Clayface is the latest DC Universe (DCU) movie, and it is a rare moment when a comic book movie about a villain ended up being both critically and commercially successful. The movie took a sympathetic character in Matt Hagen and then had his life ruined by mobsters in Gotham City. Trying to get his life back, he underwent an experimental treatment that went wrong and turned him into Clayface. While he started out seeking vengeance, the procedure ended up changing him, and by the end he was a bona fide villain. Clayface ended up as the highest-grossing pure body horror movie ever made, and is the DCU’s highest-rated movie based on fan response on Rotten Tomatoes.
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However, Clayface isn’t the first time that a studio has tried to take a comic book villain and set a movie around them. It isn’t even the first time that one was highly praised and made a lot of money. However, most of the movies that featured villains in the lead roles failed, and one of them is considered one of the worst comic book movies ever made.
5) Morbius
Image Courtesy of Sony
One of the worst comic book movies ever made was about a villain from comics. Morbius is considered an antihero in the books, but this was part of Sony’s attempt to build up a Spider-Man world without Spider-Man, and Morbius was supposed to be the lead-in to a possible Sinister Six movie since it ended with Vulture recruiting him. However, the fact that Morbius was a box office flop and a critical failure meant that things didn’t look good for Sony, and it was a sign that things were not going to work.
Jared Leto plays Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who turns himself into a living vampire while trying to cure his rare blood disease. Matt Smith plays his surrogate brother Milo, who becomes the villain. The only superhero movie that ever suffered as bad a second-week drop at the box office was Shaquille O’Neal’s Steel in 1997. With a 15% Rotten Tomatoes score, it remains one of the worst-rated Marvel or DC movies, and it is better known for the memes, with “It’s Morbin’ Time” as the most infamous.
4) Black Adam
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. expected Black Adam to be a huge success thanks to the fact that Dwayne Johnson took the lead role, and he was promoting it heavily before its release. It did face a few problems since Black Adam was relatively unknown to non-comic book reading fans, and in the comics, he was a villain to Shazam, who had already been introduced without any connection to Black Adam. What resulted was a movie that introduced the Justice Society to the DCEU, but it ended up as a critical disappointment.
One big problem was Johnson himself. He promoted the movie too hard and made claims that Black Adam was about to change everything about the DC Universe and its balance of power. What resulted was considered a letdown based on his high praise, and the movie never had a chance to hit the lofty goals that Johnson set for it. In the end, this is about lost opportunities, as Black Adam is a great DC Comics character, but he ended up as the character who helped end the DCEU, despite Johnson trying to force his way into a position of power before James Gunn and Peter Safran took over.
3) Venom
Image Courtesy of Sony
Venom was the only Sony movie in the Spider-Man universe without Spidey that was considered a success. Much of that is thanks to the humor when depicting the symbiote’s personal connection with host Eddie Brock. Tom Hardy was great as Brock, and the entire back-and-forth between the two really sold this movie and the subsequent two sequels. However, while the first movie was a huge success, the second with Carnage and the third, which was supposed to set up Knull, saw diminishing returns.
Despite any critical complaints and a drop in box office, all three movies were fun if for no other reason than the relationship between Eddie and Venom. There is still hope that Venom ends up in the MCU, and there have been hints it could be coming in a future Spider-Man movie, but for now, these are the best Spider-Man movies without the Wall Crawler that Sony ever made.
2) The Suicide Squad
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
There are two Suicide Squad movies. The first was the DCEU movie, Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer and starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie as the lead characters, Deadshot and Harley Quinn. It received negative reviews from critics and was seen as a letdown, a movie that had a lackluster setup and a rushed climax. The plot was simple. A government agent named Amanda Waller put together a team of villains as a black ops unit. This movie had them set out to save her life.
However, the second movie, titled The Suicide Squad, was directed by James Gunn as part of the DCEU, but it ended up being grandfathered into the new DCU that he created. Robbie was back as Harley Quinn, and it added, most notably, John Cena as Peacemaker. This film actually had a real black ops mission, as these villains (including a very fun King Shark voiced by Sylvester Stallone) set out to bring down an alien named Starro and ended up saving a lot of people, the latter achievement against Waller’s orders. This led into the Peacemaker HBO series.
1) Joker
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
The most successful comic book movie featuring a villain in the lead role arrived in 2019. Todd Phillips directed the DC movie Joker, with Joaquin Phoenix playing Arthur Fleck, a man who started an uprising while being known as the Joker. This isn’t really the Joker from the comics, but the movie keeps the spirit of the situation while having Fleck’s version show up when Bruce Wayne was a child, before Thomas Wayne was murdered.
Instead of the Clown Prince of Crime, Arthur Fleck was a mentally ill man who couldn’t tell fantasy from reality, and as a result, the viewer never knew if what they were watching was really happening or was just a fantasy in his head. This movie was a massive box office success, making $1.079 billion worldwide, the first-ever R-rated film to surpass $1 billion. It was also highly praised, and Phoenix won an Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker.
What is your favorite comic book movie focusing on a villain? Let us know your favorites in the comments below.
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