With Hollywood studios hurrying to get as many superhero blockbusters as possible into
production, everyone is looking for the next sure thing - and fans are casting doubt on
some before they're even off the ground.
But the truth is, sometimes the stories least likely to succeed turn out to be the biggest
hits.
Here are Screen Rant's Amazing Superhero Movies That Surprised Everyone.
Batman In the 1990s, the most famous version of Batman
outside of the comic books was the campy Adam West TV show.
So a big screen version of the hero was going to try something different.
A little too different for most fans.
So when Tim Burton landed the job as director, the man behind PeeWee's Big Adventure seemed
like a guaranteed flop - especially when he cast the comic actor Michael Keaton as Batman.
Everyone knows those fans were 100% wrong: not only was the movie a blockbuster hit,
but it paved the way for a darker superhero story.
And Keaton surprised critics even more, becoming the quintessential Batman for entire generations.
X-Men Back in the year 2000, the idea of superheroes,
or even a superhero team dominating the blockbuster market was unheard of - let alone a team of
mutated outcasts in black leather.
But director Bryan Singer didn't see the X-Men as heroes, or a franchise: just a cool story.
Imagining the battle for mutant freedom as an allegory for the Civil Rights movement
- with Magneto and Professor X filling in for Martin Luther King and Malcolm X - the
movie was a hit.
It kicked off a series, and the superhero genre as a whole, while making more than a
few overnight superstars along the way.
Spider-Man Adapting a team of mutants into a popcorn
thriller is one thing, but adapting a hero as iconic and effects-heavy as Spider-Man?
The job seemed impossible, especially with the supremely un-hunky or musclebound Tobey
Maguire in the lead role.
But Sony and director Sam Raimi didn't back down from the challenge, showing big screen
superheroics were finally possible, and setting the mold for almost every superhero origin
movie to follow.
The film franchise has ran into trouble since then, but starting with such a massive success
wasn't predicted by anyone.
The Avengers The Marvel fans saw a dream come true as the
movie versions of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk were all set to join up for
a team adventure - but it's easy to forget that at the time, nobody knew how the idea
would play out.
Would there be enough time for each hero to shine?
Could a threat arrive that actually tested their total talents?
And could Joss Whedon successfuly manage a blockbuster with so much riding on it?
The answer was yes, across the board.
The Avengers delivered on every hope, locking Marvel's movie universe in place, and putting
Whedon in charge of guiding every one of their sequels.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier The biggest question mark of Marvel's Phase
2 was Captain America's first solo movie set in the modern era.
He helped launch The Avengers, but needed a brand new story to make a solo series worthwhile.
He got one in The Winter Soldier, with the massive reveal that SHIELD had been infiltrated
by the enemy of his first movie, eventually bringing the agency down, and spinning the
TV show based in its universe on a new path.
Most surprising was the directors, whose experience on shows like Community and Arrested Development
seemed a bad fit for superheroes.
That was dead wrong: The Winter Soldier was one of the slickest action movies Marvel ever
made, with the Russos - and Cap - in the driver's seat for Marvel's Phase 3.
Batman Begins After Joel Schumacher's neon, nippled Batsuits
basically killed the Batman movie series, there were some who thought it would take
a decade for the sting to wear off.
Instead, Warner Bros. moved on with a new spin from director Christopher Nolan.
The cerebral, brooding director seemed to be just as strange a choice as Burton had,
and his pick of a unknown Welsh actor for the lead role doomed the project for a lot
of fans.
They were left eating their words, as Batman Begins - and Christian Bale - delivered a
wildly successful version of The Dark Knight for a brand new generation.
Not to mention setting the stage for one of the best comic book films - and versions of
Batman's famous enemy, the Joker - that may ever be made.
Superman The tagline of this 1978 movie says it all:
"You'll Believe a Man Can Fly."
Back then, that promise alone was enough to convince movie fans they were in for a revolution
in movie-making.
It's hard to imagine there ever being a time when a Superman movie seemed impossible, especially
one that actually featured polished versions of his superpowers.
But the movie delivered on the promise, and then some.
The biggest surprise was the star, Christopher Reeve.
The grinning unknown actor may have been the only person capable of pulling off the role,
proving to be as much of a hero off-screen as on.
Forget a surprise: for its place and time, Superman was, and is, one of the best superhero
films ever made.
Iron Man Sure, Tony Stark is a box office veteran these
days, the same as the insanely successful actor who plays him.
But when Marvel first tried to bring its B-level superhero to the big screen, it was hard to
understand why.
A millionaire in a suit of armor with shrapnel in his chest seemed like the worst hero to
build a movie around, and casting Robert Downey, Jr - best known for his drug problems - seemed
to condemn the entire project.
Fans know how this one played out, with Downey, Stark, and director Jon Favreau turning in
what still might be Marvel's best movie.
It's a good thing, too - the entire Marvel Universe was riding on it.
Guardians of the Galaxy Even with Marvel's Avengers a worldwide hit,
and even with the studio's bet on underdog Joss Whedon paying off and then some, the
announcement that Guardians of the Galaxy was actually going to be made seemed too weird
to be true.
Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, sure - but making a team of green-skinned aliens, a talking
raccoon and walking tree work?
With director James Gunn in charge, the movie would be unforgettable, but probably not a
mainstream hit.
Defying even the highest hopes, Guardians wound up having one of Marvel's biggest box
office runs ever, proving even the weirdest stories can be a billion-dollar property,
if it's told the right way.
Deadpool Some comic books are especially hard to adapt:
so complicated or fantastic that developing a movie script is impossible.
That wasn't the case with Deadpool, though: the Merc with a Mouth's movie was put into
development hell by some Fox executives.
After years of re-writes, a PG-13 version of the story, and with a budget of just $58
million, star Ryan Reynolds blew the doors off the box office, beating some of Marvel's
heaviest box office hitters, and becoming one of the highest-grossing R-Rated movies
EVER.
Since Deadpool could have proven skeptics wrong with just a fraction of that success,
it takes the cake.
Those are the superhero movies that people doubted the most, eventually turning out to
beat the odds, and create entire franchises in the process.
Which superhero movies most surprised you, for better or worse?
Let us know in the comments, and remember to subscribe to our channel for more videos
like this one.