I think the Original Poster objects to remakes of animated hits from past decades - Aladdin, the Jungle Book, Lion King - which just use the same story (and in some cases, are largely just animated themselves in the new realistic computer style). Agree that there’s little point to them other than selling old wine in new bottles, since the old scheme of Disney re-releasing the original Pinocchio or Bambi every 20 years no longer works thanks to home media.
Live action versions of comic books are more like bringing novels to the screen. You have to make a lot of editorial choices and rethink how a still drawing pinned to a page can come to life in a way that’s engaging, a very different problem.
I know I’m jumping in late here but I disagree with the OP’s assessment of what movie executives are thinking. I doubt they were thinking of the quality of the product.
What they were thinking was probably more like “The original version of this movie was really popular and has an existing fan base. I can do a cheap remake of it and sell tickets to that fan base.”
As a lifelong comic book and manga fan, I was always saying “They’ll never be able to film THIS…”
And, for most of my adult life, I was right.
Then, thanks to everyone who labored so hard on improving CGI, they were able to make special effects a seamless part of a movie. And finally, someone could fly without us seeing wires, fight without looking like a “wirework” Hong Kong martial arts film, and make other super powers look believable.
“They’ll never be able to film THIS…”
Ha, I’d thought that about SO many books (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter), until they did it. The effects, AND the casting made it work.
(Come to think of it, the casting really made the superhero movies: Christopher Reeve as Superman, Gal Gadot as WW, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron man, Chris Evans and haley Atwell in Capt. America, right up through Tom Holland as Spidey, Chadwick Bozeman as Black Panther, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor (skinny and fat versions!)
Now, there are still plenty of comics and manga/anime that I don’t WANT to see in live-action (Attack on Titan, starring Vin Diesel as a giant, anyone? Yuck!).
But I’ll now admit they could…
Maybe the OP was concerned about a potential live-action version of his webcomic about a gay bull named Hank, his transexual best friend Petunia the Pig, and their lives on the farm.
I think we need these zombie revivals to remind us of the time it was considered completely unobjectionable to talk about 15y.o.s as “great eye candy” on these boards.
You young folks may not remember this but back in the day, we had a thing called video tapes. And you could buy (or rent) a copy of a movie and your kid could watch it over and over again. Or, in the case of a particular favorite, over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
It came out eight years after this post, but DC comics issued the Batman/Elmer Fudd #1 comic in 2017. It’s unbelievably better than you might think from the title, and it imagines several WB cartoon characters – including Yosemite Sam, the Tazmanian Devil, and Bugs himself as human characters
