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What's Next For Superhero Movies?
New submitter Faizdog writes "The Atlantic has a very interesting article on what's next for superhero movies after The Dark Knight Rises leaves theaters. DC in particular doesn't seem to have a good pipeline of readily available heroes to create movies around. The article discusses the challenges surrounding the upcoming Man of Steel movie, as well as how the circumstances around the successful Spiderman reboot may not necessarily translate to a Batman reboot. The author also mentions the necessity and viability of the comic book print medium continuing on in light of the film successes, especially in terms of revenue (the Avengers movie alone made more profit for Marvel than all comic book sales for the last two years). The article concludes with an interesting suggestion that television may be the ideal medium for comic book adaptations, as it may permit a richer and more complex story telling experience than a two-hour movie."
C'mon... it's about damn time.
or has that been done before?
I think Drew Carey would be excellent.
Is Hollyweird out of old movies t hey can rehash and turn a profit on?
Will they have to get their creative juices flowing even though that's been long gone in the past two decades?
In a way I hope they make the shift to television. Superhero movies are great and all, but there are far too many of them. Clear the screens for some new material.
...is on another reboot.
God forbid they come up with new material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe
And I'm not even a comic fan. Who was this article written for?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Interesting that the article suggests movies possibly superseding the original comics, but doesn't even mention TV series based around these characters, despite the popular and critical success of many such series. Batman: The Animated Series almost single-handedly pulled animation out of its 1980s kiddie ghetto.
The article concludes with an interesting suggestion that television may be the ideal medium for comic book adaptations, as it may permit a richer and more complex story telling experience than a two-hour movie."
Wolverine.
I'm sick of reboots and remakes. Make something new ffs. If they want to make reboot please take shitty movies and stop using babies in diapers that think they are good in spiderman movies... this is getting ridiculous.
The patterns are well established and well adhered to. Plus, I'm so tired of listening to "journalists" hyping the latest $200M snoozer. Many of them are great cable entertainment, but not much coming out is worthy of a theater ticket.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
And I don't mean stop making movies, I mean they should turn to their dirtier and darker titles like Preacher, Fables or Scalped. I guess those center around a more anti-hero or "regular" hero but if done right they could be a great movie franchise. Personally I'm sick of superhero movies and though they have been lucrative I hope that we get a little break here before it gets ridiculously diluted. In the movie industry too much of a good thing can go bad real fast.
My work here is dung.
All I want is an NC-17 rated version of X Men. Can you imagine the size of her ...
mmmmmmmmm...
I ain't all that worried about plot...
Please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
After all, that bat dude made money, so can "Starfox" from the Avengers.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Rumoured, anyways.
I don't even care if it ends up being good, it's guaranteed to be funny.
Pixar's The Incredibles was everything I could have possibly wanted from a super hero movie. How about a sequel to that?
Bionic man movie FTW!!!
Im just going to rattle off a few names, see if any of them get picked up by Disney or DC Comics...WarnerBros? Anyone? JugHead Jones, Lois Lane, Duck Tales, Ninja Turtles!! (would really like to see a new movie with them!) DangerMouse, Team America, Richie Rich, Cyclops, Archie + Veronica Lodge +Betty Cooper ... Thats all I got for now.... However, I honestly think main stream Cinema is due for a not-so-stereotypical/ just kickass minority Hero (BlackDynamite does not count..)
Wasn't Leonardo Dicaprio spear heading production of a live action Akira?
That would be so cool if it was made the right way.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
How about a Wonder Woman movie
Young Justice and The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes have both been excellent examples of comics on television and show how you can have longer-running plot arcs without the difficulty of extending series past 3 movies. You can also have the comic book trope of a villain being beaten and coming back next season that you never get a chance to do with movies.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Disney's already working on the John Carter sequel - CowboyNeal of Uranus
Wasn't Smallville wildly popular?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
The next new thing I think is going to be MMO inspired movies. Blizzard, for example, is in a great position with World of Warcraft, they have tons of content already written, and I'm sure fans would pay gobs of cash to see an epic character's take on a world they already know, and with appropriate special effects and drama only approximated by the capabilities of the game. The difference between that and a comic book movie, where the source material has also been previously written in a world people are already familiar with, is minimal. They just might be video game movies that don't immediately suck, so long as they stay reasonably true to the source material, which is why many comic book movies do well. They differ just enough to allow the production crew to imprint their take on it, and they're familiar enough to ring home with audiences.
