ), Superhero Movie ( 2008 ),  Superman Returns ( 2006 ), Mystery Men ( 1999 ),  Orgazmo ( 1997 ),  The Wolverine ( 2013 ),  V For Vandetta ( 2005 ), Watchmen  ( 2009 ), and  X Men Apocalypse ( 2016 ).  Not one animated film made anyone's list, although I can not say for sure if any truly bad animated superhero films exist. Barely any foreign films made this LoC. And I know there are many films with D.C. and Marvel characters that are Hindi, Italian, Mexican, Philippian, Chinese and any other country that feels they are not subject to American copyright laws. And there are a few Japanese Marvel films which Marvel did sanction back in the 70s. So far none seem available in the United States outside of bootlegs. Finally, I want to acknowledge some of the notorious made for television movies that dodged this list, which include  Black Scorpion II: Aftershock ( 1997 ),  Captain America and  Captain America II: Death Too Soon  ( both 1979 ) Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park  ( 1978  ) ( yes, it counts as a superhero film. Kiss has secret identities, fights a supervillain, have individual powers, and was based on the best selling one shot Marvel comic where Kiss were superheroes. Too bad Marvel could never get the licensing to make more Kiss comic books, ) Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. ( 1998  ) with David Hasselhoff as Fury, The Spirit ( 1987 ) with Sam Jones, and Wonder Woman ( 1974 ) with Cathy Lee Crosby. I had included one television film on my list, Doctor Strange which I believe was the worst.

I used IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes to break ties. Had I not, one of the two following lists would have been used:

#76 ( Tie ) Venom
Daredevil
Super Buddies
#75 Morbius
#71 ( Tie ) Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
The Crow: City of Angels
Elf-Man
#70 Jonah Hex
#69 Unbreakable
#68 Max Steel
#66 ( Tie ) The Eternals
Dr Strange ( tv film )
#65 Spider-Man 3
#64 Vampirella
#61 ( Tie ) Wonder Woman 1984
Generation X
The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D
#59( Tie ) Justice League ( Snyder Cut )
Blade: Trinity
#54 ( Tie ) The Crow
The Rocketeer
The Return of Captain Invincible
Black Scorpion
Fan 4 Stic
#53 Man-Thing
#51 ( Tie ) Thunder Force
Wild World of Batwoman
#48 ( Tie ) Fantastic Four  ( 2005 )
Dark Phoenix
Superbabies Baby Geniuses 2
#46 ( Tie ) The  Amazing Spider-Man 2
Stan Lee's Lightspeed
#44 ( Tie ) Hellboy ( 2019 )
Thunderstorm: The Return of Thor
#43 Die You Zombie Bastards
#41 ( Tiie ) Justice League ( Theatrical Version ) 
Judge Dredd
#40 X-Men 3: The Last Stand
#39 Rat Phink a Boo Boo
#35 ( Tie ) Man Of Steel
Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Superman III
#33 ( Tie ) Teenage Mutant Nija Turtles: Out of the Shadows
The Toxic Avenger Part II
#32 Agent Beetle
#31 The Fantastic Four ( Corman )
#30 Rise of the Black Bat
#29 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
#27 ( Tie ) The Meteor Man
The Amazing Bulk
#26 Elektra
#25 Batman Forever
#21 ( Tie ) The  Spirit
The Guardians
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
Captain Battle: Legacy Wars
#20 Avenging Force: The Scarab
#19 Underdog
#18 Suicide Squad ( 2016 )
#17 Green Lantern
#16 Condorman
#15 Steel 
#14 Hulk ( Ang Lee )
#13 Pumaman   
#12 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 
#11 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace 
#10 Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice 
#9 Spawn
#8 Ghost Rider
#7 Supergirl 
#6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ( 2014 )
#5 Batman & Robin 
#4 Son of the Mask 
#3 Catwoman 
#2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
#1 Howard the Duck


