Worst Performance EVER in a Comic Book Film?

[random_havoc]

As Jokes is saying, its completely intentional, it's how a geek or a nerd would envisage what being 'dark' is, it's supposed to show how the difference between Peter & Eddie are if it where the flip of a coin of the same character shown if how circumstances were different.

That doesn't change the fact that it's garbage, and the film is garbage

 

[random_havoc]

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Hands down.

 

[The Joker]

That doesn't change my opinion that it's garbage, and the film is garbage

Fixed your typo for you.

Yeah Leto's Joker is a strong contender alright.

Sad that the DCEU versions of DC's two biggest villains are strong contenders for this thread.

 

[MbJ]

Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor are two actors who I genuinely like who were dreadfully miscast. I will cut some slack and say part of it is the writing, since I think the cinematic Doom and Luthor were fundamentally misconceived from the ground up.

 

[random_havoc]

Fixed your typo for you.

That's so clever. No one on the boards has ever done that before. Just brilliant.

 

[frankgutz]

lmao, pure trash

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Hands down.

The writing is terrible, but I don't see much of an issue in his performance in that role.

lmao, pure trash

His performance is fine in that movie. And the movie is underrated, it's not trash, it's barely mediocre.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Regarding Julian McMahon... does anyone here watch The Runaways? If so, does he redeem himself for Doom in that show? I ask because I always liked him on Nip/Tuck and was shocked at how awful and miscast he was as Doom. But I'm willing to give the guy another chance if Runaways is good.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Really ? Evil Disco Spider Man was just so ridiculous, didn't you at least find it funny ? I remember watching the film and thinking "yawn" and then that bit came on and was just so terrible that it was really funny, real LMFAO ! The Harry v Peter smackdown was one of the best bits of acting I thought - I mean Emo Pete aside ( and Emo Pete was dreadful) they really sold it as 2 friends whose friendship had become twisted beyond rivalry into hatred.

I liked that the way they defeat Venom was a shout out to the comics. Otherwise SM3 was a real missed opportunity.

Sorry, I'm just always surprised when people don't get a good laugh out of Evil Disco Spider Man. I could use a laugh - think I'll go watch it now on Youtube.

Hey, back to worst performances.....not the absolute worst but have we talked much about Thomas Haden Church in SM3 He's about as engaging as a block of wood.

Oh, I laughed my ass off at Emo Peter for sure. It was awful but I do agree it was one of the more watchable parts of that movie and at least it wasn't unintentionally funny like so many other scenes. Just off the top of my head, those include:

• The scene where the forensics expert butler tells Harry that he knew Norman died by his own hand by inspecting his stab wounds
• Kirsten Dunst SINGING
• Mary Jane breaking up with Peter and Harry skulking around in the background like an evil mastermind
• The "inspirational" scene where Harry turns good and helps Peter at the end
• "Dear God, pretty please with sugar on top, KILL PETER PARKER."

There are probably about 100 other equally cringey moments in that movie but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Also yeah, I feel like Thomas Haden Church gets off easy just because of how absurdly annoying Topher is through the whole movie, but Church isn't really any better. He just has the same sad expression on his face the whole time.

 

[MbJ]

Regarding Julian McMahon... does anyone here watch The Runaways? If so, does he redeem himself for Doom in that show? I ask because I always liked him on Nip/Tuck and was shocked at how awful and miscast he was as Doom. But I'm willing to give the guy another chance if Runaways is good.

He's not bad on Runaways. I felt Doom was the perfect storm of being wildly miscast and poorly written. Doom being a wimpy American businessman in an overcoat is such a perfect example of the that weird period in the early to mid 2000s where studios were convinced they couldn't have characters be too "comic booky" for fear audiences wouldn't buy it.

 

[Batmannerism]

He's not bad on Runaways. I felt Doom was the perfect storm of being wildly miscast and poorly written. Doom being a wimpy American businessman in an overcoat is such a perfect example of the that weird period in the early to mid 2000s where studios were convinced they couldn't have characters be too "comic booky" for fear audiences wouldn't buy it.

Quite amazing they managed to get almost everything wrong about Doom - the least awful part of that character was that costume....which is actually better than FF 2015 Doom. Sigh.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, the weird thing about both F4 versions is that they both went in completely different directions and neither of them work. The Tim Story movies kind of embraced the comic booky aspects of the F4, but failed miserably with Doom. And those elements didn't really work with the heroes either, other than Johnny Storm, since Jessica Alba CAN'T act, and Ioan Gruffudd and Michael Chiklis felt a tad miscast. And then you had Fantfourstic, which was just a disaster in every way possible and tried to go the "dark and realistic" route and wound up just being drab and boring. I'm sure Marvel Studios will do a better job, but at this point, I honestly wonder if they should because those movies might have killed F4's potential on film.