If you think it's ridiculous, consider going back in time and telling yourself 20 years ago that the movies would be absolutely dominated by remakes and reboots and comic book movies, and imagine your double's response.
More Twoson than Cupertino
It is about damn time we had the Tick on the big screen. and they can still get the actor that did an amazing job with it.
We want the Tick!
SPOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Neil Gaiman talked about it at one of his readings.
Hollywood so far as not been able to wrap its head around the concept of a single character who delivers good dreams AND nightmares.
So the scripts he sees keep having a "bad" Sandman character in addition to Morpheus. The "bad" Sandman only delivers nightmares.
Fuck Hollywood is stupid.
The next step is robots, then zombies, then vampires and we're back to superheroes again.
I vote for a reboot or remake (just a make since he sucks) for Aqualad
I think they should do a movie featuring a female superhero like Wonder Woman, where the female is main star, not like CatWoman or one of the female X-Men. There's probably some choices better than Wonder Woman, but I don't follow comics that much. Guys would go watch it to see a woman in a skimpy costume, and lots of women would go see it as well. I think it could work.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Can they stop re-making movies already. Everything in theaters this year other than two or three movies are all remakes. Why not take some other short story and mold it into the next Bladerunner or something?!?!
I'm in favor of the idea of an ongoing TV series. Heavy super-powers may drain budgets, but I think something like Batman could be done in a way that would make an excellent TV series, especially if it could get a budget approaching what Game of Thrones has. Ultimately, these characters and storylines were developed for an episodic medium, and I think you could get even better results putting them into another episodic medium rather than making a couple of big movies.
Of course, budget is only have the problem. You also need talented writers who can deal with the cultural relevance of some of these characters. I think getting good writers might be the most difficult part. I would be fine with some more high-quality animated work if they could get good writers.
I'd love to see a Witchblade or The Darkness in live action + CGI form. The tech is obviously mature enough for it now. Get the people that worked on the design for the Alien/s/Predator movies props to make it look semi-realistic. Probably not iconic/popular enough for the mass audiences though. (possibly too dark for some as well.)
Well, "comic books" have come a long way, and in cases like the original Dark Knight, it's termed more of a graphic novel.
Quite frankly, if Hollywood had a better story telling experience, they wouldn't be turning to heavily to these sources.
Some of these have story lines that go back decades, and which cover a lot more interesting things than what most screen writers seem to be able to do on their own.
Let's face it, starting with the first X-Men movie, these have been making huge amounts of money for the studios.
I would agree that a TV adaptation isn't as likely to garner the audience it would need. But to say that the original comics don't have rich and complex story telling is a little unfair.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There are still some "universes" that are still untapped as of yet. There is a whole "mystical and occult" faction that takes place in the Dr. Strange comics. Lobo is D.C.'s answer to Wolverine and Punisher and is that classic "anti-hero" character and he operates on an entirely different scale on par with super-galactic entities of power that dwarfs regular superheroes like Batman and Wonder-Woman etc.. Plus that bastich is fraggin hilarious.
The problem with making comic book stories on television is that you don't have the budget. Special effects cost money, and any truly 'super' hero is going to need special effects to wow the audience.
Without the multi-million dollar budget you get in movies, there are few superhero stories you can make well. Maybe something with minor SFX like Arrow (the Green Arrow TV show coming out in the fall), but nothing with real powers and real sensawunder. At best you'll just make lame soap operas like Smallville that occasionally hint at super powers being used in the background.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I have this vague distant memory of when comics were celebrated for bursting with imagination and exploring all sorts of important social issues (racism, sexism, various other isms). With complex twisting plots
While movies, by their nature, can't get that intricate, studios seem to think that people want nothing more than brainless Bay-esque explosion festivals. Then once in a while they accidentally spit out something like Avengers (Can't comment on batman since I haven't seen it yet) where they have something resembling a plot and depth of characters. Yet can't bring themselves to accept that people are tired of the same old Hollywood cliches and want something genuinely new and interesting. Something that tugs on your emotions and somehow pulls you in so deeply that you actually care about the characters as if they were actual living beings.
