It is Mamo! vs. Cinecast over at The Substream as we debate whether or not Superhero Comic Book Movies (SCBMs) are a viable genre that is built to last.
Enjoy!
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Cool video. You should do more stuff like this. Definitely agree with the jury. Kurt got off track.
And the win goes to Matthew Brown as the only professional moderator I’ve seen to imbibe alcohol while on duty.
Great job gentlemen! I would likely side with Kurt on this one as part of his point was that comic book movies as a genre are just as likely to sunset as previous genres (some of which rise up again briefly, but not as strong as thei r former selves). However, Matt’s “Even if he’s right, I win” comment was quite brilliant…
Favourite part, Matt P’s wistful and slightly adoring look towards his MAMO co-host towards the end (9:53 mark).
My favorite part is the arm-crossing freeze frame of Kurt shilling for Row Three
Substream, you rule! Keep this coming.
as for the question, my response is highly conservative genres that rarely broaden past the most strict adherence to formula (until the beat by beat of scenes are almost identical – insert ****man here) are the least interesting to me, particularly after a certain saturation point. Superhero movies nowadays at least are slave to two unsatisfying drives: box office and geek fetishism, both keeping them slavish to whatever worked well before. If superhero movies were a boutique kind of genre, than there would be more experimentalism, but it is the moneymakers and so at least in the present iteration, not much different from the Chick Flick paint-by-number.
Westerns as they exist now are more boutique than box office and so strive for more experimentalism (Jesse James, Unforgiven) I admit a soft spot for Rio Bravo, but something like The Searchers is equally great and it expands the genre in a way I don’t see Fantastic Four doing, or Iron Man, or Thor, or anything Marvel. Searchers is a John Ford film, so it is kind of the Marvel equivalent of big name equivalent.
I liked Kurt’s performance in Colore non Vendenti better, as it required far more flexing of his acting muscles. In this he was just being type-cast.
Kurt, the Ang Lee movie is called “Hulk”, not “The Hulk”….
– Only The Incredibles and Hancock succesfull non-adaptations… RoboCop?
Even though Kurts argument is tiresome, he did ironically pick the best favorite out of the 3.
I think it’s a cool genre, but I read comic books as a kid so I’m predetermined to like these. Most of them are pretty shit though.
I wish Matt Gamble was there to argue against The Dark Knight. It’s the one (and only) movie that I previously really liked that Gamble has been able to convince me that it is shit – except Heath Ledger; he’s awesome. Take out Ledger and the movie is garbage.
We were doing this on the spot, so small errors are expected. Thanks for the kind words folks, and especially to the
Substream for masterminding and creating this fun type of forum!
Personally, it was a big challenge for me to make my points within the allotted sound byte time-frame, and the editing still makes me look more cogent than I felt I was while taping. (ha).
We couldn’t get into the cost of these things and the increasing frequency, combined with the dependance on foreign box office (few are as successful abroad as domestic, further hamstringing increasing production costs and a reliance on pandering and not taking chances). This was never a huge issue in genre filmmaking in the 20th century.
“Take out Ledger and the movie is garbage.”
That’s awful criticism.
1. Take out Daniel Day Lewis and the movie (There Will Be Blood) is garbage.
2. Take out Javier Bardem and the movie (No Country for Old Men) is garbage.
3. Take out Daniel Day Lewis and the movie (There Will Be Blood) is garbage.
4. Take out Eric Bana and the movie (Chopper) is garbage
etc.
Don’t get me wrong The Dark Knight has its problems, such as bad editing and action scenes, but your Occam’s razor criticism is simply lazy and untrue. If Matt Gamble will tell you so.
Even Matt Gamble will tell you so.
The Joker has almost as much screentime as Batman. It’s impossible to separate this crucial element from the final product. It is the equivalent of drinking a Margarita without the tequila.
