By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Long before Iron Man launched a cinematic universe, Hollywood’s movie studios tried to bring pulp heroes back to life with big stars, detailed sets, and a mountain of marketing.
Movies like The Rocketeer (1991), The Phantom (1996), and Dick Tracy (1990) all tried to blend 1930s art-deco style adventure with glossy production design and family-friendly action, hoping to tap into nostalgia while offering a tone similar to Tim Burton’s hugely successful Batman.
All of these movies shared a common fate: none of them became the franchise-launching hits studios wanted.
But in the summer of 1994, making pulp revival popular still seemed possible. So, Universal Pictures bet it all on a fedora-wearing telepath from the 1930s.
They wanted a new Batman. What they got was a beautiful punchline.
This is why The Shadow failed.
The Perfect Recipe
Universal Pictures thought they had the perfect recipe: a famous superhero property with a long legacy, a charismatic A-lister, and a budget north of $40 million.
Alec Baldwin, still riding high off The Hunt for Red October and fresh from tabloid-fueled stardom, was cast as Lamont Cranston, a.k.a. The Shadow — a mysterious vigilante with the power to cloud men’s minds.
The idea was simple: Batman had exploded in 1989, and Tim Burton’s gothic, noir aesthetic had audiences hungry for darker, brooding superheroes. The Shadow had been one of Batman’s original inspirations. So why not reverse engineer that success?
Universal pushed hard. They released The Shadow as a summer blockbuster in July 1994, gave it a big merch line — including action figures, comic books, video games, even a pinball machine. The studio wanted to launch a franchise.
It didn’t happen.
Let’s rewind.
The Shadow Takes Shape
The Shadow was born on the radio in the 1930s, voiced by none other than Orson Welles. With his eerie laugh and hypnotic powers, he fought evil in a trench coat and scarf, long before Superman flew.
The character made the leap to pulp novels, comics, and even a few low-budget serials, but he’d never had a full-on Hollywood treatment — until 1994.
Universal tapped Highlander director Russell Mulcahy, known for stylized visuals and music video pacing. The script came from David Koepp — yes, the guy who would later write Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and Spider-Man.
As scripted by Koepp, Lamont Cranston is a former opium warlord turned superhero in 1930s New York. He uses his knowledge of evil to fuel his fight against it and he has the ability to cloud men’s minds.
In practice that means he has telepathic powers, powers he uses to control and warp the perceptions of those around him. People see what he wants them to see.
Things get dicey when another student, trained by the same master, shows up in New York. Only this student got all the powers without any of the morality.
So The Shadow faces off against Shiwan Khan, the last descendant of Genghis Khan, a would-be conqueror with a magic atomic bomb.
Yes. A MAGIC Atomic Bomb. That’s at least twice as bad as a regular atomic bomb, I think?
The Good, The Bad, And The Shadow
The production was lavish and gorgeous. Matte paintings. Full city street sets. Elaborate miniatures and groundbreaking effects seamlessly incorporate both early CGI and physical models. Jerry Goldsmith, one of the greatest film composers ever, did the score.
And that score, which is undeniably brilliant, does tons of heavy lifting. Modern movies like The Batman probably owe The Shadow a debt.
The movie’s wonderful score layers heavily over everything, and at times it’s the only thing driving the plot.
And that’s because the script, outside of the movie’s killer opening, is kind of a dud. Even the movie’s director, Russell Mulcahy, reportedly had concerns about it. He later confessed that the movie’s primary element of Shiwan Khan planning to drop an atomic bomb on 1930s New York rang false, even while he was filming.
The Shadow kicks off with an eye-popping sequence in the past, follows that up with an atmospheric battle on a bridge, and then spends an hour following Lamont Cranston around as he has a series of meetings.
He has dinner with his uncle.
Goes on a date with a girl.
Meets the villain at his secret office, The Sanctum.
Has dinner with his uncle again.
Meets the girl again.
Has another meeting with the villain.
And he spends a lot of time in his extremely cool, art-deco taxi running between them.
Also, it always seems to be night.
In my head canon, this entire movie is a mini-story told in the world of the cult-classic 1998 film Dark City. Think about it. It totally works.
All through these meetings, the score is blasting, and it’s incredible. And Alec Baldwin, in his best Alec Baldwin voice, is delivering lines so intentionally cartoony that they turn awesome.
Every word out of his mouth is gold. The sillier the better.
The entire cast is epic. Tim Curry is there stealing scenes in peak Tim Curry form.
Ian McKellan is in this movie, in a superhero movie, long before X-Men and long before becoming Gandalf.
Peter Boyle! Jonathan Winters! Kurt Fuller! James Hong!
What a cast.
The Shadow also happened during Penelope Ann Miller’s 5 seconds of ’90s mega-fame, and it’s probably fair to call her one of the movie’s weakest links.
But great cast or not, ultimately, for the entire middle of The Shadow nothing’s actually happening with any of them, except a lot of excellent atmosphere. And that’s The Shadow’s biggest problem.
But that’s not why audiences didn’t support it. They’d have to have seen it to know the movie had too many meetings, and no one showed up to see it.
The Shadow Fades Away
The Shadow only made $32 million worldwide, on a $40 million budget. That’s not just a bomb, that’s a magic bomb.
By 1994, the world had moved on from pulp heroes. Younger audiences didn’t know who The Shadow was. Older audiences remembered him vaguely but had no reason to show up.
Batman worked in ’89 because he was still relevant. The Shadow hadn’t been culturally significant in over 40 years.
The Lion King, Forrest Gump, True Lies, and Speed were all released in the weeks directly before and after the arrival of The Shadow. Alec Baldwin’s attempt to become the next big superhero never had a chance.
And that’s a shame because, despite all the meetings, The Shadow is one of the most unique and ambitious artifacts of the 90s superhero era.
Consider rewatching it as a double feature with Dark City.