Here's a hint hollywood... I saw Avengers SOLELY because it was written and directed by Joss Whedon. It is the first movie I have seen in theatre in years, and it's the first movie I have EVER seen where I can honestly say that I would happily fork over money to watch it in theatre again. Why? Because despite Avengers being another comic regurgitation, he still managed to do the above.
Can we have that back again? Please?
You really have no clue what people who read comic books are like do you?
I would kill for a Gotham Central TV series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_Central
And marketing to people that can't read well so they buy cartoon books instead of real books just doesn't sound like it could be very profitable. That's why movies make so much more money. They're aimed at a broad segment of society rather than just the kids that have trouble reading.
>>> If you are into comic books, I doubt you want a "richer and more complex story telling experience".
Apparently you've never read the comic Walking Dead. Or Buffy Season 8. Or Firefly which picked-up where the TV show abruptly ended.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
EOM
love is just extroverted narcissism
I think they really missed a chance to turn Smallville TV show into a movie enterprise. They had most of the characters assembled, and could have done a proto justice league type movie.......
I'm not really expecting the Superman movie coming out to do anything. In fact, it could be a huge flop......and I don't see anyone doing a Justice League movie anytime soon either. You really need to do like what they did BEFORE the Avengers. You need to have a movie or two to give the origins of some of the main characters. So, say a superman movie......a flash movie......a green arrow movie.......
Or just spin off Smallville's version of them and put them on the big screen.....it's not like the cast of that show is really doing a lot right now.......
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
>> what's next for superhero movies?
Reboot the same lame Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Xmen/Hulk/whatever story again, this time after only two years, not five, and this time, it will be "darker than last time."
Why not? People seem to fall for this every time.
the original comics - the successful ones - have a rich history behind them, and in many cases the nature of what they convey happens to translate well into a good action film, aided already as they are by a visual medium.
with such a rich history behind the development of the stories and the characters, it is incredibly hard for any film to screw that up: they would actually need to make quite an effort to destroy the film, by cutting out too much, deviating from the original too much, or trying to introduce their own "creative" storyline elements that are out of tune with the characters.
no - the problem that the original article is referring to is, i believe, this: that it took a *hell of a long time* for the comic books to come up with the successful and compelling material that was portrayed in them, and thus it was a relatively easy (if somewhat expensive) task to convert that material into a film. for that success to be *repeated* it would therefore make sense for the comic books to continue further story development, which may take at least one maybe two decades to complete... but film enthusiasts don't want to wait that long. herein lies the dilemma...
If there was ever an example of how racially tonedeaf Hollywood can be it's American Akira.
I guess someone wants us to forget Indiana Jones 4.
Hollywood seems to love re-boots, so why doesn't someone adapt Grendel?
Every movie would be a re-boot. If it was on TV, every season could be a re-boot.
He had a script and a star (Cobie Smulders) and tried to get a WW film made.
WB wouldn't greenlight his project so Joss went and made $1.5B for Marvel and Disney.
I wonder what kind of career wreckage the WB people ran into for that decision.
For the Rubberband man!
XKCD the movie. You know you want it.
Worst Comic book ever
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst_Episode_Ever
I think a Dr Strange TV show could be awesome. The TV format could let them spend a lot of time on the back story, his training in a mystical temple, etc. There is also a lot of opportunity to build a cast of servants/students around him, and a ton of plot ideas.
Think a little bit buffy the vampire slayer, with True Blood, mix in some X-files/Fringe stuff.
If they have a good budget they could do some of the more cosmic/ trippy stuff too.
It could be really good. There was a direct-to-dvd animated film that was pretty good, too.
