It can’t be denied that Frank Miller’s body of work has firmly established him as somebody who knows how to write an acclaimed comic book, but The Spirit provided ironclad evidence that he sure as hell didn’t know how to direct them.
Based on the noir-infused strip of the same name, it was a passion project of sorts for the genre icon who’d delivered some of the greatest stories the medium had ever known, which was being brought to life using the same technology Miller had previously weaponized to fantastic effect during his stint guest directing Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City.
Throw in a star-studded cast that featured Gabriel Macht in the title role with support coming from Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson, and many more besides, it was reasonable to expect the unique and fascinating-looking superhero story would be able to make a splash and recoup its $60 million budget with ease.
Instead, The Spirit was a catastrophe on every level, bombing spectacularly after failing to clear $40 million in ticket sales while being bludgeoned into submission by critics and audiences alike, ultimately topping out with diabolical Rotten Tomatoes scores of only 14 and 25 percent from both parties.
It’s been 15 years since the star-studded adventure with an engaging concept and well-known creative mastermind at the helm fell to pieces to be proclaimed dead upon arrival, and Redditors are still trying to figure out why. The most simple explanation tends to be the answer, which in this case is the undeniable fact The Spirit sucks unfathomably hard, with the consensus reaching the entirely accurate hypothesis that Miller was simply way too far out of his depth and vastly unqualified for the role.
