Howard the Duck, released in 1986, was Marvel’s first modern-day big-screen adaptation, and the title earned just $16 million domestically against a $36 million budget. It was such a spectacular loser that it supposedly led to a fistfight between two Universal executives over who was to blame. The Punisher cast Swedish lunkhead Dolph Lundgren as the guntoting vigilante for a 1989 dud that went straight to video. Also skipping theaters was 1992’s Captain America. The bargain-basement thriller—sorry, “thriller”—from director Albert Pyun got hustled into production following the success of
...more