The dark, edgy reboot as Gilligan and the Skipper land on the "Lost" island. A threeeee hour tour. A threee hour tour.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Another batman reboot? Why in god's name would we need another rehash of the same ol plot line. This is why I gave up on movies to begin with.
I'm surprised this hasn't come to the big screen yet. I recall reading about a movie a few years back, but whatever happened to it? Personally, I'd like to see a redone Dune movie. I somewhat remember watching the six or so hour long movie way back when. Perhaps a more condensed version would be nice? haha
So far, all the superhero movies have been start-from-scratch, where the movie has to intoduce the hero, tell the origin story, set up a Big Bad to get the hero moving along the path to heroics, etc.
So each superhero movie has been more or less the same as all the rest - change the character, nudge the origin, different baddie - but overall, same formula.
But actual comic books don't do this (very often). When you buy a comic, you already know the hero's backstory - what you are getting is a story featuring that hero.
I postulate that with the superhero movies doing so well - and with so many characters having been introduced to the non-comic-reading public, that it will become possible to do stand-alone movies featuring known characters.
So you could do, for example, Arkham Aslyum (per the graphic novel) where the opening scene is Batman showing up at the front gate and meeting Gordon to be briefed on what is going on inside and why Batman is needed there - without having to show Batty's parents getting murdered, the discovery of the Batcave, the origin of the Batmobile etc etc.
You might have to do a couple of establishment scenes to show how this Batman differs from whatever movie came out last, but that's trivial compared to a full reboot.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Was it?
I always understood it to be just another of those teenage angsty drama shows, but with Superman. Along the same lines as Dawson's Creek, Felicity, Roswell; shit I'd catch five minutes of before the real show I wanted to see came on.
Buy the rights to Gantz - it was born for a decaology (10 films, released once a year). Berserk too.
Yep.
His whole career needs to be on the screen, the stories would make great screen candy in all formats.
Transmetropolitan
Black Summer
Black Gas (best zombie apocalypse ever)
Fell
Planetary
Global Frequency
Desolation Jones
Mek
Freak Angels
Doktor Sleepless
Tons of others
Not all adaptations have to be richer or more complex. Just look at the recent Spiderman movies.
Look what happened when they tried to make the new Batman movie interactive... a dozen people died...
Too soon?
I'm not really a comics guy, but it seems to me that most if not all the top tier titles have already been done at least once: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, and Avengers. And the only reason why all these movies get made is because Hollywood has become averse to spending large amounts of money without an existing fanbase for comics, novels, 80's cartoons, or even games, which bring an almost guaranteed return on investment. Sometimes a big name director can get the money, as in the case of Cameron with Avatar.
So Hollywood and the comics publishers are left with two options: dig deeper in the barrel of existing titles for diminishing returns, or keep rebooting.
Frankly, I'm burned out on comic book movies and wish Hollywood would sack up and give us original content.
The best DC comic book of the 80's was the Teen Titans, by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.
Probably the best storyline in that book was how a badass mercenary, the Terminator hires a young evil superpowered hotty to infiltrate the Titans and learn their secrets and weaknesses. Tara and the Terminator are amazing complex villains. It's a great story. Would be hard but doable to make into a single movie..... but i think they could do it.
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Two words:
Web
Comics
There are plenty of good ones (arguably better than what Marvel/DC publish), and they target much wider demographics than "superhero movie".
Gunnerkrigg Court? Think Harry Potter, except with more global myth references and with robots. Schlock Mercenary? It's Star Trek, minus the pacifism, as a sometimes-dark comedy. The Phoenix Requiem could win awards for "serious drama". The Adventures of Dr McNinja would make a good kung-fu comedy.
Need I go on?
The only big problem is existing fanbase. Any Spider-man movie can be a decent success, simply because there are already so many self-identified fans of Spider-man. They may not read the comics, at least not anymore, but they watch the movies and such. And even the non-fans recognize the name - Superman is a pop culture monolith.
Very few webcomics have nearly that much brand identity. You go up to someone and ask them who Hannelore Elicott-Chatham is, you'll get some very weird stares. You ask who Bruce Wayne is, and everybody knows he's "the goddamn Batman".
