10 Underappreciated Comic Book Movies That Deserve A Second Chance
Can The Incredible Hulk finally get some love?
You didn’t want to be Richard Donner in early 1978. His Superman movie went so far over budget that the sequel, being shot simultaneously, was abandoned. Bracing themselves for a disaster, the producers threw everything they had into the first movie and crossed their fingers.
As it happened, not only did Donner’s movie become a huge hit, it was included on Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies, an incredible honour for a “mere” comic book movie. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, it was more popular at the time than Superman Returns or Man Of Steel. It was a pop culture phenomenon.
Rumours of similarly troubled shoots surrounded the production of Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, which also broke through the chatter and went on to set box office records. If there’s a moral here, it’s that time is the only critic whose opinion matters.
Not every comic book movie gets to repeat their success, however. For every Wonder Woman, there’s a movie that underwhelmed audiences on release and acquired an undeserved reputation as a stinker. These films deserve a second chance, if only to prove they’re not as bad as you remembered.
10. Jonah Hex
Years before Warner Bros took their scissors to Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad they cut up and re-shot portions of this DC Comics adaptation, which seems to start about a third of the way through the story.
Instead of a proper introduction to the eponymous gunslinger, we first meet him being tied up by Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) and forced to watch as his house is burned down with his family inside. Turnbull was Hex’s commanding officer in the Civil War, you see, but he disobeyed Turnbull’s orders and ended up killing his son, for which he pays with his life. Resurrected by Indians, Hex acquires the ability to communicate with the dead and sets out for revenge on Turnbull, who by the way has faked his death in a hotel fire.
That’s a lot of exposition to cram into the first five minutes of a movie.
Nothing sinks a movie’s box office chances faster than rumors of a troubled shoot and according to Josh Brolin, the production was so rocky that they went back and re-shot 66 pages in 12 days. It’s still fun, though, and at 81 minutes it doesn’t exactly outstay its welcome.