News culture “Ugly and boring” This superhero movie is the worst ever made: it got an incredible rating of… 0%!
Published on 01/16/2025 at 06:58
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A monumental failure of superhero cinema, this film remains one of the biggest flops of its genre despite an already acquired fanbase.
A hero who flops
Even at the height of superhero films, where not a year went by without Marvel or DC making a new marketing stunt, some films in the genre flop. This is the case of Max Steel (2016) (and not Man of Steel), which never succeeded in seducing its audience. This feature film, inspired by the Mattel toy line, is often considered one of the worst films of the genre. While Barbiefrom the same company, met with phenomenal success, the adaptation of Max Steel by director Stewart Hendler was a resounding failure at the box office, largely shunned by critics.
So, even with derivative products already on the market, it’s complicated to shine in the cinema and use your already acquired audience. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a disastrous 0% review score. “A spectacle without spectacle, an autumnal and amorphous blockbuster which remains there, suspended in the air, while you soak up its incessant banality”, even notes the media The Wrap. As for spectators, the feature film obtained a much more average rating of 48%. Cinema Crazed’s review calls it “ugly and boring”, lamenting the waste of a promising concept.
A film with a disastrous score
The film follows the story of Max McGrath (played by Ben Winchell), a teenager who discovers powers he struggles to control after moving to a new town. With the help of Steel, a living alien exoskeleton, he learns to control his abilities to confront a dark threat looming over humanity. Despite this classic plot and several more popular animated adaptations, the live-action version never found its audience. The chaotic production, marked by changes in direction since 2009 and a modest budget of $10 million, grossed just $4.6 million worldwide. However, some viewers on Moviepilot give it a 4.5 rating. For the curious, Max Steel is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
With a budget of 20 million dollars and 14.5 million for marketing, Max Steel experienced a real failure when it was released in October 2016. Broadcast on 2034 screens in the United States and intended for a PG audience before being reclassified PG-13, the film n ‘grossed only $2.18 million in its first weekend. The situation quickly worsened with a 68% drop in revenue in the second week, then an 82% drop in the third, leading to its withdrawal from theaters. In the end, it only generated $6.2 million worldwide. Fortunately for Mattel, its Max Steel toys survived and continued to be produced until 2022. Today, it is difficult to say whether the adventures of the eponymous hero will be revived or if he is finally retired.
