When it comes to naming the worst comic book adaptations ever made, anyone who doesn’t think Jonah Hex is worthy of considerations is kidding themselves. The infamous 2010 disaster instantly gained an unwanted level of notoriety for just how bad it was, which is a shame when it came burdened with so much potential and creative talent.
Pixar veteran and Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! director Jimmy Hayward was making his live-action directorial debut on a project revolving around a supernatural bounty hunter that’s returned from the dead with a vengeance, working from a script by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the demented minds behind Jason Statham’s Crank duology, which was bonkers enough on paper to warrant plenty of intrigue and excitement.
Not only that, but the cast was absolutely stacked. As well as Josh Brolin in the title role, Jonah Hex also boasted Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Shannon, Will Arnett, Lance Reddick and Michael Fassbender among the ensemble. All those starry names, and it still sucked.
In the past, Fox has actively warned people against ever watching the movie, but in a new interview the actress backtracked slightly by revealing that she didn’t think her performance was bad as some folks made it out to be.
“While I shouldn’t have been nominated for an Oscar for it, I’m definitely not bad in it.”
Whether you agree with that sentiment or not, nobody deserves pass marks for Jonah Hex. Nobody. The finished product was hacked apart so extensively in post production that it only runs for 81 minutes, and even then it could still only muster a dismal 12% score on Rotten Tomatoes from over 150 reviews. It also flopped spectacularly at the box office by recouping just $11 million of its $47 million budget, and has since become a byword for how not to make a comic book blockbuster.