What are the worst comic book movies ever made? Marvel or DC. Catwoman and Fantastic Four have the two lowest critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes among this genre, but Shaq Steel has the lowest audience score. There was a correlation between this list and our worst
hero/
villain rankings, because obviously you can't have a terrible comic book movie without terrible heroes and villains. Sucking is often a team effort...
1. Fantastic Four
Reboot (2015):
In the history of all comic book movies, there has never been one so terrible that you can have an existential crisis after deciding to watch. It's just flat out bad and can lead to feelings of depression and regret that you ever decided to hit play. Miles Teller bears the most responsibility for this atrocity from an acting standpoint, but it was a cursed production that was doomed to fail. It earned a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes among critics but was twice as popular with the audience (18%). It captured 3 Razzies in 2016, including Worst Picture.
2. Steel (1997):
Shaq ranked #1 on our Worst Heroes of all-time list and gave a performance that all but killed his acting career. This was the end of Shaq as a leading man. The 12% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes does feel generous, which is higher than Catwoman and Fantastic Four (9% each). Steel does have the lowest audience score of any movie on this list (15%), pulling in just 1.7 million at the box office. Shaq was nominated for the Worst Actor Razzie, but lost to a less deserving Kevin Costner in the Postman.
3. Catwoman (2004):
This is just speculation on my part, but it certainly seemed like they had to pull money out of the CGI budget to pay Halle Berry's rate. The movie received a 9% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and cleaned up at the Razzie Awards receiving 7 nominations, winning Worst Picture, Worst Actress, and Worst Director. Yet it was the highest grossing female-led comic book movie for 13 years until overtaken by Wonder Woman in 2017.
4. New Mutants (2020):
This movie was doomed from the start. Originally shot in 2017, the movie was delayed almost 3 years due to the Fox-Disney merger and the current pandemic. This was unfortunately the last movie the Cinema Analytica team saw in theaters. Lets hope more theaters open so we can erase the memory of seeing this disaster. The 35% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is generous, and this abomination was shutout at the Razzie awards, which history will judge poorly.
5. X-Men Dark Phoenix (2019):
There are absolutely no redeeming qualities for this movie. It's clear that most of actors were tired of this franchise once this movie was made. You can find Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, and Nicolas Hoult on our worst heroes list. It has a 22% critics score, but a 64% audience score. Those people must have seen a different cut of the movie than what we saw.
6. Batman and Robin (1997):
There is a Sharknado quality to Batman and Robin that the other movies on this list are sorely lacking. We recently rewatched this terrible movie to research this list (that's our dedication to the craft) and laughed constantly at how bad it was. Arnold is way over the top. It probably belongs higher based on the sum of the bad acting, but it was hilariously bad, whereas the movies above are painfully bad. 12% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
7. Batman V Superman (2016):
Martha, Martha, Martha! Sorry if all you millennials missed that Brady Bunch reference. If they had cast someone good to play Lex Luthor, and cut out the Doomsday stuff that was squeezed into the ending, it could have been a better movie. 29% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a shocking 63% audience score. That makes no sense to us. Must be the Batfleck apologists swinging that vote.
8. Green Lantern (2011):
After paying money to see this turd, I vowed to never again pay a single pennt to see a Ryan Reynolds movie. Then I saw Deadpool on streaming, and he won me back. The side of good is fueled by the collective will-power of all lives in the Universe, while evil is fueled by all their fear. Who thinks of this crap? Whenever Reynolds tries to be "virtuous and pure," it lands completely flat. They should have made Green Lantern a quick witted wise-ass. 26% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
9. Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014):
It's a bad Andrew Garfield performance that's overshadowed by an abysmally awful Jamie Foxx performance. Once again, the 64% of fans who gave this a positive score on Rotten Tomatoes must have seen a different cut of the movie than we did. I'll assume that was the version where they completely cut out Jamie Foxx's character and went all in on Paul Giamatti's Rhino...
10. Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance (2011):
Back-to-Back bombs for Nick Cage. Movie one received a 26% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the sequel went ahead anyway (earning an 18%). The original sucked too, but was slightly better. It did make money, earning $132M at the box office on a $75M budget. It received 2 Razzie nominations, including Worst Actor for Nick Cage.
11. Ghost Rider (2007):
There is almost an amusing likeability to how over-the-top awful Nick Cage takes this character (which is lost by the 2nd movie). The 26% critics score and 48% audience score were higher than the next movie, but only received a single Razzie nomination for Nick Cage in the Worst Actor category. It probably deserved a Worst Picture nomination too, but at least had some amusing moments where you could laugh at the ridiculousness of the Cage performance.
12. Daredevil (2003):
Before there was Batfleck, there was Darefleck. Compared to some of the other movies on this list, Daredevil was critically acclaimed with a 44% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. It received an even lower score from audiences (35%), which doesn't happen terribly often with comic book movies. Affleck won the Razzie for Worst Actor and has since disowned the movie. Honestly, Colin Farrell may have been even more deserving of a Razzie, as his Bullseye performance was bananas.
13. Superman Quest For Peace (1987):
Some of the CGI limitations of the day helped make this worse than its modern equivalents, otherwise it probably deserved to be higher. It only managed an 11% critics score and 16% audience score, but it's a much different movie if they made it 20 years later. It marked the final appearance of Christopher Reeves as Superman and basically killed the franchise. It was decades before anyone made another Superman movie.
14. Elektra (2005):
The awful Ben Affleck Daredevil movie gave birth to an equally atrocious offspring. If you're going by Rotten Tomatoes, Elektra has a much lower score (11%), but we happen to think Darefleck is just a little bit worse. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes describes the movie as "Jennifer Garner inhabits her role with earnest gusto, but Elektra's tone-deaf script is too self-serious and bereft of intelligent dialogue to provide engaging thrills."
15. Justice League (2017):
Zack Snyder did release a more watchable version of Justice League, so
this is calling out the Joss Whedon version specifically. The movie received a 40% critics score and a 71% audience score, but some of that might have been Russian trolls trying to destabilize American culture. At least that's our theory behind the confusing fandom that seems to exist around this franchise. They tried to cram too much story into a single movie, and both versions suffered from that problem.
Dishonorable Mention:
Howard the Duck
We debated whether or not this should even be considered a comic book movie. It was clearly a Marvel property and was canonized by the Collector in the MCU, but it's not at all like your traditional hero flick. It has a 13% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and is a legitimately awful movie. We are disqualifying it from this category, but it still needed to be mentioned. If it counts, it has to be near the top.
