With Superman being one of DC’s most iconic heroes, it’s no surprise that the Man of Steel has a long history at the movies. Since 1941, Superman has been on the silver screen, first in theatrical animated shorts later followed by multi-part film serials before eventually getting the full feature treatment with Superman in 1978 leading up to James Gunn’s Superman earlier this year. Thanks to Gunn’s movie, Superman is flying high again as people get excited for the character’s future big screen appearances, but that doesn’t mean the Big Blue Boy Scout has always had blue skies when it comes to his movies.
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Over the years, there have been a lot of things that have made Superman movies perhaps more complicated than they need to be and have even helped keep the hero off the big screen while another DC hero — Batman — thrived. Between bad movies that killed all momentum for the character to a long span of development hell for more movies, here are the seven worst things to happen to Superman movies and their production.
7) Superman Himself
Given how iconic Superman is it might be a little hard to consider that the Man of Steel himself might be the worst thing to happen to his movies but it certainly seems like the case, particularly when you compare Superman to another popular DC character whose movies have fared better — Batman. The problem with Superman is his lore. While the character has plenty of interesting supporting characters, history, and adversaries on the pages of comics, what works in print doesn’t necessarily work as well on the big screen, particularly when you’re trying to build a franchise around a character. While Batman has strong, identifiable villains and a consistent threat to be fighting against — think things like the Joker or just the general corruption in Gotham City — Superman is much more a hero of the people who protects more than just Metropolis. While Lex Luthor can be considered his main antagonist, there’s only so much one can do between the hero and the powerful businessman who hates him.
Taking the idea a little further, Superman’s lore isn’t necessarily the best equipped to set up a whole franchise of films. Where Batman movies can build easily off of each other, the larger scope of Superman makes that kind of storytelling a bit more complicated and it hasn’t always worked out well.
6) Batman Movies
In that same vein, one could argue that Batman movies haven’t done Superman movies any favors, either. Batman movies have been very successful at the box office and with fans, each individual franchise — be it the one begun with Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989, Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, or even The Batman — setting new standards for DC superhero movies. The expectations created by Batman films get transferred to Superman projects and while it’s a little unfair to compare the two (as we’ve mentioned, the two iconic heroes have very different settings and worlds they operate in on the small scale and thus, tell different sorts of stories) it still happens. It’s hard to not measure Superman movies against Batman films and not find the former at least a little lacking.
5) Justice League
Zack Snyder had big plans for the DC Extended Universe. Man of Steel debuted in 2013 and, despite mixed reviews, was a hit with audiences. There were plans for a direct sequel, the character appeared in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and a whole universe of movies featuring DC heroes was being born. And then Justice League happened. At this point, the story of Justice League is a familiar one. The film had a notably troubled production, Snyder stepped down from the project following a family tragedy, and Joss Whedon came on to finish the film, resulting in major reshoots and ultimately, a completely different film being released than what Snyder had conceived of. The film underperformed at the box office and was poorly received overall.
While Snyder’s Justice League would eventually get its chance to shine, the damage to the DCEU — and Superman — was done. The Man of Sequel never materialized and Henry Cavill has, to date, never suited up to star as the hero again (Shazam! cameo notwithstanding.) Any momentum that Man of Steel had given Superman movies was simply gone.
4) Development Hell
After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace bombed and ended Christopher Reeve’s time as the hero in 1987, a few years later the idea of developing a new Superman film began to be kicked around again for Superman Reborn in 1995. Then there was Superman Lives (which actually entered pre-production), then a Batman vs. Superman film, and, maybe most notably, Superman: Flyby around 2004. None of these movies ever came to life. It would be 2006 before a new Superman movie hit theaters — 19 years after Superman IV. That film, Superman Returns, was supposed to be the start of a new era for the hero, one that both paid homage and served as a sequel of sorts to 1980’s Superman II in a sort of soft reboot of things. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well, either.
3) The Box Office Failure of Superman Returns
Superman Returns was a good movie. Ignoring the events of Superman III, the film starred Brandon Routh as Superman and saw the hero return to Earth after five years to discover that Lois Lane has moved on and Lex Luthor is planning not only to kill him but has terrible plans for North America. Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor was well done, Routh’s Superman was solid, and the film itself had a good plot and other than being a little long, wasn’t bad. It was a good update for Superman and could have been the start of a new era for the hero on screen.
But while the film was one of the biggest at the box office in 2006, Warner Bros. wasn’t pleased with its performance overall — $391.1 million on a budget of around $220 million. The film’s “failure” led the sequel being cancelled. It would be seven more years before Superman would return to theaters again, this time for the reboot of the franchise entirely that was Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill as the hero.
2) Superman III
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace may have been the final film in the Superman series starring Reeve, but the real end of that franchise was Superman III. Released in 1983, the film performed poorly both at the box office and with critics and is considered by some to be absolute worst Superman movie ever made. The film’s plot is pretty simple: Superman takes on corrupt businessman Ross Webster who has built a supercomputer to kill him. The film also stars Richard Pryor as computer genius Gus Gorman who works for Webster and is part of the plot to take out Superman.
The movie is a silly mess. It’s full of sight gags, poorly executed slapstick, and it overuses both. Everything that Superman and Superman II had built for the superhero was pretty much dismantled and trashed with Superman III. Simply put, the Superman in this movie was nothing like the Superman audiences had come to love — and fully expect. The movie got its sequel with Superman IV, but that movie was also bad and the damage to the franchise was irreparable. Superman would stay off the big screen for 19 years, during which time Batman would thrive thanks to Tim Burton’s 1989 hit.
1) Smallville
Smallville may be the best live-action Superman television series ever and, for many, the best live-action Superman adaptation since Donner’s original Superman and while that’s great for fans, it’s been one of the worst things to happen to Superman movies. The problem with Smallville has multiple parts. First, there’s how long the series ran. The series aired for ten seasons spanning a decade on The WB (and later The CW). Given that the character had been on screens and in front of audiences so long, there was some concern that there would be character fatigue that would negatively impact other versions of Superman, thus arguably having some impact with movie plans.
The biggest issue, however, was how people perceived Superman because of Smallville. Smallville is not exactly a Superman story. Instead, the series tells the story of Clark Kent before he actually becomes Superman, exploring his life in Smallville and ultimately leaning into the idea of an origin story rather than being about Superman proper. In fact, the series ends with the glimpse of the iconic suit and Clark fully embracing his Superman destiny, Smallville set up a very specific version of the hero that might have made it difficult for fans to accept other versions even in the movies. While that hasn’t necessarily been the case, there are still plenty of fans who cite Tom Welling’s Clark Kent and Smallville as being their definitive take on the character, so it will be interesting to see how the show’s overall legacy impacts the future of the character on screen, even now that David Corenswet’s Superman has had a chance to soar.
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image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
