11 Comic Book Characters Who Shouldn't Have Had A Movie (And The Alternatives Who Should)

2. The Shadow

You can't help but think that the release of The Shadow a mere two months after The Crow (who is a far superior character in every sense) was an attempt to capitalise on it. It almost feels as though Bregman/Baer Productions had heard about Dimension Films' making The Crow and, following the previous success of Batman, thought they'd jump on the "dark heroic warrior" bandwagon. Unfortunately, their attempts failed dramatically. The Crow, with a budget of $23 million, earned $144 million at the box office. The Shadow, with nearly double that budget ($40 million), earned a mere $48 million and was critically slammed universally. Alec Baldwin, who took the titular role, isn't necessarily a bad actor, and the film had a decent supporting cast in the form of Tim Curry and Ian McKellen, but it seemed to be rushed (probably to bash it out in The Crow's shadow - no pun intended) and it failed dramatically as a result. Alternative movie that should have been made: Doc Savage. Savage is a fellow Street and Smith Publications character who combines Indiana Jones' sense of adventure, Captain America's peak physical conditioning and Batman's martial arts/inventing abilities. Essentially, he has the traits of a number of characters who have all now proven to be successful at the box office by themselves. Although he isn't a particularly well-known character, he has a very memorable name and an extremely interesting and popular general concept, so it's hard to see how a movie could have failed.