10 Comic Book Movies That Will Literally Never Happen
5. Lobo
The cigar-chomping, bike-riding interstellar mercenary Lobo was originally envisioned as a parody of "gritty" Marvel superheroes such as Wolverine, The Punisher and Cable, but fans ended up embracing the character unironically.
A Lobo movie has been in the works for almost a decade, with Guy Ritchie initially approached to direct a PG-13 film with a tone similar to his acclaimed gangster flicks. Ritchie eventually left to work on the second Sherlock Holmes movie, and in 2012, Brad Peyton (San Andreas, Rampage) was confirmed as the new director.
Peyton's frequent star Dwayne Johnson was briefly in talks to play Lobo, but left in order to play another DC character, Black Adam, in a movie that's also yet to materialise (though is far more likely to actually get made).
Peyton has since been out of the picture and Warner Bros. is apparently keen to hire Michael Bay to direct, though with the current script requiring a $200 million budget, even tentpole schlock maestro Bay has reportedly taken a moment for pause.
Clearly a movie this out-there needs to be made on a Deadpool-sized budget, not an Avengers-sized one, which suggests that Warner Bros. once again has no idea what the hell they're doing with a beloved superhero property. As neat as the character is, it's not happening.