But that's what an advertising campaign is for. Tell people they should see it, and some of them will. And hey, you can probably get the movie rights to Dresden Codak or Dumbing of Age much cheaper than you can get even Aquaman.
I want an Atom movie. And Flash.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
That's exactly what it was, I think. I didn't watch it either. But that doesn't mean it wasn't popular.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
If you want an idea the deserves redoing because it wasn't done correct the first time then go back to "The Starlost."
It keeps being put into development hell but it is a movie I would love to watch.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yea, it may have been, it's just no one seems to talk about it beyond "Oh yea remember that show that was only seen because you got the start time wrong?"
I would love to see TV properly exploited as a medium to explore superheroes, other comic book lore, and similar storytelling. Unfortunately, with the exception of Heroes and Buffy, the TV networks have largely been unwilling to put the money and risk into giving any comic book styled work the necessary support.
Good, long term plot based writing only appeals to the networks when they have a LOT of extra capital to throw around with development. One only needs to look to Joss Whedon's other works such as Dollhouse and Firefly to see plot lines and characters bearing strong parallels to the comic book format to see what I am talking about.
The networks are pretty much a lost cause at this point. It seems TNT, USA, Showtime, and HBO are the only ones willing to incubate a variety of shows in which plot arcs matter as much as the stand alone episode. NBC gets the closest to an honorable mention since they were willing to back Heroes and The West Wing years ago (different genre, but Sorkin's storytelling is very similar to comics / graphic novels in every TV show he touches).
Even SyFy (what a terrible restyling) is dropping it's cache of long development series, Eureka and Warehouse 13 in favor of yet more illiterate programming.
There is a Lobo movie in the works, but I don't have a link for it....
They'll keep making the same type of movies until they aren't profitable. And then they'll keep making making them some more.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Everyone grows up and the lazy studies have to start new stories and draw their own storyboards.
It was good while it lasted but that gravy train has sailed.
Who cares what DC doesn't have? There are tons of characters that could fall under the broad category "super-hero" that have nothing to do with the DC universe.
DC doesn't even have the best characters. DC is bland.
Even leaving Marvel out of the discussion leaves an almost limitless number of possibilities. One wonders if the writer of this article has even set foot in a comic book store.
You are welcome on my lawn.
... most if not all the top tier titles have already been done at least once: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, and Avengers.
It's worse than that. Most of the second-tier titles have been done, too - Green Lantern, Tintin, The Phantom, The Green Hornet, Archie, Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher, Red Sonja, Richie Rich, Sheena, Supergirl, Vampirella, Wonder Woman, Judge Dredd. Almost all were flops. (Tintin and Judge Dredd may be worth seeing. Green Hornet is at least funny. The others, forget it.)
In the last decade, more good stuff has been coming out of teen novel franchises than comics. We got Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson. (Also Twilight, for what that's worth. The vampire thing is probably over.) Those have, like, plots.
Smallville didn't even have Superman! It had Clark Kent. Who didn't fly. And no costume/cape.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I thought in later seasons he was a full fledged Superman?
I only saw it for the first season and it was all Superman but no powers and all Monster of the Week.
Scot McCloud (the guy behind {Making,Understanding,Reinventing} Comics) already has Destroy!!.
Now all you have to do is to point the nearest Hollywood executive to this...
The problem with making comic book stories on television is that you don't have the budget. Special effects cost money, and any truly 'super' hero is going to need special effects to wow the audience.
Without the multi-million dollar budget you get in movies, there are few superhero stories you can make well. Maybe something with minor SFX like Arrow (the Green Arrow TV show coming out in the fall), but nothing with real powers and real sensawunder. At best you'll just make lame soap operas like Smallville that occasionally hint at super powers being used in the background.
It depends on your focus. The Entire Bendis Daredevil run would make for a great TV show as it focuses primarily on Matt Murdock and Daredevil was practically a "guest star" in his own book.
Question
More detective and less action (compared to over the over the top action batman has)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
He's cool man!