Antho…
Go back and listen the episode in which we did our top five Nolan movies and why. Gamble’s case (once he’s done moaning and sighing) for why the movie is bad is a good one and makes sense (surprisingly). There’s a lot more to it than just the Ledger angle. But I’ll indulge…
I don’t think it’s totally poor criticism to say take out Ledger and the movie is bad. It might not be completely fair, but I think it’s perfectly valid – at least in this case. If the only thing a movie does well is it’s co-star, then I think it’s valid to say the movie fails except it’s enjoyable when X is on screen. No Country for Old Men (IMO) is a pretty great movie all around. It’s compelling, tonally interesting, mood setting, exciting at points and get at a lot of varying viewpoints (and more). Yes, Bardem was a big reason that movie is awesome and if you inserted anyone else in the role (presumably) the film would not be as good. But it would still be a good film.
I didn’t really like Chopper anyway, so I won’t go there. I also don’t really like TWBB, but that film has a lot of interesting things going for it other than DDL. Many would argue Paul Dano is amazing. The cinematography is spectacular and the unique look at a professional and his greedy thirst is all interesting stuff. I think that movie could have still been a pretty decent movie with someone else in there other than DDL.
Again, there are plenty of movies that hinge on the performance of one to make it amazing. But how many would be an outright boring mess without them? Not many.
Now you’re confusing me. How does the “awesome cinematography” depend on Ledger?
Don’t sweat it. I really just wanted to turn this into a debate about wether or not “Hulk” is a better title than “The Hulk”. Personally, I think it’s way better!
The Dark Knight fortunately has Heath Ledger, so it’s still a pretty enjoyable movie… Why get up in arms about what it would be without him? It’s like they can’t win against you people…
I also think that they can keep remaking these things, as long as the movies are good. People want to see good Spider-Man action scenes just as much as gunfights I think, you just need to sell it properly with some sort of decent storyline and an interesting director, and nobody will care about timelines or sequels and whatnot. Give them good action, and they’ll keep coming I think.
Some awful visuals/moments from The Dark Knight that depend on Ledger, and thus elevate it from simply being a “:garbage film” :
1. The awesome cinemotraphy, espeically the night scenes.
2. The awesome Imax shot sequences.
3. The opening robbery scene.
4. The Joker’s self-contradictory past speeches.
5. The video torture sequence of the fake Batman
6. The nonaction segment of the Hong Kong skyline sequence.
7. Joker putting his head outside the car.
8. The realistic flipping over the truck sequence.
9. Joker burning a mountain of money.
10. The interrogation sequence.
11. The death of important characters.
12. For a major blockbuster, it has a bleak ending.
13.. Gary Oldman’s performance.
14. Michael Caine’s performance.
15. Christian Bale’s performance of BRUCE WAYNE.
16. The restrain approach to the use of CGI.
17. Does not follow the superhero film formula.
18. The jump scare that stems from the dead body hitting the window
A list of twenty awesome visuals/moments/decisions from The Dark Knight that don’t depend on Ledger, and thus elevate it from simply being a “garbage film” :
1. The awesome cinemotraphy, espeically the night scenes.
2. The awesome Imax shot sequences.
3. The opening robbery scene.
4. The Joker’s self-contradictory past speeches.
5. The video torture sequence of the fake Batman
6. The nonaction segment of the Hong Kong skyline sequence.
7. Joker putting his head outside the car.
8. The realistic flipping over the truck sequence.
9. Joker burning a mountain of money.
10. The interrogation sequence.
11. The death of important characters.
12. For a major blockbuster, it has a bleak ending.
13.. Gary Oldman’s performance.
14. Michael Caine’s performance.
15. Christian Bale’s performance of BRUCE WAYNE.
16. The restrain approach to the use of CGI.
17. Does not follow the superhero film formula.
18. The jump scare that stems from the dead body hitting the window
19. The white minimalist design of Batman’s command center.
20. The nihilist message of the film.
Your argument applies more to Iron Man than The Dark Knight. Despite Robert Downey’s Jr. excellent performance, Iron Man is a mediocre to okay film because the film offers nothing else (well, the GGI suit is pretty cool). The Dark Knight has more things going for it than just Ledger’s performance (i.e, the list that I posted on my previous comment).
antho42 – I think I would agree with that argument against Iron Man as well. A movie I was pretty much bored to tears by except for RDJ’s witty lines. Take him out and I probably would’ve walked out.
I still don’t understand your high opinion of Tim Burton’s Batman (a film that I love as a child). Upon watching it now, the film offer nothing else besides the awesome, gothic set design and Jack N.’s performance.
