DC has been a war zone of films that are riddled with critical scars, plot holes, and financial pains all over. From Batman & Robin to Wonder Woman 1984, the comic book movie universe has struggled to find an even tone and pacing for its films, other than landing a few surprising hits in between, like Aquaman and Joker.
Though filmmakers never intentionally set out to make flops at the expense of their own reputation, some films end up as severe misfires. Incidentally, however, most of the flops usually have a redeeming quality or two in their otherwise failed plot, and under any other situation, could have shown extraordinary potential underneath the layers of bad plot or performance.
Here is a list of 10 DC movie failures, ranked from harmless to most foul:
10. Superman Returns (2006)
Broadly speaking, Bryan Singer‘s Superman Returns did a good job with its elements of nostalgia and in paying tribute to the Christopher Reeve franchise. Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey are also impressive in their respective roles. In every other respect, however, the film fails to make an impact.
The film is framed as an homage/sequel to Superman I and II, ignoring the events of Superman III and IV: The Quest for Peace. As such, instead of showing a 5-year hiatus, the 26-year gap between the second film and the reboot allowed for a brilliantly timed take on a dystopian, futuristic, and politically subversive plot.
This Superman film could have served better as a Kingdom Come adaptation, with a much older cast of Justice League heroes banding together to fight crime as the world descends further into chaos. After all, it is much more compelling to witness the impact of time on established superheroes and the damage that their prolonged absence causes to cities like Metropolis and Gotham.
Cast: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey.
9. Blue Beetle (2023)
Blue Beetle, one of the last standalone films of the former DCEU, has a middling reputation. Although it wasn’t as bad as its predecessors (The Flash, Shazam 2), Blue Beetle was also not the best egg in the long-rotting basket.
With a mostly new cast of young up-and-comers, Blue Beetle promised a film in the vein of Spider-Man, where a teen goes up against an evil corporation. However, Beetle lacked the creativity and grounded realism of the Marvel hero, relying desperately on neon-lit “cool” action choreography. Moreover, the heavy side dose of cultural backdrop feels extremely spoon-fed instead of natural because of the real-world discourse on diversity representation.
The film definitely harbored great potential, both in terms of cast and plot, but ultimately struggled under a lack of creative ambition and due to the bad aftertaste left behind by its predecessor, The Flash.
Cast: Xolo Maridueña, Susan Sarandon, Adriana Barraza, George Lopez.
8. Suicide Squad (2016)
A product of the dark and desolate DCEU era, Suicide Squad still continues to taunt the fans with the existence of a Director’s Cut. David Ayer has been preaching about it to anyone who would listen, considering how controversial and ill-favored his movie has been since its release.
To some, Suicide Squad is in perfect harmony with its gloomy and miserable DCEU compatriots. To the rest of the vast majority, the film has no right to exist at all. Whereas I personally don’t understand all the hate and discourse behind this one film, when there are so many other things wrong with DCEU.
Cast: Jared Leto, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Cara Delevigne.
7. Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Wonder Woman 1984 hardly needs a 2-paragraph-long summary of what went wrong with the movie when it could simply be described in one word: everything.
The lazy script, bad dialogue, underdeveloped characters, casting choices, uncompelling villain’s motivations, slow pacing, countless plot holes, janky logic, inconsistent and disjointed story arc – all except the choice of costume and Hans Zimmer‘s music in the film were an insult to the senses.
And yet, the film had such a promising foundation to launch from, considering the critically successful origin film, Wonder Woman. Why Patty Jenkins felt the need to struggle so hard to make a bad film, I guess we’ll never know.
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen.
6. Black Adam (2022)
After much talk of changing the hierarchy of DC, Black Adam suffered a swift and brutal humiliation at the hands of Warner Bros. Dwayne Johnson‘s DCEU debut is a failure of such epic proportions that it will either be remembered for its miserable fate or be completely forgotten for being so utterly irrelevant.
That being said, the film did have some extraordinary action scenes and bold cinematography. Plot-wise, Black Adam did a good job of integrating its protagonist’s history with the current timeline, and his shift from an antiheroic stance to a hero’s perspective neither felt sudden nor forced. The film also did justice to the introduction of the Justice Society, leading to much demand for a spin-off based on its impressive characters.
Perhaps, if Black Adam stuck to its principles and focused on introducing the nascent hero to live-action, the film would have done good. Instead, Dwayne Johnson’s extreme pandering to the masses reached a level of annoyance on a global scale. The feeling was further compounded when his promise failed to pay off, and Henry Cavill was forced to suffer yet another saga of humiliation before letting go of Superman for good.
All that was completely unnecessary, and Johnson only managed to exploit and piggyback on the audience’s unrequited love for DCEU’s Man of Steel. A fat lot of good it did to his 15-year-long passion project.
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Shahi, Henry Cavill, Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Quintessa Swindell.
5. Green Lantern (2011)
If the world had known about Ryan Reynolds‘ talent as the most inanely hilarious man on Earth a little sooner, perhaps Deadpool wouldn’t have had to travel to another dimension to murder his actor self before reading the Green Lantern script. Even Reynolds could’ve stopped constantly apologizing for making the film for the rest of his natural life.
