A common criticism of superhero movies that don’t fare so well is that they have too many villains. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 is a prime example of this, and producer Avi Arad later admitted to forcing the director to cram Venom in there.

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It’s not that comic book movies with multiple villains can’t work — the corruption of Harvey Dent is crucial to Joker’s masterplan in The Dark Knight — but each villain needs to be given enough time to be fleshed out into someone the audience can care about, and the more villains there are, the less screen time each of them has.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Giant Sandman confronts Spider-Man in Spider-Man 3

With the final chapter in his Spider-Man trilogy, Sam Raimi wanted to focus on the Sandman, an escaped inmate who wants to use his newfound powers to steal money to treat his daughter’s terminal illness and who turns out to be Uncle Ben’s real killer.

The secondary villain was to be the Hobgoblin, Harry Osborn using his dad’s supervillain tech to avenge him when he finds out Peter is Spider-Man. But Avi Arad also wanted Raimi to include Venom, and the threequel ended up feeling overstuffed.

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016)

Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne meeting at Lex Luthor's party in Batman v Superman

The title of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would imply that Batman and Superman are each other’s villain in the movie, but there are a bunch of other villains, too. Lex Luthor is introduced as the mastermind behind the two titans’ battle, while Doomsday from “The Death of Superman” makes an appearance in the final act.

Parademons and an evil Superman pop up in the tangential “Knightmare” sequence. Batman is haunted by a Joker who hadn’t even made his on-screen debut yet. It’s too much.

Green Lantern (2011)

Hector Hammond in Green Lantern

It made sense that Sinestro would be the villain in the first Green Lantern movie because he’s arguably the character’s most iconic foe and he’s also a great way to introduce audiences to the sprawling world of the Green Lantern Corps.

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But the movie also features Hector Hammond as a one-note secondary villain and even introduces Parallax — and that’s just in the origin movie.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

The Juggernaut looks up, confused, in X-Men: The Last Stand

Simon Kinberg’s first attempt at adapting “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” X-Men: The Last Stand sees Phoenix as a villain, but also features most of the Brotherhood of Mutants. If the heroes are a large team, then the villains can’t also be a large team — it’s too many characters to keep track of.

In The Last Stand, Phoenix is backed up by Magneto (again), Mystique, Juggernaut (played by Vinnie Jones famously uttering, “I’m the Juggernaut, b*tch!”), and Trask, possibly based on Bolivar Trask, who was later played by Peter Dinklage in Days of Future Past.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Bane catches Batman's fist in a fight in The Dark Knight Rises

Like most Batman movies, The Dark Knight Rises has two major villains: Bane, whose evil plan drives the plot, and Catwoman, an antihero who later joins the Bat’s side. It would be fine if it was just these two, but the movie also brings back Ra’s al Ghul and the Scarecrow from Batman Begins as secondary antagonists and also introduces Ra’s’ daughter Talia al Ghul.

This is way too many villains considering Batman spends a big chunk of the movie out of fighting form, stuck at the bottom of a pit with a broken back, and the plot is so ambitious and large-scale that it basically stages the French Revolution on the streets of Gotham.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Whiplash walks down a race car track from Iron Man 2

Marvel’s so-called “villain problem” was established nice and early in Iron Man 2. Jon Favreau’s sequel arguably should’ve focused on either Justin Hammer or Whiplash instead of featuring both.

Tony thinks Whiplash is in jail for most of the movie, so there’s no hope of a tangible hero/villain dynamic there. Hammer, meanwhile, is just a wannabe Stark, which is funny (especially in the hands of Sam Rockwell), but not necessarily menacing.

Aquaman (2018)

Black Manta Attacks Aquaman

James Wan’s Aquaman has one fascinating villain in the form of Orm, Arthur’s half-brother who challenges him for the throne of Atlantis and wants to invade the surface world. Then, Black Manta is introduced as the perfunctory side villain, occasionally popping up just to tease his appearance in the sequel, but it always drags down the plot — he makes a suit of armor in a long montage just to pose a mild inconvenience to Arthur.

And as spectacular as the final battle is, most of the races involved haven’t been previously established, so it doesn’t have the weight of a Battle of Helm’s Deep or a Battle of Yavin.

Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018)

Sonny Burch in Ant-Man and the Wasp

Much like Iron Man 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp has two villains — Ghost and Sonny Burch — and it’s clear that the movie should’ve focused on just one because neither is developed enough for the audience to care about them.

RELATED: MCU: 5 Actors Considered To Play Ant-Man (& 4 For The Wasp)

Both villains are involved in half-baked subplots that have been tacked onto Hank Pym’s quest to reunite with his long-lost wife in the Quantum Realm, a story that didn’t really open itself to any particular antagonist besides the treachery of the Quantum Realm itself and maybe some nefarious types who somehow live there.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze in his lab in Batman and Robin

Often ranked among the worst comic book movies ever made — or worst movies of all time, period — Batman & Robin suffers from a lot of problems (the Bat-nipples and Bat-Credit Card being two of them) and one of them is too many villains.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman plays Poison Ivy, and wrestler Robert Swenson plays Bane, woefully mischaracterized as a cartoonish brute who speaks in grunts and groans.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Rhino as a burglar in The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Sony apparently didn’t learn its lesson from Spider-Man 3’s villain problem, because it didn’t even wait for the third Amazing Spider-Man movie to make the same mistake again.

In addition to uncovering the conspiracy that needlessly surrounds his parents’ death, Peter Parker has to contend with Electro and the Green Goblin (racing right past the Norman Osborn version to the Harry Osborn version). The movie is also bookended with appearances by the Rhino and includes a setup for the Sinister Six.

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