Nostalgia is a bitch.
Well for one, Iron Man isn’t perhaps the worst edited film of all-time, whereas TDK certainly makes a compelling case for it. Iron Man also doesn’t have gaping sized plot-holes that render the string of events in the conclusion completely contradictory. And those are just a couple of the most obvious problems with the film.
But, you know, it looks cool, so it must be good.
Now now. Let’s not condescend.
Matt Gamble’s argument for why The Dark Knight sucks boils down to him saying he is smarter than the movie. Cool story bro.
Jack Nicholson is pretty fucking awesome in Batman
Well that explains the condescension then…
Ironman would have been a much better movie if there was, you know, no Ironman in it. If it were just Tony Stark doing research, weapons deals and being an otherwise misogynist corporate superstar CEO without any redemption arc, now that would have been a daring (and possibly entertaining too) movie.
Hmmm, I’ve never seen THE DARK KNIGHT except on the big screen (once in 35mm, once in Imax). The cinematography and otherwise grounded feel of that movie is a keeper. The heist at the beginning is pretty breathtaking as its own micro-movie. Sure the Two face stuff is belabored, and the final skyscraper bit seems a bit overblown (yet not as confusing and overblown as the climax to Batman Begins), but The Dark Knight has images that I simply cannot shake, good images that seem to transcend the usual comic book stuff (as Matt Price gets philosophical about in the debae: Guys throwing buses, which gets boring fast to me, but each their own.
I like Nolan’s approach, even if the editing/continuity is a bit dodgey at times. He films have a lot more weight than say, a VERY BAD CGI submarine being thrown onto an island.
I’m note even saying that I demand realisim (Terry Gilliam is one of my favourite filmmakers and he has yet to make a defacto-realistic looking film), but I need images that linger. Nolan Delivers that, I cannot say much for the Marvel-Disney product at this point. I’m already bored.
Just had time to watch the video and note down some thoughts on the overall question.
1. The question was “is the Comic Book Superhero film a lasting, viable genre” not “is the CBSM a genre.” So no, Matt P didn’t win even if Kurt won, because Kurt’s argument was that the genre won’t last.
2. You mention Hancock and something else I forgot as non-adaptation CBSMs. How is it a CBSM at all if it’s not based on a comic book – isn’t that a necessary part of the genre as stated? If not, we need a different name. /pendantic
3. Related to that, if it is dependent on being a comic book, are there any other genres that are dependent on a specific type of source material, which is supposedly finite? Unless they write more with new superheroes faster than they make films, which doesn’t seem to be the case, as they just make more stories with the same superheroes. Do you think we’ll eventually have separate runs of films following X-Men, Ultimate X-Men, Amazing X-Men, Avengers, Ultimate Avengers, and whatever else (disclaimer, I do not follow the comic series, so I don’t know what they’re all called) and their individual continuities?
4. Neither of you really distinguished between genre and subgenre in speaking about this – perhaps CBSM is more of a subgenre (of a combo of action and sci-fi/fantasy) rather than a full-blown genre. Subgenres last a while and then die out, or are transformed into something else, or pop up now and again as genre anomalies without becoming dominant again. Screwball comedy, singing cowboy westerns, nuclear paranoia sci-fi. Main genres last because they evolve over time, adapting to a changing audience and allowing experimentation from their makers. The oater becomes the John Ford western becomes the revisionist western becomes the spaghetti western. (Not that simple, but that idea.) What can CBSMs evolve into, where can they go? (Real question to which I do not know the answer.) Where is the experimentation that pushes the form in new directions? Can that experimentation take place in a form as outrageously expensive as CBSMs?
5. What do we gain by considering CBSMs a genre, or vice versa? What sorts of critical inquiry does it allow that isn’t possible if it’s not a genre, or is considering it a genre merely validation for something you (we/people) enjoy?
Jandy: I like you. A Lot!
Viable Lasting Genres that have been with us since the dawn of cinema.
The Action Film – from The Great Train Robbery to Fast 5.
