What Went Wrong: 13 Disastrous Comic Book Movies (And Why They Sucked)

3. Studio Interference (Again) - Iron Man 2

Along with the misguided Thor sequel, Iron Man 2 ranks as the worst work put out under the MCU banner, which no doubt haunts Kevin Feige. Worse is the fact that the criticism is all entirely well-founded.

The Cause

As with The Dark World, Iron Man 2's underwhelming results were a result of the studio interfering and a rushed production. On the back of the first movie's successes, Marvel green-lit the sequel and went ahead without a script - which hadn't hurt the first movie, but which was never going to come off twice.

On top of that, Marvel and Jon Favreau wanted to make different movies. Marvel inevitably wanted to push links to the Avengers, but the director wanted this middle film in his planned trilogy to be based on the "Demon in a Bottle" comic book arc from 1979. The studio won, but Favreau's vision was still in there, which perhaps prompted the over-zealous editing that Mickey Rourke confirmed had destroyed his character.

As an indication of the experience's negative impact, Favreau went and made Chef, a thinly-veiled allegory about his time working on blockbusters under over-bearing bosses stifling his creativity in favour of mass appeal box ticking.

How Disastrous Was It?

It wasn't enough to kill Iron Man or the MCU, but considering the high benchmark set by the MCU, Iron Man 2 is a black sheep. And the fact that it pissed off Favreau enough to stop directing MCU movies isn't exactly ideal.