9 most disappointing Marvel movies, ranked

4. X-Men: The Last Stand

Back in the early 2000s, superhero movies weren’t as popular as they are today. However, there were two franchises that proved to be a major exception to that rule: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Bryan Singer’s X-Men. Both of them started off amazingly and had an even greater follow-up that made audiences excited for the third entry on their respective sagas. Unfortunately, history wasn’t kind to either one of them, and much to everybody’s disappointment they both ended on a flat note.

X-Men: The Last Stand had a lot of problems behind the scenes. Original director Bryan Singer moved on from the X-Men franchise to direct Superman: Returns. A replacement was eventually found in the form of Matthew Vaughn, the man behind amazing blockbusters such as Kingsman and Kick-Ass. Unfortunately, Matthew also ended up passing on the project due to the short amount of time he had to make his vision come true and because he didn’t want to be remembered as the man who made a bad X-Men movie (which was probably the best as he later had the chance to create a good X-Men project).

Eventually, Brett Ratner signed as the movie’s director. But while a leading man was eventually found for X-Men: The Last Stand, there were a lot of problems with the script. Fox thought the Dark Phoenix Saga was too dark to be the main focus of a multi-million mainstream movie. So rewrites were made to ensure the “cured” storyline from the Astonishing X-Men also had as much protagonist.

Of course, all of this happened without audiences knowing about it. Everything fans knew was that mutants were about to face their greatest challenge yet and that two of the most beloved X-Men stories were going to be adapted on the big screen. That, coupled with the success of previous movies of the franchise, made everybody insanely excited about what Fox and Brett Ratner were creating. But we all know how that story ended.

X-Men: The Last Stand had many problems, but even if it wasn’t a terrible movie it certainly didn’t meet expectations either. While nobody truly believed the movie represented the final entry of the X-Men saga, it was still underwhelming to watch it for the first time. There were many unnecessary deaths, there was way more focus on the action than on delivering a deep story, and there were segments that felt a little too crowded. So even if there are positives to salvage from the film, we can’t deny it was a disappointment when it first came out.