10 Movie Franchises That Ruined Iconic Characters Twice

3. Frank Castle - The Punisher

The First Time

Back in 1989, a height-of-his-fame Dolph Lundgren was cast to play Frank Castle in The Punisher, and as you'd likely expect, the results weren't good.

Lundgren certainly had the physicality to pull the role off, but Castle's origin story bore little similarity to that in the comics, and the costume department didn't even give Lundgren the classic skull shirt to wear.

That's not to ignore Lundgren himself, who doesn't ever manage to make Castle into anything other than a relentlessly murderous bore. Thankfully, by the time the 2004 Thomas Jane-starring movie came about, this version had been long forgotten.

The Second Time

The Jane movie certainly isn't great, but the actor at least presented a more comic-accurate rendition of the superhero, and gave a rock solid performance to boot.

The same can't quite be said for the 2008 reboot, Punisher: War Zone, which saw a vaguely miscast Ray Stevenson playing Frank Castle with little flair whatsoever. The gore was mildly amusing, sure, but there was little interesting surrounding it.

Thankfully fans recently got their best screen Punisher ever, with the exceptionally well-cast Jon Bernthal playing the character with seething brutality for Netflix's TV series.