The suits at WB and DC are currently reeling from the major box office disappointment of Supergirl, a movie that now seems like it will lose upwards of $100 million. Yet, while I wouldn’t expect any more solo Supergirl movies anytime soon, it won’t be the last you see of Milly Alcock in the DCU, with her already on board for a role in Man of Tomorrow. That’s more than can be said for plenty of other would-be blockbuster heroes. Over the last forty years, Hollywood has repeatedly poured hundreds of millions of dollars into launching the next great movie franchise, only for audiences to reject them after a single film.
Here are five of our favorites:
Based on the long-running pulp character created by Walter B. Gibson, which was perhaps most famous as a radio show on which Orson Welles played the character, The Shadow was designed as a major blockbuster. It was supposed to launch a series of superhero films that could compete with Batman or Indiana Jones, but despite having all the trimmings, including a score by Jerry Goldsmith and stylish direction by Russell Mulcahy, it whiffed at the box office.
Why? Perhaps it was a lack of star power from Alec Baldwin, with this being his big stab at movie stardom (after being replaced as Jack Ryan in Patriot Games). He never quite feels right in the part, with it seeming like he’s playing Bruce Wayne-lite, while the early scenes depicting him as an opium-running warlord in Tibet are laughable. The movie is all but stolen by John Lone as the villain, Shiwan Khan.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking example on this list, John Carter, which was based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels, was the victim of terrible press, mostly revolving around the movie’s gargantuan budget, which some claimed ran in excess of $300 million. People were calling it a flop before anyone even had the chance to see it.
The tragedy is that director Andrew Stanton actually made a great film, with John Carter impeccably assembled, and Michael Giacchino’s score a particular highlight. In the end, its failure didn’t really hurt anyone’s career, with Stanton returning to animation (his most recent film, Toy Story 5, is currently breaking Pixar box office records), and star Taylor Kitsch, after some time away, re-emerging as a terrific character actor in darker roles.
Hollywood keeps trying to turn pulp heroes into contemporary movie icons, but it never quite works. Yet, one can’t blame Warner Bros. for giving Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic Tarzan another try, as the character had already been the basis for dozens of films, most notably the MGM/Johnny Weissmuller movies of the 1930s. One can’t say WB didn’t give this their all, with Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie starring as Tarzan and Jane, while Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz provided strong support.
The funny thing about The Legend of Tarzan is that, compared to the other movies on this list, it actually did pretty well at the box office, grossing $356 million. It’s probably the only movie here that didn’t lose money, but it wasn’t a big enough hit for Warner Bros. to give it another go..
When you put “The Adventure Begins” in a title, you’re just asking for trouble. This was supposed to be Orion’s answer to the James Bond franchise, with Remo Williams based on the long-running series of pulp novels by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Despite a terrific performance by Fred Ward as an atypically blue-collar hero, and one incredible action sequence set atop the Statue of Liberty, audiences in the eighties preferred more muscle-bound heroes in the vein of Schwarzenegger or Stallone.
Back in the summer of 2004, everyone thought this was going to be a giant hit. After all, it came from Stephen Sommers, the man behind The Mummy franchise, and starred Hugh Jackman, who was arguably at the height of his stardom coming off the first two X-Men movies, alongside Kate Beckinsale, fresh off Underworld. While Sommers tried to pay homage to the classic Universal Monsters series, and some of it worked well enough, the film was also riddled with terrible CGI, with the biggest mistake being that Van Helsing transforms into a bad CGI werewolf during the climactic action sequence. Many also didn’t care for Richard Roxburgh’s campy performance as Dracula. But, as Hugh Jackman recently told us when asked if he’d reprise the role, “never say never.”
Those are five of our favorites—but they’re far from the only movies that were supposed to launch the next big franchise. Let us know your favorites in the comments!