10 Movies That Almost Destroyed The Superhero Genre

10. Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987)

After two good entries, the Superman series took a downwards turn. The third film repurposed the series as a comedy and the fourth turned it into bargain bin fodder. The Quest For Peace suffered from two things; it had a budget a fraction of the previous installments and the story was heavily compromised by Christopher Reeve's obsession with an anti-nuclear message. The film was a total disaster, an embarrassing mess that hardly anyone actually turned out to see. In fact, it was so bad it kept the series off the silver screen for almost two years; there were countless attempts to restart the franchise, with sequels, prequels and flat-out reboots all banded about, but none stuck. For one series to go bad now wouldn't on its own spell doom for a whole genre, but as in 1987 Superman was the only superhero who'd successfully worked on screen there was serious questions as to whether Richard Donner's original had been a one-off. What saved it: Batman. Two years later the other of D.C.'s big two was given the blockbuster treatment and the genre was lent a new lease of life (at least for a decade or so).