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

7. Connery Versus Norrington - The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

In the long history of comic book movies, few have been as profoundly disappointing as The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which should have been great. It was an Alan Moore comic, after all, they're always better than they end up being in adaptation.

The Cause

Unfortunately, Fox's attempt to adapt the comic aimed too high, seeking to hire Sean Connery, who agreed after turning down Lord Of The Rings and The Matrix and missing out on their successes. Unfortunately for the studio, he also cost $17 million, meaning they had little money to then hire better co-stars for him to work with.

On top of that, the script went through more than 20 iterations, and the production was beset by production issues, including a flood that halted production (but weren't enough to convince Fox to give the film-makers more time). From there, it became a tense rush-job, and it didn't help that director Stephen Norrington and Connery clashed infamously over a prop.

When a gun didn't look right, Norrington shut the set down, pissing Connery off to the point that they almost came to blows and he threatened to have the director fired. This was not a good foundation, at all and Connery openly criticising his director on the press tour for the film, calling him "insane" can't have helped matters.

How Disastrous Was It?

It actually made money, strangely, but it was a critical bomb, picking up just a laughable 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even 15 years on, it has failed to garner any sort of cult fanbase too, which says a lot, given the intoxicating allure of blind nostalgia.

Connery might have made a massive amount of money from it, but it was enough to inspire him to retire. So that's hardly something to write home about, is it?