Or...
#51a Venom
#51b Daredevil
#51c Super Buddies
#50 Morbius
#49a Venom: Let There Be Carnage
#49b Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
#49c The Crow: City of Angels
#49d Elf-Man
#48 Jonah Hex
#47 Unbreakable
#46 Max Steel
#45aThe Eternals
#45b Dr Strange ( tv film )
#44 Spider-Man 3
#43 Vampirella
#42a Wonder Woman 1984
#42b Generation X
#42c The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D
#41a Justice League ( Snyder Cut )
#41b Blade: Trinity
#40a The Crow
#40b The Rocketeer
#40c The Return of Captain Invincible
#40d Black Scorpion
#40e Fan 4 Stic
#39 Man-Thing
#38a Thunder Force
#38b Wild World of Batwoman
#37a Fantastic Four  ( 2005 )
#37b Dark Phoenix
#37c Superbabies Baby Geniuses 2
#36a The  Amazing Spider-Man 2
#36b Stan Lee's Lightspeed
#35a Hellboy ( 2019 )
#35b Thunderstorm: The Return of Thor
#34 Die You Zombie Bastards
#33a Justice League ( Theatrical Version ) 
#33b  Judge Dredd
#32 X-Men 3: The Last Stand
#31 Rat Phink a Boo Boo
#30a Man Of Steel
#30b Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
#30c Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
#30d Superman III
#29a Teenage Mutant Nija Turtles: Out of the Shadows
#29b The Toxic Avenger Part II
#28 Agent Beetle
#27 The Fantastic Four ( Corman )
#26 Rise of the Black Bat
#25 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
#24a The Meteor Man
#24b The Amazing Bulk
#23 Elektra
#22 Batman Forever
#21a The  Spirit
#21b The Guardians
#21c Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
#21d  Captain Battle: Legacy Wars
#20 Avenging Force: The Scarab
#19 Underdog
#18 Suicide Squad ( 2016 )
#17 Green Lantern
#16 Condorman
#15 Steel 
#14 Hulk ( Ang Lee )
#13 Pumaman   
#12 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 
#11 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace 
#10 Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice 
#9 Spawn
#8 Ghost Rider
#7 Supergirl 
#6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ( 2014 )
#5 Batman & Robin 
#4 Son of the Mask 
#3 Catwoman 
#2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
#1 Howard the Duck

Typically LoC's only go to 50, but typically hosts only have a month to work on them, not 6 months. About half the write-ups were completed in 2021. The last write-up was completed, as I write this, on the 12th, a day before the LoC is to be posted. The only thing missing from the write-ups is the YouTube links to the trailers

ADDED TODAY: The reason for not adding the trailers until the last minute is that YouTube has a nasty habit of deleting videos, even ones that have been up for decades. The original trailer for Condorman which had been uploaded ten years ago and was there last December, was no longer available as of a few days ago. The one I am using as a replacement appears to be a reconstructed trailer with no original trailer to be found anywhere. Also, the movie posters for the final two write-ups had not been uploaded to Imgur, which was a problem as sign in was unavailable for a few days.  Aside from adding YouTube trailers and last minute alterations, I could have probably posted the entire LoC on the 13th. Decided not to do that as when I had done something like that in the past, I got complaints from those who wanted to comment on the entries. 

Everyone was entitled to their own opinion as to what the worst superhero movies were, but In my own opinion, my list was the list from hell. If movies from my list didn't make anyone else's list, that is either because the others submitting lists were fortunate enough not to see those films, or were so  traumatized after seeing those films that their brains erased their memories of them to protect their sanity, or because they have a really, really, really, really, really, really bad taste in movies and somehow liked them. As for the final LoC, I could not help but notice that out of the top 5, only two of the films had any superheroes in them, and out of the two, only one had human superheroes. The top two slots are filled by animals, and the top slot is a duck. Just shows you how diverse the superhero genre is.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who sent in a list.

[RVR II]

My 25:
1-Howard the Duck (1986)
2-Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997)
3-Underdog (2007)
4-Spawn (1997)
5-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)
6-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
7-Ghost Rider (2007)
8-Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
9-Judge Dredd (1995)
10-Green Lantern (2011)
11-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
12-Suicide Squad (2016)
13-Dark Phoenix (2019)
14-Thunder Force (2021)
15-Fantastic Four (2015)
16-Catwoman (2004)
17-Supergirl (1984)
18-Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
19-Batman & Robin (1997)
20-Max Steel (2016)
21-Steel (1997)
22-Jonah Hex (2010)
23-The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
24-Elektra (2005)
25-Son of the Mask (2005)

Thanks again for doing this LoC!

[Pak-Man]

Thank you, Stethacantus for seeing this list to fruition through sheer determination. It was a fun read!