#-B | C | D | E-F | G-H | I-J | K-M | N-R | S-T | U-Z | DC Comics Films | Marvel Comics Films
Marvel Comics have had an overall better financial track record when it comes to their movie adaptations, especially with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, compared to their distinguished competition, but not all of the films commissioned using their IP have been a success.
- Howard the Duck (1986) — Budget, $37 million. Box office, $16,295,774 (domestic), $37,962,774 (worldwide). The first ever theatrically released feature-length movie adapted from a Marvel comic (discounting the 1940s Captain America serial and several TV pilot movies in the 70s) was based on one of their more oddball characters and executive produced by George Lucas of all people. To say it started Marvel’s prospects on the big screen off on the wrong foot would be putting it lightly; it remains one of the most infamous and critically panned films of the 1980s, being taken to task for its silly plot, rushed effects, and shockingly blatant sexual and adult references in spite of its PG rating (most infamously a scene where the title character and Lea Thompson nearly do it). It got to the point that it “won” the Razzie for Worst Picture (albeit in a tie with Under the Cherry Moon) and its failure had several lasting ramifications: backlash from parents over the aforementioned adult references (combined with The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, another notorious bomb with shockingly age-inappropriate content released the same year) led to stricter enforcement of the PG-13 rating; Universal chairman Frank Price resigned from his position (after allegedly getting in a fistfight with COO Sidney Sheinberg over who would take the blame for the film flopping, though both men denied it); William Huyck and Gloria Katz, frequent collaborators with Lucas who respectively directed and produced the film in addition to writing it, never got involved with a feature film again outside of the obscure TV movie Mothers, Daughters and Lovers and a writing credit for Radioland Murders; and Lucas himself, who was banking on the film to help pay off the debts he incurred from building Skywalker Ranch, went into even more debt combined with the financial failure of Labyrinth that same summer and going through an acrimonious divorce (to the point of Howard the Duck being one of the few productions he admitted regret over), even being forced to sell several assets of Lucasfilm to scrape by, most notably selling Lucasfilm’s Graphics Group to Steve Jobs * (Lucasfilm and the rechristened Pixar, along with Marvel, would eventually end up under Disney’s umbrella by 2012). As for Howard, he would languish in obscurity outside of being the butt of many a joke until the 2010s, where he had a resurgence thanks to a new well-received comic series, some praised cameos in the MCU, and a certain film mentioned below surpassing his movie in infamy.
- Hulk (2003) — Budget, $137 million. Box office, $132,177,234 (domestic), $245,360,480 (worldwide). Ang Lee's Darker and Edgier take on the character infuriated fans and divided critics. While it debuted to a massive $62 million on its opening weekend domestically, it dropped a legendary 70% on its second weekend due to very poor word-of-mouth, ultimately falling short of its production budget domestically. It's big opening and international numbers narrowly kept it from being a total disaster, enough that Universal would try again with The Incredible Hulk (2008), which adopted a more straightforward action/superhero tone, recasted everyone, and kept only vague hints of the two being in the same continuity. This very nearly served as a Creator Killer for Lee, who bounced back with Brokeback Mountain. Later became Vindicated by History as ahead of its time, as darker films about superheroes such as The Dark Knight and Logan found mainstream success in later years.
- Elektra (2005) — Budget, $43 million. Box office, $24,409,722 (domestic), $56,681,556 (worldwide). This, along with Catwoman, kept the superheroine genre barren for over a decade, and ended the Daredevil Marvel movie series after just two films, becoming a source of shame for Jennifer Garner in the process and impaling director Rob Bowman's cinematic career as well. Film copyright holders Fox subsequently found themselves unable to reboot the series before the rights reverted to Disney/Marvel, who rebooted it themselves as a successful Netflix show.
- Man-Thing (2005) - Budget, $7.5m. Box office, $0 (domestic), $1,123,136 (worldwide). The lowest grossing Marvel film of all time, it had a Troubled Production resulting in massive budget increases. Audiences reportedly walked out of a test screening en masse and it ended up going straight to video in the US. Man-Thing would eventually get a better outing on screen with the MCU special Werewolf by Night in 2022.
- The Incredible Hulk (2008) — Budget, $150 million. Box office, $134,806,913 (domestic) , $264,770,996 (worldwide). Only the second film in the newly established Marvel Cinematic Universe, it fell well short of even the most generously calculated break-even points. This ended up not mattering as much as it could've because Iron Man, released the same year, overperformed its target quite a bit by grossing $585 million on a slightly smaller budget of $130 million - giving the two movies combined production costs $280m and grosses of $850m, enough for Marvel to then greenlight Thor and Captain America films for 2011 as well as an Iron Man sequel. Even still, an underwhelming box office total likely contributed (along with the distribution rights issue with Universal) to the decision to not make another Hulk movie, even after the Marvel Cinematic Universe really took off with The Avengers; he's been limited to a supporting character in crossovers since.