He can fly, trap people in a mental force field, and does the chicken dance on top of superman's head!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Green Lantern came out of the closet... how about a reboot of that?
The Real Housewives of Gotham City - The Penguins wife is real twat. The Wonder Twins - The Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky story. Spiderman 2012 - The life and struggles of Peter Parker trying to find a job in a downward U.S. economy still living at home with his aunt. Teen Mom - We follow Sabrina the Teenage Witch as she deals with her teen pregnancy.
No way will it top the TV series.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I think I saw 2-3 seasons before I'd had enough. Clark had powers except flight and no costume. I remember Monster of the Week. I think I read that he flew in the very last episode, maybe Season 10, or however long it dragged on. Probably donned his costume too, but by then I was long gone.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
So let's start by going back in time, how batman was raised as a baby and then his elementary school life, and then high-school life, and so on until the plot reaches the first movie. Sadly, this is somehow better than seeing the same movies remade over and over again.
Oh for dogs sake, just let the genre die. Please save us from this tripe.
Hoping for the movie version. Great little Hulk mini-series-story
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Speaking of X-Men, why did we get a stupid reboot instead of going into The Dark Phoenix Saga? I mean if you want to go all dark and ominous with big battles it's hard to beat that story arc.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The Sandman
Preacher
Irredeemable
Fables
The Boys
Just A Pilgrim
(Full disclosure: The list is a bit lopsided since imho Garth Ennis is a genius and should receive the just-invented-by-me "Medal Of Coming Up With Awesome Characters And Storylines")
Captain Marvel would be my pick. A kid with a magic word that turns him into a superman could make an awesome movie IMO.
Bullet-proof jackets? Helmets?
My son would love that!
HBO would be perfect for comic related material that is beyond your average super hero.
Preacher - The only true way it could ever be captured properly is in a series on hbo.
Y the last man
100 bullets.
Punisher maxx.
Spawn - I wish they would pick back up from the old series of cartoons. I loved those.
As much as I love the normal superhero movies I want more. Superman and spiderman are boring to me and its always the same things from the past 40 or 50 years. Sure they are updated but its still the same old thing with them. I want super heroes but I want something different.
the Incredibles 2 would be really sweet. A prequel. most likely.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In a way Dr. Who is a "super hero" in that he can travel through time and seems amazingly good at avoiding death no matter the circumstance. And at least to my spoiled American eyes has an incredibly low production value. And yet the writing is amazing the latest doctor seems to be winning best actor awards. They do a lot with the budget/production they have in other words.
If a show could be made along those lines - low budget/production values but super-great acting/writing - I think just about any super hero show could work. There's a lot of "if" in that statement however.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Justice league
that's sums it up they don't want to do what they know they should because the JL at times went against the govt wishes and was always about and justice and the people NOT the govt nor corporations....YOU won't see dc utilize because they cant its just not what they want can do in the current hollywood.
duh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... haven't we had enough movies about people with abnormal powers, abilities, facing villains with stereotype characters? Any chance of seeing someone normal pushed into making tough decisions?
Sorry, wrong thread I know... but I've been there and done that for superheroes.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
And no, MacGruber doesn't count. . .
So much potential ....
I also would like to see Adam Warlock vs Thanos.
But what i would prefer is that Marvel would uses their Crossgen rights: Mystic, Scion, Ruse ... They have material for very different genres and the sigil theme is a plus.
What is next for Batman?
DC does not have other characters ?
What crap is that.
Did you see the TDKR. It is obvious what comes up next.
The franchise will be rebooted as "Batman and Robin"
"Warner Bros. execs' best hope for the future is next year's Superman reboot, Man of Steel, but they'll be relying on an iconic brand to overcome the deficiencies of its director, Zack Snyder, whose stock took a major hit in 2011 after the misogynistic boyhood fantasy flick Sucker Punch."
I just came out of The Dark Knight Rises. My wife and I decided to avoid the mad opening weekend rush and see a Tuesday Matinee instead. It worked out since the theatre was pretty quiet. They showed a preview for The Man of Steel and it got me pretty excited, but I didn't catch a glimpse of the director's name.
