Marvel Movie Bracket Game: Guardians of the Galaxy Vs. Howard the Duck

http://lebeauleblog.com/2015/05/03/marvel-movie-bracket-game-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vs-howard-the-duck/

In the battle of the Captains, Winter Soldier beat out The First Avenger. Now the star spangled sequel will face of against Iron Man, the movie that started the Marvel Cinematic Universe in round 2.

Today, one of the most popular Marvel movies of all times takes on a notorious turkey – er- duck. It’s the space opera, Guardians of the Galaxy vs. Howard the Freakin’ Duck!

When it was announced that Marvel was producing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, most of us responded with “who?” I’m a comic book fan and even I couldn’t name a single member of the team before last summer. I wasn’t alone. The idea that a movie that featured a talking racoon and a sentient plant could be the third highest grossing movie of 2014 seemed ridiculous. And yet, it was. With Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel proved they could market even the most obscure characters in their library. Who needs Spider-man and the X-Men when you can make Star-Lord a household name?

In 1986, Howard the Duck seemed like a sure thing. It was produced by the creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones himself, George Lucas. Howard the Duck was an expensive, effects-heavy summer movie produced by the guy who invented effects-heavy summer movies. Sure, the comic book was on the obscure side. But expectations for Howard the Duck were high.

But unlike Guardians of the Galaxy, Howard the Duck fell short of expectations. Way short. The reviews were terrible and the movie became one of the most infamous flops of all times. Star Lea Thompson who was expecting Howard to be her big break, instead found that being associated with the movie made her nearly unhirable.

Although Thompson’s movie career suffered, Howard’s merely went into hibernation. Almost 30 years later, the mouthy duck showed up in the tag for Guardians of the Galaxy looking and sounding a lot more like his comic book counterpart. Howard’s appearance was a gag cooked up by writer-director James Gunn. But ever since his high profile cameo appearance, rumors have swirled that Howard could be headlining a movie of his own sometime.

Let’s be honest. This round is a gag just like Howard’s Guardians cameo. There’s no way the anthropomorphic duck is going to beat out the Guardians, right? It seems unlikely. But then again, that word could be used to explain everyone of these characters. So I won’t rule anything out.