20th Century Fox / The Walt Disney Company
ELEKTRA
Starring Jennifer Garner (Elektra)
Directed by Rob Bowman
Produced by Avi Arad, Gary Foster, and Arnon Milchan with Kevin Feige
Written by Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman, and Raven Metzner
Music By Christophe Beck
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Run Time: 1 hour and 37 minutes
World Premier: January 14, 2005
Opening Weekend Box Office: $12 million
Worldwide Box Office: $57 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 11%
20th Century Fox / The Walt Disney Company
Fun Elektra Facts
20th Century Fox acquired the film and licensing rights to Elektra in the mid-1990’s, along with other Marvel characters such as Daredevil, The X-Men and The Fantastic Four. Marvel sold these rights in an effort to stay afloat as they filed for bankruptcy. The upstart Marvel Studios, under the direction of Avi Arad arranged a seven-picture deal with Fox that would see Fox finance and distribute their Marvel films with Marvel Studios assisting in a production role that would give them a say in the script-writing process, the hiring of directors, and in casting. Elektra was the fourth film released as part of that initial deal following X-Men (2000), Daredevil (2003), and X2: X-Men United (2003).
Elektra is a sequel to 2003’s Daredevil in which Jennifer Garner’s Elektra was first introduced. In the regular version of the film, Daredevil does not appear, but the Director’s Cut of the film does feature the Man Without Fear, complete with a reprisal of the role by Ben Affleck.
On September 6, 2005, Marvel Enterprises became Marvel Entertainment; a reflection of the company’s new initiative to finance its own motion pictures through Marvel Studios. Both Daredevil and Elektra were produced and released prior to this massive shift in direction for Marvel Studios.
The rights to Elektra and other Daredevil supporting characters reverted back to Marvel Entertainment by default in 2012 where it was decided that the characters would fall under the creative jurisdiction of the Marvel Television division instead of being featured in movies produced by Marvel Studios. In 2013, Marvel Television arranged a deal with the Netflix streaming service that would see them produce four television series centered around Marvel characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist that would build to a fifth team-up series: The Defenders. A similar format had been used by Marvel Studios in their series of Phase One films that built to The Avengers. The Daredevil television series was marketed by Marvel Entertainment as being set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and promoted as if the members of The Defenders could someday share the silver screen with The Avengers, but as The Defenders Saga grew, Marvel Studios ignored the shows and no crossovers from television to film ever transpired. In the meantime, Marvel Studios split from Marvel Entertainment and Kevin Feige began answering directly to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Fine, resulting in a definitive divide between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television. Despite the widespread critical acclaim for select Marvel Netflix series’ and the desire by fans to see characters such as Elektra (portrayed by Elodie Yung in the second season of the Marvel TV series) share the screen with The Avengers, the Marvel Studios team remained steadfast in their ignoring of the Netflix characters and storylines throughout the acclaimed Infinity Saga. In 2019, Marvel Television was dissolved as Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was promoted to oversee all Mavel content under the title of Mavel Chief Creative Officer (CCO). From there, Netflix Daredevil actor Charlie Cox was brought back to reprise the role of Matt Murdock / Daredevil, debuting in the Marvel Studios / Sony Pictures film Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, and later appearing in the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. In the meantime, the entire Defenders Saga moved from Netflix to Disney+ on March 16, 2022, and at the 2022 San Diego Comic Con, Kevin Feige announced that Cox would star as Daredevil in a new series produced by Marvel Studios titled Daredevil: Born Again. From there, the 2023 book Marvel Studios – The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline seemed to confirm that the version of the character portrayed by Cox in No Way Home and She-Hulk upon the MCU (Sacred) Timeline was not the same version of the character that appeared in the Netflix series. However, on January 3, 2023, Marvel Studios Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation: Brad Winderbaum confirmed during an interview with Screen Rant that the Matt Murdock that appeared for Marvel Television from 2015-2018 and the Matt Murdock that was currently appearing for Marvel Studios were in fact the same person and that the events that took place during his appearances for Marvel Television did in fact happen upon the Sacred Timeline. This was further confirmed some 24-hours later when the final trailer for Marvel Studios’ Echo series featuring Cox as Daredevil, prominently featured video and audio from The Defenders Saga.
ln starring in Elektra, Jennifer Garner became the first female to ever lead a movie produced by Marvel Studios. It would be 14-years before that feat was repeated when Brie Larsen starred in Captain Marvel. Jennifer Garner is rumored to be one of several Fox-era Marvel actors that are set to reprise their respective roles in Marvel Studios’ upcoming and yet-to-be titled Deadpool film, made possible by The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of the film and television divisions of Fox in 2019 after previously acquiring Marvel Entertainment in 2009.
20th Century Fox / The Walt Disney Company
My Elektra Review
This is going to be one of the shortest reviews I’ve ever posted and that’s because I really don’t have anything good to say about this movie. I only own it because it came in a Blu-ray box set with 2005’s Fantastic Four and the Director’s Cut of 2003’s Daredevil.
I don’t have any deep emotional ties to the Elektra character, so I wasn’t bothered by how loosely the character was adapted in terms of her comic book counterpart. I thought Jennifer Garner was fine in Daredevil and she did her best with what she had to work with in this film. However, she simply didn’t have all that much to work with.
Elektra is a disjointed film with an uninteresting plot and a sub-par supporting cast that played largely uninteresting characters. This movie tries to be dramatic, and it tries to create suspense, but it fails flatly in both instances. Elektra is quite frankly a boring movie that clocks in at just over 90 minutes yet feels three hours long. Typhoid Mary is a really interesting comic book character that could have carried this film as the lead villain, but she was ultimately botched horrendously. The film just drags and drags with very little action and no emotional depth to speak of.
Elektra bombed hard at the box office and was panned by critics, emerging as one of Marvel Studios’ worst performing and worst reviewed films of all time, and for anyone that watched the aforementioned Daredevil Netflix series that was produced by Marvel Television, and saw what was done with the supporting cast of Daredevil characters there, this movie as well as 2003’s Daredevil have been rendered unwatchable.
This film stands today as a relic of the past at a time when Marvel Studios was still trying to find its voice and was still at the mercy of bigger Studios. The Director’s Cut is the only way to go here if you’re interested, but really, you’re better off logging on to Disney+ and watching Marvel Television’s Defenders Saga there.
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