Now I'm 20 x more excited.
Sucker Punch was, IMO, brilliant and not the least bit misogynistic! I'm the only male in my household. My two daughters and my wife all freakin' love that movie too. It was deep and philosophical, it had a complex story line that takes intelligence to follow and appreciate and the heroes were strong women who were overcoming oppression. How the hell anyone gets "misogynistic" out of that movie is really beyond me, and if Snyder is directing Man of Steel then I have even more high hopes.
Coming This Summer...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Time for the reboot!
The biggest problem Hollywood has is total, complete, and absolute creative failure to do anything new, and original, and have people like it. Joss Whedon can't do it, and neither can Chris Nolan. Of the two, Whedon's more able, in that he can not screw up stuff written decades before, while Nolan has to re-invent stuff done first and better by Denny O'Neil in the 1970s and 1980's. But neither can create anything that is profitable out of their own imagination.
Lets be clear: Hollywood studios make money by running successful 2 hour plus commercials for toys, games, bedsheets, lunchboxes, etc. Pixar, to a lesser extent Dreamworks and Fox Animated can make money this way. Everything ELSE is cannibalizing stuff done maybe 70+ years ago by pulp/comic writers. Superman, Batman, Captain America, etc.
Sure Firefly/Serenity are good. Also Buffy. And Memento. And Inception. But they don't make money, because they don't sell toys, games, bedsheets, lunchboxes, with fast food tie ins and everything sold at Wal-Mart and the equivalent globally. People in Vietnam know who Iron Man is, like him, and buy toys of his image for their kids. As do parents in Peoria. Disney's Return on Assets on rides, games, merchandising etc. is about 8%, and that's driven by the Marvel movies.
What you don't see is any real revenue for Kick-Ass, or Cowboys and Aliens, or the Losers, or any new comic book. Nothing outside of Pixar style animation creating new characters to sell in various ways: rides, toys, merchandise, that makes money, as revenue from DVDs, streaming, etc. go the way of revenue from CD sales. [Yeah, piracy in many forms is a big big problem never going away.]
Hollywood can turn out artful, thoughtful movies that appeal to a few insiders and fans. What Hollywood cannot do, even at their most skilled (Whedon and Nolan are very, very skilled) is turn out NEW characters people just LOVE. They can't create Luke Skywalker, or Han Solo, or Indiana Jones. They just can't -- it is total creative collapse, likely caused by social isolation and PC lies that creative people themselves tell themselves constantly. And which they know to be untrue. Most composers get BETTER as they get older, but what great new characters have men with talent like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas given us, with the greatest of all technology to make movies? The guys who created Indiana Jones and Han Solo gave us ... Jar Jar Binks and whiny emo Darth Vader and "Mutt." Plus nuking the fridge.
Yeah, Joss Whedon did a great job on the Avengers. But he did not create a single character. Nor did Nolan in the Batman movies. Whedon did not create Hulk's signature line "puny _____" nor did he create the Avengers as squabbling heroes. Nolan took the Batman story arcs "No Man's Land," and "Knightfall" along with Bane to create his story.
These guys are good. Great even. But all they are, and ever will be, are rewrite guys. Endlessly rewriting stuff done by non-PC, populist, pulp/comic guys from the 1940's through the 1980's. And that, not just budgets, or creative fights, or lack of vision, is the real problem. Which was the last character in comic books created that found lasting popularity? Answer the Punisher in 1974. That does not mean that the other writers who created other characters are talentless hacks. Nope. Just that they cannot, and have not, created characters people love, care about, and will plunk down dollars or the equivalent to see stories about, and then buy stuff associated with the character. Given that's how Hollywood makes money, it has a problem.
I remember the Superman TV series was not that bad (or perhaps my mind is already playing tricks on me).
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
or perhaps my mind is already playing tricks on me
It is. The first one or two seasons were perhaps acceptable (though even that is tentative), but after that it turned into some of the most horrible, repetitive garbage I've seen on TV (10 whole fucking seasons of it, too).
weinersmith
A costly stuff up in a fight: Kung foobar
They are so low on ideas they'll probably stoop to something like Aquaman next.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
One of the more eye-opening things that came up in the article was how the earnings from superhero movies have overtaken the earnings from comics -- i.e. the Avenger's movie alone making more money than the entire comic book industry. So the question becomes, why even do comics anymore? Why not just let them wither away and focus on the movies?