- Fant4stic (2015) — Budget, $155 million (not counting marketing costs), $200 million (counting them). Box office, $56,117,548 (domestic), $167,397,693 (worldwide). Fans and copyright holder Disney/Marvel were already annoyed at Fox's ill-fated attempt to hold on to the Fantastic Four franchise despite the middling performances of the 2005 film and its sequel. The movie's Troubled Production saw director Josh Trank exhibit bad behavior that cost him a Star Wars directing job. Marvel Comics seemingly did everything in their power not to promote it, and the evisceration by the critics, fans, and general audience led this to be the worst-performing superhero-based movie since The Green Hornet, eventually becoming the second movie on this page to win the Razzie for Worst Picture (and somehow it was once again in a tie with another movie). It didn't even win on its opening weekend, losing to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which premiered a week prior. Its nuclear failure morphed Fox's entire fiscal year into a severe financial loss, crushed their plans for a sequel, and played a very significant part in Fox's acquisition by Disney. It also derailed Trank's career, turning his name into instant sarcasm-bait as a latter-day Michael Cimino. As if adding insult to injury, Fox's next Marvel movie, Deadpool, utterly demolished expectations, earning back its ~$60 million budget thirteen times over, making this movie's entire lifetime's gross earnings in its opening weekend (that film was rated R and therefore somewhat out of Disney's comfort zone, but in contrast to Fant4stic, they did not have a problem with creating merchandise for that film or allowing Marvel executives to praise it). As for other members of the crew, all four "Fantastics" in the movie regret starring in it, with Miles Teller and Toby Kebbell seeing serious career difficulties (Teller's next five films would all seriously bomb). Its creation and bombing led Marvel to deep freeze the entire Fantastic Four franchise until 2018, when their comic was re-released and they were placed back in video games months later, before another, much-anticipated reboot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was announced for 2025 with Matt Shakman directing.
- The end of the X-Men film series was quite troubled, being caught in the wake of the acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox by Disney didn't help matters. Disney was contractually obligated to release the final films in theaters due to contracts with HBO, and obliged, but in doing so pulled Invisible Advertising.
- Dark Phoenix (2019) — Budget, $200 million. Box office, $65,845,974 (domestic), $252,442,974 (worldwide). The second attempt to adapt the iconic Dark Phoenix Saga to film (after it was attempted in X-Men: The Last Stand to middling results) had a Troubled Production that lead to a ballooned budget and cost an additional $150 million in print advertising, but it only managed to gross $252 million worldwide, owing to Invisible Advertising, impending reboot of the property implied by the Disney acquisition, lack of buzz, and bad reviews which gave the movie the worst Rotten Tomatoes score of the series. It represented an absolute franchise low in terms of opening weekend grosses, and a final domestic and global total beneath even the first X-Men film — $296 million worldwide, in 2000 dollars — which made Dark Phoenix the lowest-grossing installment of the series at the time. It also had the effect of gutting whatever autonomy Fox had left when it and several other underperforming films caused Disney to fall short of their projected Q3 2019 earnings despite the monumental success of Avengers: Endgame, prompting them to take more direct control of greenlighting Fox’s projects, and canning many films in pre-production.
- The New Mutants (2020) — Budget, $67–80 million. Box office, $23,852,659 (domestic), $49,169,594 (worldwide). This horror-centric spin-off was meant to release before Dark Phoenix, but ended up taking a two-year-plus trip on The Shelf of Movie Languishment, mainly stemming from planned reshoots that ultimately never ended up happening, due to the stars being too busy to shoot them and the general chaos of the Disney-Fox merger. After one more delay due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was finally dumped in theaters in August 2020, well over a year after Dark Phoenix had sold itself as the Grand Finale of the series, and while The New Mutants reviewed somewhat better, its returns made it not only the new lowest-grossing film in the franchise, but also the fourth-lowest grossing of all Marvel films, only grossing higher than Man-Thing (which wasn't released theatrically in the United States), Punisher: War Zone and Howard the Duck.
- Once believed to be bomb-proof (The Incredible Hulk aside), the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a few bombs of its own since the monster success of Avengers: Endgame in 2019 that marked the end of the Infinity Saga.
- Black Widow (2021) — Budget, $288m. Box office, $183,651,655 (domestic), $379,751,131 (international). The first MCU casualty of the COVID-19 Pandemic, with a delay of a year. Disney ultimately released it simultaneously in theaters and as a paid-for rental on Disney+, a large chunk of the gross being from the latter. In the circumstances with moviegoers only slowly returning, this was very good indeed and the film got generally good reviews (fan reception, on the other hand, was more mixed), with praise for Florence Pugh in particular. However, the non-exclusive release resulted in Scarlett Johansson filing a lawsuit for breach of contract and the loss of major back-end earnings. A public war of words followed between her and Disney, before the matter was settled out of court for an undisclosed fee.
- Eternals (2021) — Budget, $236 million. Box office, $164,870,234 (domestic), $402 million (worldwide). Despite having a big All-Star Cast and the pedigree of a director fresh off the Oscar-winning Nomadland, Eternals had the dishonor of being the first movie of the series to get a Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the biggest criticism being the film’s identity crisis, trying to be both an existential sci-fi drama and a superhero epic, and struggling to balance the two different tones. Has been generously
calculated as a $35 million loss - without counting the marketing budget, which likely pushes the loss into the nine digit range.note Despite ending on a big Sequel Hook, Marvel has been mum on news of any follow-up, and most of MCU projects since have ignored the film's characters and events, with only a handful of brief references to the giant stone man in the middle of the ocean. - The Marvels (2023) — Budget, $220-275 million. Box office, $84,425,017 (domestic), $205,578,431 (worldwide). Probably the Box Office Bomb for the MCU, The Marvels suffered a massive uphill battle despite residual goodwill from its predecessor grossing over a billion dollars. Some observers attributed this to "superhero fatigue" finally setting in, as many critics found the film to be unremarkable and largely going through the motions of the dozens of other superhero films of the prior decade. Other critics instead point to Disney+'s oversaturation of MCU content, pointing out that one of the film's main draw was to see Captain Marvel team up with characters from WandaVision and Ms. Marvel, with the former only having been in a supporting role and the latter having never before appeared in a film. Not helping things was the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes hitting in the summer, preventing its main stars from promoting the film until the day before its debut. Its colossal failure (along with the strikes) led Marvel to heavily reconfigure its future plans, pushing back all MCU films besides Deadpool & Wolverine to 2025.
