Did The Dark Knight Returns Kill Superman the Quest for Peace?

[Lokimaru]

I just realized that The DARK KNIGHT RETURNS came out before SUPERMAN: The Quest for Peace and may have been a contributing factor in the low box office of the other. We know now that The Dark Knight Returns caused a significant hit to Superman's popularity at that time could it have influenced the overly negative reception of the film as well? Maybe even some of the production woes? Never really had reason to put two and two together and connect the two till I was thinking about Superman's popularity verses Batman's and the Switch during the 80's. It's not like people didn't have good Superman material during that time what with Ruby-Spears, Superboy, Lois and Clark, STAS and Smallville so what happened.

[Kuwagaton]

The question is a little confusing. I personally don't see a correlation between Miller's comic being popular and Superman IV stinking up the joint if that's what you mean. It really didn't needing any help flopping.

[superduperman]

Superman 4 was made by a B-movie company called Canon. WB shifted the responsibility to them and gave the budget to make it. They specifically told Canon the money could only go to make Superman 4. Instead, they dumped half the budget into other films. So you get a Superman who repairs the Great Wall of China just be staring at it. I think this might have had more to do with the movie's failure than anything else.

[Vordan]

Bruh WHAT? This is the biggest leap in logic ever. QFP sucked because the script sucked, the budget was nonexistent, and Reeves wanted to make the movie into a platform for his anti-nuke beliefs (not that I disagree with his beliefs). TDKR was not at all the reason for its failure.

[Lokimaru]

IDK man as a Kid I liked the movie it was only as an Adult did I see the flaws so the target audience shouldn't have had a problem with it. Meanwhile the teen demo would have been exposed to TDKR by then and stayed away cause of Superman portrayal in the books.

[superduperman]

It was also the fourth installment of a series whose third installment didn't do well either. Which came out nearly a decade after the first movie. And the script sucked. So there was that. It never had a chance. How many people loved Jaws 4? Or Halloween 4? Or any other franchise that lasted to four movies? Alien 4? Terminator 4? I don't even know how many of those movies there are. I'm just assuming there was a Jaws 4. If they had done a Brainiac movie, that might be different. But a generic "Nuclear Man" who had the same powers he did but looked different? Come on. This thing was DOA.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

I think you are TITANICALLY overestimating DKR's relative cultural permeation.

[DochaDocha]

I don't find a strong correlation between DKR and QFP's lack of success. I find a strong correlation, though, between QFP's lack of quality and QFP's lack of success.

[superduperman]

I don't find a strong correlation between DKR and QFP's lack of success. I find a strong correlation, though, between QFP's lack of quality and QFP's lack of success.

The holding up a weight with one strand of hair was cool, though.

[TheBatman]

What killed Superman 4 was Superman 4 being a bad, low budget film, a film that followed Superman 3, which was also bad.


If comics influenced people on the level you assume it did, then most of the general audience would've realized that Batman could be a dark, serious character before the 1989 film was released.