WHO’S THE ULTIMATE MOVIE VILLAIN?

In January, 2021, I published a very successful study that attempted to find out which hero from the movies could be rightfully christened, 'The Ultimate Action Hero' (click here to check that out). In fact, the study was so successful, that the company who initially devised it, BetVictor, have now decided to produce another one. But this time, they focused on a selection of villains, not a selection of heroes, by evaluating their first screen appearance with the following criteria.

1. Their box office takings.
2. Their Rotten Tomatoes critics score.
3. Their Rotten Tomatoes audience score.
4. How many people they've killed, injured, and captured.
5. The number of weapons they've used.
6. The amount of times they've escaped capture.
7. How often their plans were successful.

In addition to this, BetVictor have also taken into account a variety of other factors (click here to see the full list and the value of each factor), but more or less, these were the main ones they based their findings on. So, without any further ado, please sit back, relax, and check out the top five movie villains (out of the forty-five assessed).

TRIVIA: Many years prior to playing The Joker in Tim Burton's first 'Batman' movie, Jack Nicholson met the first actor to play The Joker on the small screen. The actor was Cesar Romero, and according to Jack, Cesar openly dissuaded him from working in Hollywood because he thought it was the 'lousiest town in the world when you're not working'.

TRIVIA: A variety of different actors were considered to play the part of the Green Goblin before Willem Dafoe was hired for the role in Sam Raimi's 2002 'Spider-Man' film. Actors such as Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Brad Dourif, Robert De Niro, and Billy Crudup.

TRIVIA: In an interview he gave to the press, the director, Jan de Bont, said that the main reason why he hired Dennis Hopper to play the part of Howard Payne in 'Speed' was because he didn't want someone who looked like a typical villain, but rather, a regular guy who just one day snapped.

TRIVIA: In the 2012 James Bond film, 'Skyfall', Javier Bardem played a villainous character named Silva who was partly modeled after two other villainous characters seen on the silver screen. The first one was Heath Ledger's version of The Joker from the 2008 Batman movie, 'The Dark Knight', whereas the second villain was Colonel Hans Landa from the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film, 'Inglourious Basterds'.

TRIVIA: Alan Rickman was hired to play the part of Hans Gruber after Joel Silver (the producer) and John McTiernan (the director) saw him performing on stage, playing the part of the evil Vicomte de Valmont in 'Dangerous Liaisons'. But Alan almost turned down the role because 'Die Hard' was his first film and had concerns that he might be typecast as a villain for the rest of his career (which in many ways, he was).

So, what do you think of that, dear reader? What do you think of this top five list of movie villains? Do you agree with BetVictor's assessment? Or do you think that they didn't give the villain industry any justice? Either way, please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and if you have the time, click here to check out the full interactive list.