As the comically nonchalant Hal Jordan, Reynolds was a great choice to play the character. His arc as Deadpool certainly proves he has the chops for both self-deprecating humor and superhero action. But this Martin Campbell film had a whole list of things that went wrong with its execution: bad CGI, weak script, disjointed story arc, uneven pacing, confusing villain, and so on.
The writer’s strike during production and an alternate, scrapped ending due to budget issues further contributed to its poorly executed final cut. The director later took partial responsibility for Green Lantern‘s failure, blaming his own inexperience in directing superhero films, and saying he shouldn’t have done it in the first place [Screen Rant]:
The film did not work, really. That’s the point, and I’m partly responsible for that. I shouldn’t have done it. Because with something like Bond – I love Bond, and I watched every Bond film before I ever directed it. Superhero movies are not my cup of tea, and for that reason, I shouldn’t have done it. But directors always have to carry the can for the failures. What do they say? Success has many fathers, failure has one. And that’s me.
Despite having great potential for success along with a strong cast, a veteran director, and a good blend of action and humor, Green Lantern stumbles through its plot while desperately looking for redemption in the aftermath.
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins.
4. Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
So many things went wrong with the later stages of DCEU that Shazam! Fury of the Gods doesn’t even hold a candle to the worst aspects of the universe. As one of the scrappy remnants of the extended universe, Shazam was good enough as a one-off film, inserting enough kid comedy between the more serious adult melodrama of the overarching Snyderverse.
However, once that alternate universe began crumbling in the post-math of the Justice League controversy, DC shouldn’t have pushed through the pain to make matters worse. Warner Bros. was not only losing money but also suffering from a battering ram of horrible critical reviews and fan reception to these later DCEU standalone sequels.
It did not make sense for Shazam 2 to feature Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as villains in the plot when they could have just as easily gone for Black Adam. But that’s a debate for another day, and The Rock is partly to blame for it. And anyway, Zachary Levi didn’t need anyone else’s help sinking his legacy as a superhero, as the film’s bad script and poor execution helped drive the final nail in the coffin itself.
Cast: Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Djimon Hounsou.
3. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
Coming from James Wan, fans expected a lot more from the sequel to the billion-dollar Aquaman movie, only to be left severely disappointed in the aftermath. Despite its stellar cast and premise, Aquaman 2 is a ghastly product of overambition and overcrowding. And even its spectacular cast could not help save the film from its fated demise.
Moreover, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was a product of real-world issues such as climate change: a subject, which, when forcefully inserted into a movie as a preachable notion, neither does the film any good nor its premise. Compounding that feeling of failure was the director’s promise of steering the film toward a more serious tone and delivering an emo buddy-action comedy.
Aquaman 2 was inspired by the Silver Age of comics, which clearly shone through in the movie’s underlying theme, structure, and worldbuilding. Perhaps the director should have known better than to change course after scoring such a formula for success with the first film.
Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison.
2. The Flash (2023)
Though Michael Keaton somewhat saved the movie from being utter garbage, it’s still a toss-up for #1 on the list between The Flash and Joker 2. Even then, The Flash still leaves a pungent aftertaste due to its cacophony of controversy, overcrowding of characters, and not enough substance to warrant its existence.
The Flash was designed for one reason only: to erase the contentious DCEU and pave a path forward for a new era under David Zaslav‘s supervision. The Flashpoint Paradox arc somewhat worked in the film’s favor until the plot turned into a whole fiesta of who’s who in every other frame. The climactic scene of the multiverse unraveling continues to give the Razzies a run for their money.
In the end, not only did Andy Muschietti and James Gunn fail to use this film as a bridge between the old and new regimes, but they also managed to disappoint the fans in new ways by feeding into the already-rampant superhero fatigue.
Cast: Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, Michael Keaton, Michael Shannon, and George Clooney.
1. Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
Quentin Tarantino is a huge fan of this movie for the exact reason why the rest of the world isn’t. Joker: Folie à Deux is a massive middle finger from Todd Phillips to big-budget Hollywood blockbusters and the unending fascination for superhero films. And the director managed to do it so successfully (and artistically, while at it) that the fans can’t even be angry at Phillips for trying.
After the billion-dollar social satire epic, Joker, its sequel was supposed to be a labor of love on behalf of its maker. Instead, Phillips brings his Hangover energy and infuses it into the zany, dream-like, and mad musical world of the Joker. The resultant product is a Frankenstein’s Monster of Arkham insanity juxtaposed with a delirious, alternate-dimension La La Land.
Perhaps one can dredge up some comfort by assuming that in this make-believe alternate dimension, maybe La La Land did win the Oscar after all. Beyond that, Joker: Folie à Deux serves no purpose other than to make a fool of us all.
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener.
Here’s a table listing the critical and box office reception of all 10 films, in the order in which they are mentioned above:
Which of the above films ranks as your least favorite of all? Mention any other films that come to mind in the comments below.
All DC films are available to stream on HBO Max.