12 Films That Wasted Incredible Potential
2. X-Men: The Last Stand
Two years prior to the incredible success of Iron Man, Marvel released the disappointing third instalment in the X-Men series.
The film's script was loosely based on a few X-men comics and focused on a potential war breaking out between humans and mutants. At the same time, Jean Gray returns as The Phoenix, a powerful alter personality of Jean with incredibly destructive capabilities.
Fans of the series were positive that The Last Stand would be just as successful as its two predecessors and were excited to see the Dark Phoenix arc as an integral part of the story. Unfortunately, it looked like the film was doomed to disappoint from the start.
The director and writers from the first two films left to work on other projects and the studio was struggling to find replacements, as all of their top picks were committed to other films. In the end, they picked a director with limited knowledge on the X-Men myths who heavily relied on the new writing team to adapt the comic faithfully.
The result was a film that was panned by fans and critics for its mediocre screenplay and was labelled the weakest of the three films.