Trivia / Steel

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $16 million. Box office, $1,710,972. The movie had a pathetic $870,068 opening (considering it was in over 1,000 screens, the per-screen average was a dismal $691!), and its second weekend still ranks among the biggest drops (78%, down to $191,667!). As other entries here show, the Epic Fail at the box office ruined many careers.
• Creator Killer:
  • Where Batman & Robin was the critical and popular bomb that blew DC out of the air, this was the financial bomb that ensured they would stay down. They didn't make another cinematic live-action movie again until 2004 with Catwoman (2004) and didn't return to credibility until Batman Begins since Catwoman also failed. Marvel quickly seized on the opportunity to make their mark on Hollywood in that time.
  • The director/producer of the film, Kenneth Johnson, got to see his career "disqualified" from the cinema level completely, plus it ensured he would only have at best a B-list career. His next and last two movies were both Disney Channel TV movies, and he would not write again until 2007, plus he never took another producer credit. He did direct several TV episodes in the meantime and created two TV shows in 2007 and 2011.
• Genre-Killer: Along with Batman & Robin, this movie killed off Hollywood superhero movies for about five years, and campy superhero movies in particular for the next two decades. DC in particular would swerve hard into the opposite direction with decidedly (and sometime excessively) Darker and Edgier film until Shazam.
• No Stunt Double: Shaq was forced to do all of his own stunts, as it was impossible for producers to find a double his height.
• Not Screened for Critics: The movie wasn't shown in advance for critics.
• Star-Derailing Role: This came after the infamous Kazaam from Touchstone/Disney, and sent Shaq's cinematic career to the sidelines permanently; he only really did cameos in future movies.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The studio considered replacing Shaquille O'Neal with Wesley Snipes but ultimately backed out because they felt that could easily sell Steel toys in Shaq's likenesses than Snipes. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight as Snipes would star in a superhero film a year after Steel, titled Blade, which served as Marvel's first financial success and paved way for Marvel becoming a juggernaut at the box office.
  • The producers originally approached Shaq for a Hardware (1993) adaptation, but he was already familiar with Steel and thought he fit better with that character's affable, Friend to All Children nature.
  • At one point they were considering a scene where John Henry visited Sparky in hospital and met a counsellor in a wheelchair who noticed his S-shield tattoo and reminded him of what it stands for. This would, of course, have been a cameo by Christopher Reeve, but they couldn't get his schedule to line up.

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