 

[Another_Fool]

Question about Eisenberg. Was it that he was miscast or misdirected? For instance, what if Snyder had urged Jesse not to portray the character the way he did but rather the cold and collected way we imagine Luthor? Do we think Eisenberg could've pulled that off convincingly?

 

[2kt09]

Question about Eisenberg. Was it that he was miscast or misdirected? For instance, what if Snyder had urged Jesse not to portray the character the way he did but rather the cold and collected way we imagine Luthor? Do we think Eisenberg could've pulled that off convincingly?

Early on in production, Snyder wanted to cast a famous face in the part so he could pull a Psycho — destabilizing the audience by unexpectedly killing off someone they thought would be a main character.

The actor he wanted ended up becoming Lex Luthor instead.

“I thought, if it were Jesse Eisenberg and he got out and he goes, ‘I’m Jimmy Olsen,’ you’d be like, oh my God, we’re gonna have Jimmy Olsen in the whole movie, right?’” Snyder says. “And then if he got shot, you’d just be like, ‘What!? You can’t do that.’”

Snyder and his wife, producer Deborah Synder, met with Eisenberg to pitch the idea of a sudden-death cameo. “I said, ‘I want to do this misdirect and you’d be great. You’d be a great Jimmy Olsen,’” the director says. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool,’ and he was being very Jesse in the meeting. Introverted but constantly going, ‘Okay, I see, uh-huh. So it’s sort of a pop-culture redirect, you’re gonna do, because of the certain status of an actor…’”

As Eisenberg thought out loud in rapid-fire bursts, Snyder watched the nervy, jangled young actor and started thinking of withdrawing the Jimmy Olsen offer. And after the 32-year-old actor left the meeting, Snyder turned to his wife: “I was like, ‘Wow, that guy is crazy… Debbie, what about Jesse as Lex?”

At that point, they had were still interviewing actors about the Luthor role — most of them older, more imposing figures, such as Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston.

“We talked about the usual suspects that you would imagine; any actor who has been bald, probably,” Synder says. “Bryan Cranston would have been great, right? And by the way, he’s an amazing actor. Can you imagine how different the movie would be?”

Instead, they decided to take a chance and experiment with a younger, weirder, and more frenetic Lex. Eisenberg said yes, but that wasn’t his first impulse when it came to the Jimmy Olsen part.

As Eisenberg obliquely told EW’s Keith Staskiewicz during production: “He met me for, yes, something else. And I wasn’t really interested in it. But his enthusiasm about the movie and his description of the movie sounded really interesting. … When they sent me the script they asked me to play the part I play in the movie and it was such a wonderfully drawn character.”

This Lex is a spoiled brat, a millennial intern who happens to be the billionaire boss, an adult who still tantrums like a child, and a boy so horrifically abused by his father that the only way to release his torment is to unleash it on the world. He despises both Batman and Superman.

No heroes ever came to his rescue. He is determined to turn them against each other. If the world ends, so be it. Lex wants for nothing. Literally — nothing sounds pretty good to him, and that suicidal impulse manifests itself as a desire to see the whole world annihilated, too.

Eisenberg has no idea how he fits into the pantheon of other Lex Luthors. “I’m so unfamiliar with anything surrounding it because I didn’t grow up reading the comics or watching these movies,” he said. “I read a little bit out of interest, but it was meaningless.”

This was the exact kind of cold indifference Snyder says he wanted. “He can’t fake it,” he says.

Jimmy Olsen makes a secret appearance in 'Batman v Superman'

 

[CJ]

Interesting read.

Bryan Cranston would have been great as Lex. I mean, he'd still have a poor script to work with, but he'd at least be a more intimidating figure than Eisenberg, who imo, was obnoxious and one of the worst casting decisons for a superhero movie.

(A good actor, just wasn't right for the part)

 

[DOBSON10]

Question about Eisenberg. Was it that he was miscast or misdirected? For instance, what if Snyder had urged Jesse not to portray the character the way he did but rather the cold and collected way we imagine Luthor? Do we think Eisenberg could've pulled that off convincingly?

Alot of people seem to think/thought Jesse could pull it off convincingly, but I never did. He was hilariously miscast in every way. The fact he came in to read for the part of Jimmy Olsen but ended up getting Lex Luthor pretty much says it all, the characters couldn't be any different. Jesse would have actually been perfect for Jimmy Olsen, but we got... "Ding... Ding... Ding..." instead. If I were asked to come up with a Top 10 worst choices for Lex before that movie was made, Eisenberg would have made that list, yet somehow he played Lex Luthor in an actual DC Film.

