Your Opinions on the comic book movie rennaissance.

Cafe Society
21

This stuff goes in cycles, like anything else in Hollywood: remember that after Tim Burton’s over-rated Batman in '89 {was it that long ago?}, there was a whole spate of superhero movies - the Batman sequels, The Shadow, The Phantom, Dick Tracy, Tank Girl, Judge Dredd, The Punisher et al. Diminishing returns ensued, until the genre was pretty much killed off by the last Batman movie - not so much its innate suckiness as its failure to make as much money as anticipated, especially considering the budget.

Then X-Men was an popular and {more importantly} commercial success, on a relatively small budget. With the rights finally sorted out, Spiderman was even bigger, and the floodgates were open - successful sequels to X-Men and Spiderman ensured that the trend continued, but it’s not going to last: studios are going to film every minor comic they can lay their hands on, the talented directors are going to move on, and diminishing returns are going to set in again, until finally someone is going to make a mega-budgeted Superman that’s going to fail spectacularly. The cycle will be over.

PS I’m still waiting for a decent Judge Dredd movie. And would Rogue Trooper be too much to ask for?

22

So… are you The Architect?
[/Neo]

23

They intend to do it as a comedy.

OH GHOD! NO! :eek: :eek: :eek: :mad: :mad: :mad:

24

As far as I know, the abusive father thing has been part of the origin for a while. It’s what gave Bruce Banner the whole suppressed rage thing. I wanted to mention that in my post, but forgot :o . The Hulk is a very complicated book to put on to film versus Batman, who has a dark and angsty origin but it seems to be mostly glossed over psychologically speaking.

I wonder if they are going to do the same thing in Iron Man. Tony Starks dad was an alcoholic. Nah, they’ll probably ignore it. Too deep an issue for a man wearing a metal suit. They’ll just add some more “woohoo” footage of Tony flying for the first time in the suit.

25

Naw. It’s a gag. Jo(h)n Stewart is the secret ID of one of earth’s Green Lanterns, it’s also the name of the host of the Daily Show.

The Jack Black rumor either was never true, or fell through. Green Lantern has no solid plans to be made at this time. Flash is in the early stages, and Wonder Woman is rumored.

I hope Batman Begins and Superman will let DC get some of the comic movie love before execs tire of it. Unike Catwoman, LXG, and Constantine, they seem to remember what the characters are all about.

26

One of my favorite bad movie review sites, Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension, says this in their review of Superman IV:

The whole review is a good read, but the first introduction, with a retrospective on the development of superhero movies and TV, is pretty relevant to this discussion.

27

With diminishing comic book sales Marvel’s market value is almost based exclusively on its licensing rights. As such, Marvel appears to be making an effort to control the quality of the movies that are made so they can avoid such a cycle. That said, I can see how a glut of movies may turn the public off.

Catwoman was utter crap. Halle Berry needed the cash. A truly awful movie. At least the Hulk and the Punisher made an effort.

I’m not sure what possessed Marvel to do an Elektra movie. They don’t even seem to be hyping Jennifer Garner that much which is odd. Some of the proposed movies I am hearing about do not augur well for the future. Green Lantern & Wonder Woman are not popular or interesting enough to warrant their own movies. A Thor movie would be an adventure in campy awfulness. I think the new FF movie will indicate where the genre is going.

28

Judge Dredd may be one of the greatest examples of “the people making the movie did NOT understand the source material” that I’ve ever seen.

29

Don’t know if anybody looked at the Get Kraven miniseries, which is a Spiderman spinoff, but it was written by somebody who seems to have insider knowledge of the film industry.

It starts off showing a meeting between a scriptwriter and two hugely fat producers. The producers are gobbling down tons of food and burping and farting while talking to this poor guy, who’s written a screenplay for a suspense movie about a coverup for the cure for cancer. He’s had to do 17 rewrites so far.

They ask him “What do you think of Kevin Smith?” He replies “I love Kevin Smith! I worship him! He’s my hero!” They reply, “Good, 'cause he’s rewriting your script.” They explain to him that they decided to make a comedy instead, and that “Kevin’s going to take all those cancer parts out. It’s gonna be a movie about jock itch. Now that’s funny.” The scriptwriter ends up calling Kevin Smith a hack, tells them to tell him to keep his filthy hands off his script, and tries to buy it back.

Apparently the irony of having to deal with shortsighted producers was lost on Marvel, as they ended the series an issue early.

30

I think some comic book fans really want this genre to succeed. Sure, if it does, they make more movies, but I think comic book fans are kinda like underdogs. They hold some inherent hope for a good movie and guilt if it sucks, at least I do sometimes.

Comic book movies have been the best and worst of my movie-going experiences. I was 12 when the first Superman movie came out and my entire family went, not just my immediate family – my aunts, cousins, uncles ALL went too (it was Christmastime, we wanted an outing we could all do). Now as the comic book junkie in the family, if the movie sucked, I was the one who was gonna be the scapegoat for it. As with any comic book movie, there is a LOT riding on it. Will the characters depiction be faithful to the comic? Will the costumes be recognizable and appealing to look at onscreen? Will the story hold everyone’s interest for two hours? But, the whole family liked it and so did the audience, clapping and cheering. I almost felt like a hero myself that everyone else liked it (even though I had NOTHING to do with the film other than being a fan of comics).

Fast forward to a few years later when “Howard the Duck” opened. Luckily, only a cousin went with me, who was tolerent and understanding.

I took my young niece to see “Josie and the Pussycats” a few years ago. Yeah, I had a double motive. 1) I take her to a movie and be the good uncle and 2) I hope to see Cook, Dawson and Reid in cat leotards … or so I thought. The outfits were NOTHING look the Josie comics I ever saw and read. Pity. I did think the movie was well cast though, but very poorly executed. My niece knew that Josie was a comics character, but no more than that. She enjoyed the movie, but she was the age (8) that this seemed to be written for. It was maybe the worst comics related movie I had ever seen.

I love it when the powers that be get it right in casting (Jennifer Connelly in “The Rocketeer”) and cringe when they get it wrong (Catherine Zeta Jones should have played Diana in “The Phantom,” Kristy Swanson should’ve switched parts with her.)

So, what am I trying to say …

*Cast it well
*Be faithful to the source
*Don’t fuck with (change) the costumes
*Tell an interesting story

31

My opinions:

Good:

X Men & X Men 2 (the sequel was better)
Spider-Man & Spider-Man 2 (again, the sequel was better…MUCH better IMHO)
Batman
Superman & Superman II

Mediocre:

Batman Returns
Daredevil
Hulk

Bad with a crapital B:

Batman Forever
Batman & Robin
Superman III and IV
The Punisher (both versions)

32

Aesiron, have you gone mad?

The first two Superman films were tremendous! The ‘Night of Superman’ sequence is one of the best superhero bits EVER.

And let us not forget…

‘YOU WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, JOR-EL!’

33

I’m more The Building Inspector. For me, oddly enough, one of the worst things about the Judge Dredd movie that that it wasn’t a terrible movie: it was a perfectly adequate futuristic actioner: it just wasn’t Judge Dredd. Robocop was far closer to what a Dredd movie should have been in terms of the characterisation and the overall tone - satirical, blackly humourous, and violent. A Verhoeven Judge Dredd could have been interesting…

34

Yeah, but what would Verhoeven do? I mean, he couldn’t turn it into a facist satire because it already was one…

35

Mixed-sex Justice Department locker rooms?