10 Awesome Movie Characters Ruined By Terrible Writing

Crafting a truly great movie character requires an extremely tricky combination of sharp writing, a strong performance, and an added dash of luck. It can't be forced or contrived, as so many unworthy filmmakers have tried to.

But maintaining a character's popularity with audiences across a franchise is an extremely daunting task, as was categorically proven by these 10 once-beloved movie characters.

Whether a brand new iteration of a classic screen icon or simply the continued depiction of a fan favourite, in each case their esteem was thoroughly derailed by atrocious writing.

From scripts which just didn't understand the essence of the character to those which took major, unwise creative risks and everything in-between, these characters were effectively vandalised by writers who just didn't know any better.

Though some of these ideas could've worked with a more delicate, nuanced script, as it stands the poor actors in question were left to flounder around helplessly, trying to do their level-best with piss-poor material.

And sadly, the overwhelming majority of the characters themselves have been destroyed beyond redemption...

There is no James Bond villain more iconic than Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and when Christoph Waltz was cast as the character - or, er, "Franz Oberhauser" - in Spectre, fans were delighted to see a world-class, Oscar-winning actor take a stab at the part.

Despite Waltz's solid effort, Spectre's depiction of Blofeld was a crushing disappointment, and it's 100% down to the script's lazy, cliched treatment of the cat-stroking baddie.

In addition to spending the bulk of the movie off-screen, he's introduced in earnest in the third act as the wildly convoluted architect of everything James (Daniel Craig) has suffered through in the last three movies.

Basically, this version of Blofeld is one step away from shouting at Bond, "It's me Austin! It was me all along Austin!"

Worse still, it's also revealed that Blofeld was Bond's foster brother, creating another eye-rollingly forced link between hero and villain that absolutely didn't need to exist.

Ultimately Blofeld was a total damp squib in the movie, though at least with his confirmed role in the upcoming No Time to Die, there's a chance he might get mildly redeemed.