 

[2kt09]

Interesting read.

Bryan Cranston would have been great as Lex. I mean, he'd still have a poor script to work with, but he'd at least be a more intimidating figure than Eisenberg, who imo, was obnoxious and one of the worst casting decisons for a superhero movie.

(A good actor, just wasn't right for the part)

Cranston as EisenLex makes me think of Hal from Malcolm in the Middle playing a villain rather than folks assuming he'd be Walter White.
The script doesn't point toward a classic Lex beyond giving Lex a complicated plan for the first time ever that he's constantly convincing people to be a part of, to their detriment.

 

[Batmannerism]

Question about Eisenberg. Was it that he was miscast or misdirected? For instance, what if Snyder had urged Jesse not to portray the character the way he did but rather the cold and collected way we imagine Luthor? Do we think Eisenberg could've pulled that off convincingly?

I was expecting a darker version of Eisenberg's character from Now You See Me, pompous, arrogant but also clearly very intelligent. That would have been a good blueprint to build the character on.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Question about Eisenberg. Was it that he was miscast or misdirected? For instance, what if Snyder had urged Jesse not to portray the character the way he did but rather the cold and collected way we imagine Luthor? Do we think Eisenberg could've pulled that off convincingly?

Both, I think. Jesse doesn't have the right screen presence for a character like Luthor - a bit too youthful, a bit too nerdy. And in addition he was probably instructed to act as this twitchy and snotty Zuckerberg caricature.

I don't know about Cranston either, because it looks like bald man typecasting...

 

[Batmannerism]

Both, I think. Jesse doesn't have the right screen presence for a character like Luthor - a bit too youthful, a bit too nerdy. And in addition he was probably instructed to act as this twitchy and snotty Zuckerberg caricature.

I don't know about Cranston either, because it looks like bald man typecasting...

Bald man typecasting ! Is that really a thing ? I'm starting to think of bald actors who would have been a good Luthor.

Sir Ben Kingsley ? Great actor but a bit too old perhaps.

Sir Patrick Stewart ? Great actor but hard not to think of him as Prof X

Stanley Tucci ? very underrated actor, the guy is a chameleon.

What about....and this is almost as crazy a casting as Eisenberg, Vin Diesel as Luthor ?

IMO Eisenberg could have been a good Luthor but the director and writers totally got it wrong.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Bald man typecasting ! Is that really a thing ? I'm starting to think of bald actors who would have been a good Luthor.

Sir Ben Kingsley ? Great actor but a bit too old perhaps.

Sir Patrick Stewart ? Great actor but hard not to think of him as Prof X

Stanley Tucci ? very underrated actor, the guy is a chameleon.

What about....and this is almost as crazy a casting as Eisenberg, Vin Diesel as Luthor ?

IMO Eisenberg could have been a good Luthor but the director and writers totally got it wrong.

Cranston tops them all. Fresh from the hit TV series, gruff and bald. He's an obvious winner.

 

[2kt09]

You guys up for predicting who's gonna make the worst list next year? I already got some names in mind.

 

[Batmannerism]

Cranston tops them all. Fresh from the hit TV series, gruff and bald. He's an obvious winner.

Dude, I agree that BC was obvious choice based on classic comics Luthor but.....its almost too obvious. Kevin Spacey was kind of obvious too and he was a very meh bad guy as Luthor.

I had a lot of hope for Eisenberg, as a different take on the character - something fresh. Sadly we were all disappointed.

Can you imagine how bitter we'd all feel if Cranston had got the part and Snyder and the writers had still ruined the character?

 

[Batmannerism]

You guys up for predicting who's gonna make the worst list next year? I already got some names in mind.

Oooh come on then let's hear them !

For me...


.... Sophie Turner in the title role of Dark Phoenix.

Kirsten Wiig as Cheetah, I hope I'm wrong but I can't see her as the psychotic nemesis of WW.

Channing Tatum as Gambit.

 

[OutOfBoose]

Dude, I agree that BC was obvious choice based on classic comics Luthor but.....its almost too obvious. Kevin Spacey was kind of obvious too and he was a very meh bad guy as Luthor.

I had a lot of hope for Eisenberg, as a different take on the character - something fresh. Sadly we were all disappointed.

Can you imagine how bitter we'd all feel if Cranston had got the part and Snyder and the writers had still ruined the character?

Tbh, I don't want Cranston as Luthor. Regardless, in a scatter-brained movie like BvS, the only chance Luthor had is to be less irritating. Even Jesse was a typecasting. He played a nerdy head of a mega-corporation, then he played a mastermind... And in BvS he plays a combination of those two, only with 300% more snot. A very narrow brain came up with the idea.