10 Terrible Castings That Doomed Comic Book Movies

9. Sylvester Stallone As Judge Dredd - Judge Dredd

Spider-Man Andrew Garfield
Buena Vista Pictures

Sylvester Stallone is one of those performers you can't bring yourself to ever be mad at, even when he is just the worst possible casting choice for whatever he's in. Case in point, Judge Dredd.

Judge Dredd is one of the great so bad it's good comic book movies, and Stallone's performance lends a lot to that. There are certain aspects to Dredd's character that are non negotiable, one of which is the fact that he NEVER takes off his mask, ever. He is justice incarnate, and as such, he is faceless. So of course the first thing this movie does is take off Dredd's helmet because dammit we have a celebrity in our starring role and we're gonna use him!

And of course, everything about Stallone's performance after this moment has been riffed to death since the dawn of the internet. He moves his mouth like one half of it has been stapled shut, lines that should sound badass come out as goofy with his voice behind them, and like everyone else in this movie, he's mugging for the camera in every single scene.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?