8 Comic Book Characters Hollywood Will Never Understand

Can we maybe not glorify Harley and Joker's relationship, Warner Bros?

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Warner Bros.

There isn't a bigger film genre today than the superhero one. Although they first rose to prominence with Richard Donner's Superman movies, and later Tim Burton's Batman, they've experienced something of a stratospheric rise since 1998, when Wesley Snipes' Blade kicked off the modern comic book movie boom.

Subsequent studios would take the baton passed on by the vampire hunter, but they would also tragically fail in a great many places, ice-skating uphill with misfire after cliched misfire, epitomised by the miserly Catwoman, released in 2004. Although Iron Man heralded something of a golden age for comic book movies in 2008, there are still some characters, teams, and even entire comics who've fallen short on the big screen - and it all stems from a fundamental lack of understanding about what made them so compelling in the first place.

Bizarrely, this goes double for characters who once enjoyed a revered status on the big screen. Now, in some instances, superhero staples have found themselves in limbo, having been the subject of repeated critical disasters, and it all grants the impression that tinseltown just doesn't understand certain aspects of the medium it's currently so obsessed with.

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Content Producer/Presenter
Content Producer/Presenter

Resident movie guy at WhatCulture who used to be Comics Editor. Thinks John Carpenter is the best. Likes Hellboy a lot. Can usually be found talking about Dad Movies on his Twitter at @EwanRuinsThings.