I think that would be a huge mistake. Comic books are actually a great proving ground for fantastic stories. Because they are relatively cheap to produce, because the market is smaller, because they can afford to experiment and fail -- the comic books are a perfect incubator for ideas, stories and characters. Once you have a hit graphic novel, then it becomes much more viable to gamble the vast sums of money on a big-budget action-and-effects movie.
Of course we've had novels made into movies (and the converse) for many decades, but I think the comic book medium is a better fit than a written novel. The pacing and the visual nature of it translates much better. I'd even go so far as to suggest that this could work with other genres than superheroes. Maybe the movie studios should open their own comic book brands and get into doing sci-fi comics, horror comics, fantasy comics, and so forth -- not because there's a lot of money in selling them, but more because it's a great (and affordable) way to develop properties for the screen.
Bring Your Own Gun
Thank you Aurora for putting a bullet in the Batman movie franchise...
Although I wouldn't put it passed Hollowwood to make....
Batman vs Bat-Shit-Crazy-Man
The Spiderman "re-boot" was garbage. They're just milking the franchise with yet another back to the beginning. We barely got a glimpse of Venom in the last Spiderman movie. Obviously the next big thing that has to happen is a movie where Venom is the primary villain probably with a sequel where Venom turns temporarily "good guy" to help Spiderman defeat Carnage.
As mentioned, I'd like to see Sandman in film form. Spawn 2-5 also have some excellent material. The death and re-birth of Superman in the 1990s has potential.
Personally, I liked "Darkhawk"(early-mid 90s) ... but nobody else seemed to. I think it did a superlative job in depicting the 'fledgling' super-hero and the very plausible "awkwardness" that would come with newly discovered powers.
Doubt we'll ever see it now, but I'd love to see a film version of "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller, with Oliver Stone or Johnathan Demme directing and starring Gary Oldman as a 50-something Batman.
My 2c.
Finally time to do Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", I think.
-Dave Haynie
Well, by Dr. Who standards, the current production is downright luxurious. But yeah, it's lower budget, because the Brits were long ago smart enough to realize that if you had a really good story to tell, the production values could be what your budget allowed. Unfortunately, in a culture largely dominated by style over substance (much of what's on television, Apple Computer, etc) no one's likely to take that risk for a US production.
Ok, sure, "Sy-Fi" channel cheaps out on both the story and the production values for their "monster movie of the week"... that doesn't count.
-Dave Haynie
I'd like to order a lengthy movie based on some french comic artists work for starters ... 666 and Chroniques de la lune noire, also a movie or series based on mills/bisleys Slaine and last but not least a redo of babylon five's series up unto the shadow war at least, but only if Jackson and/or Cameron get to do it with spielberg money, and if it doesn't have to pass a morals commission first, just rate it pg25 then.
i'd really like that but i better go dream on somewhere now (maybe if there's a little money left a single movie based on zelazny's lord of light then...for mah birthday)
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
It's finally time to make that Batman Cross Spiderman movie I have been wanting for a long time. In light of the The Green Lantern film they have no choice.
If Marvel & DC get together,now that would be a sight.
I read a crossover book a few years back that was a crossover of the X-Men into the Star Trek TOS timeline.It made a wild story
Geek Hillbilly
Please, please, please do a Red Robin movie picking up where TDKR left off. It would fit perfectly!
Speaking of X-Men, why did we get a stupid reboot instead of going into The Dark Phoenix Saga? I mean if you want to go all dark and ominous with big battles it's hard to beat that story arc.
They did a crappy version of Dark Phoenix in the third X-Men movie. A really crappy version. They had three separate storylines, couldn't decide what to do, and so combined them into one semi-nonsense script that didn't do any of the storylines justice.
Can't wait for a darker reboot of Mega Mindy franchise!