The film that did the most damage to superheroes was ________!

[DrNewGod]

There's been a lively debate about which film did the most to help superheroes become not only financial successes, but to become accepted as serious film properties by broad audiences, critics, and studios. Someone asked the inverse, so I seek your opinion.

[SpiderClops]

Five hours. Took longer than I expected.

[DrNewGod]

Five hours. Took longer than I expected.

Got busy with the sleeping stuff. Most inconvenient.

[Soubhagya]

Catwoman and Electra did a lot of damage to female lead superhero films. I remember another film Aeon Flux being mentioned along with the other two films as the reason female led superhero films never took off. It still is in a nascent stage with only Wonder Woman a success and an upcoming Captain Marvel. Studios were fearful to try something after these failures.

[Mormel]

Catwoman and Electra did a lot of damage to female lead superhero films. I remember another film Aeon Flux being mentioned along with the other two films as the reason female led superhero films never took off. It still is in a nascent stage with only Wonder Woman a success and an upcoming Captain Marvel. Studios were fearful to try something after these failures.

I find this problematic as well. It's also another reason why it was stupid to make the first X-Men trilogy so Wolverine-centric. As an X-Men fan, I was disappointed to see characters like Storm and Kitty Pryde get relegated to bit parts; Jean and Rogue got a fair bit more spotlight, but both ended up being 'fridged', with Jean dying at the end of X2 and returning as a villain in X3, and Rogue losing her powers in X3.

Likewise, look at Captain America: Civil War. The line-up was:
Captain America, Hawkeye, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man
Iron Man, Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Black Panther, Spider-Man
That's two female superheroes out of twelve. For a comic book team that has featured strong heroines like Moondragon, Wasp, Mantis, Monica Rambeau, Tigra, and She-Hulk, this is a pretty bad representation on the big screen.

[Surf]

Howard the Duck. The MCU as we know it tried to get off the ground for years over the past 3 decades. This here was a spectacular failure on all levels.

[Username taken]

Definitely Batman and Robin.

It wasn't a commercial failure but it pretty much turned the whole superhero movie thing toxic for a good long while.

[Acecool]

There's been a lively debate about which film did the most to help superheroes become not only financial successes, but to become accepted as serious film properties by broad audiences, critics, and studios. Someone asked the inverse, so I seek your opinion.

Batman and Robin. It killed batman and bigger budget super movies for years afterwards. it caused X-men to drop any outfits that looked remotely like their comic book counterparts. It wasn't until Spiderman came out five years later that a movie studio took a chance on such a concept. Even thereafter most studios were gun shy about superhero movies and we got an X-men here, a Spiderman there, and a dare devil. Elektra and Catwoman there was very little effort put into them.

[AndrewCrossett]

Yes, Batman & Robin turned the then-promising genre into an overnight punchline and nearly killed it. There were bad superhero movies before it, but then there was no real expectation of continuing improvement.

[Starter Set]

It maybe didn't hurt super-heroes as a whole but that last cursed F4 movie sure as hell didn't help making the fantastic family any more popular. (which, as a fan, makes me kinda wanna cry)

But anyway, i don't think that a movie can be bad to such an extent that it can kill a whole genre. It can kill a career, though for some reason there are people like Ryan Reynolds who survived a pretty unhealthy amount of stinkers, but it takes more than one movie to truly hurt a particular category of movies.

That being said, Batman & Robin sure did a remarkable effort at trying to ruin any interest people may still have left at that time for super heroes movies.

[Bukdiah]

Batman and Robin for sure! Everything about it was to sell toys to kids. There is a book called The Caped Crusade that dives into Batman's history and a good portion was dedicated to the movies. Batman and Robin made Batman a joke for the longest time that it was very difficult to make Batman Begins. Prior to that, Batman 66 did the some crazy damage and Michael Uslan had a hard time producing Batman 89 because of it.

[AndrewCrossett]

Batman and Robin for sure! Everything about it was to sell toys to kids. There is a book called The Caped Crusade that dives into Batman's history and a good portion was dedicated to the movies. Batman and Robin made Batman a joke for the longest time that it was very difficult to make Batman Begins. Prior to that, Batman 66 did the some crazy damage and Michael Uslan had a hard time producing Batman 89 because of it.

I blame Bat-Mite.

[DrNewGod]

Batman and Robin. It killed batman and bigger budget super movies for years afterwards. it caused X-men to drop any outfits that looked remotely like their comic book counterparts. It wasn't until Spiderman came out five years later that a movie studio took a chance on such a concept. Even thereafter most studios were gun shy about superhero movies and we got an X-men here, a Spiderman there, and a dare devil. Elektra and Catwoman there was very little effort put into them.

Yes, Batman & Robin turned the then-promising genre into an overnight punchline and nearly killed it. There were bad superhero movies before it, but then there was no real expectation of continuing improvement.

Batman and Robin for sure! Everything about it was to sell toys to kids. There is a book called The Caped Crusade that dives into Batman's history and a good portion was dedicated to the movies. Batman and Robin made Batman a joke for the longest time that it was very difficult to make Batman Begins. Prior to that, Batman 66 did the some crazy damage and Michael Uslan had a hard time producing Batman 89 because of it.

I have to ask if it was really Batman Forever that did the evil deed, and Batman & Robin was just doubling down on the dumpster fire?

[AndrewCrossett]

I have to ask if it was really Batman Forever that did the evil deed, and Batman & Robin was just doubling down on the dumpster fire?

I don't remember hating Batman Forever so much at the time. It wasn't very good, but it didn't provoke a tsunami of ridicule like Batman & Robin did. A lot of people thought Jim Carrey as the Riddler was as big a casting coup as Nicholson's Joker had been. (I was not one of those people.)

[JBatmanFan05]

Batman Forever or Batman and Robin. I'm not big on Batman Forever and I'm tempted like some to blame it for Batman and Robin and the consequences B&R caused.