Chris Columbus reveals superhero movies that made him “lose interest” in the genre

Harry Potter helmer Chris Columbus has been discussing his miserable experience on the 2005 Fantastic Four flick, and revealed the superhero movies that were so good, they put him off the genre.

Chris Columbus directed the first two Harry Potter movies, which are essentially superhero stories with magic, but he’s also come close to making actual comic book movies.

In 1995, Colubus wrote a Fantastic Four script and was nearly involved with the making of 20th Century’s Fox’s F4 movie a decade later – more on that below. In 1997, he wrote a Daredevil script for Columbia Pictures. While in the late 1990s he was attached to direct the first Spider-Man movie, until Sam Raimi took charge of that property.

But while doing publicity rounds for new Netflix feature The Thursday Murder Club, Columbus revealed he lost interest in the genre due to the brilliance of two movies.

Spider-Man and Batman movies ended his interest in superheroes

While speaking to Fade to Black about his waning interest in the genre, Columbus said: “Over the years people have done it so well that I personally lost interest in making a superhero movie.

“It started a little bit with Spider-Man 2. When I saw what Sam Raimi did with that I thought it was a perfect superhero movie. Certainly Matt Reeves’ The Batman with Robert Pattinson was a brilliant film, too.

“I realized I don’t have a desire to make those movies anymore because people are doing them better than I ever could at this point in my career.”

Why Chris Columbus was fired from the 2005 Fantastic Four

Columbus was also doubtless deterred by his time on the 2005 F4 movie. “We were in a weird situation,” Columbus explains. “On the first Fantastic Four, I had worked on a script. There were a lot of writers involved. They were about to make the movie and we were producing it.

“I met with the director and the producer and had some ideas. I basically said, ‘Some of this conceptual art should feel more like Jack Kirby, who was the artist of the Fantastic Four, and should feel more like the Silver Age of Marvel.’

“I left that meeting and on the way back from to house I got a call from the head of 20th Century Fox saying ‘You’re fired. You had too much of an opinion!’”

To see what we thought of that particular F4 movie, check out our ranking of the Fantastic Four movies. While we’ve also got the story behind a Fantastic Four movie Marvel doesn’t want you to see.