The Horror Film – from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Let Me In
The Science Fiction Film – Voyage Dans La Lune to Moon
The Epic – from Birth of a Nation to Australia
The War Film – from All Quiet on the Western Front to The Hurt Locker
The Fantasy Film – from Thief of Baghdad to How To Train Your Dragon
The Romantic Comedy – from The Marriage Circle to The Proposal
Quite simply the big buckets of “Comedy” and “Drama” (as Matt Price mentions above) are too flexible, with not enough ‘conventions’ to be genres…But I get at the point he is making nonetheless.
Comic Book Movies would sort of be like a cross between Fantasy, Action and Science Fiction genres. And yea, subgenre would probably be more apt.
Jandy, fair enough, I’d consider The Screwball Comedy to be a sub-genre. I’m not quite sure with Westerns and Musicals. They had their big peaks, yet eke out an entry or two every year, but do not have the interest to keep churning them out, along the lines of the current comic book movie mania…which should be ending shortly.
And another good point is that like the slasher subgenre, which had a real bonanza in the 1980s (especially in canada), there are so many of them (hundreds) because they are cheap and fast to make. CBMs are expensive and spend years in production, thus even at a banner year like 2011, there are only 5 or so of them.
I interpreted Viable to mean more than can they do it, if that is the question then of course they can do it. I interpreted viable as being does it allow for artistic expansion, new cinematic experiences, draw in talent and have in it future critical success… it will always be populist to some degree so long as there is always kids and teenagers.
My point is Superhero films are unnecessarily rigidly formulaic, they have found a financially lucrative groove and they keep skipping on it. If past experience is any indication the genre is not viable because it is too conservative in its narrative approach, in its binary sense of character and good and evil, in its over-reliance on CGI-gasms that are already repeating themselves with few new spectacles. The only hope for its viability is when brand-name filmmakers come in and make it their own, because they get carte blanche to make something personal. Aronofsky almost joined, Nolan has of course, but most of the other brand name filmmakers are ignoring it, even ijn spite of the financial benefits… that to me suggests a lack of viability.
Science Fiction, War, Costume dramas, Westerns, these are viable genres because there is enough room in them and the right kind of talent is drawn to them to play with the tropes in new and exciting ways.
I’ve been reading in genre theory a bit lately, and thinking about the way some genres are defined by specific content (like cowboys/an Old West setting in the western, songs used integrally in musicals) or by specific themes (like the importance of boundaries/frontiers in the western, or needing to resolve differences by solidifying a romantic relationship in romantic comedies), and others by the effect or “feeling” they generate (a tragedy makes you sad, a comedy makes you laugh). It almost makes me think that “drama” and “comedy” aren’t genres at all in the strictest sense, as they’re mostly defined by the absense of other generic markers, then split by whether they’re funny or not (or intended to be so).
As far as the content/structure definitions, Rick Altman refers to these as semantics and syntactics, where semantics are the discreet elements, the building blocks of genre, whereas syntactis are the way those building blocks are put together, or the relationships between the semantic elements. He argues that a full approach to genre requires both. That article was written in 1976, so we probably already do this to some extent (he was arguing against discreet schools of thoughts on genre that I think are not discreet any more).
Semantic elements of CBSMs – superheroes with special powers (from some specific source – radioactivity, mutation, alien, money [in Batman/Iron Man's case]), based on comic books, often a specific tool that augments their power (Thor’s hammer, Spider-Man’s webs), distinctive costumes, clearly defined good vs. evil battles, bigger-than-life villains.
Syntactic elements of CBSMs – the hero’s journey, an internal battle paralleling the external one, the relationship between power and responsibility…what else? Those syntactic elements could apply to any fantasy/hero story going back to Beowulf. What else am I not thinking of?
Kurt – Westerns and musicals always show up in genre theory because they’re among the easiest genres to define. Westerns lasted solidly from 1903 (The Great Train Robbery) at least through the 1970s with the Clint Eastwood cycle, and syntactically, they live on in current sci-fi with its interest in the boundaries between earth and space, the effects of clashing civilizations, etc. Musicals have basically died, sure, after a solid run through the whole studio era. More’s the pity.
often though it is even more rigid than the basic idea of a Hero’s Journey, it becomes structured by action sequences usually with baddies of certain intensity until you get to the main boss, in each battle the individual character becomes subsumed within the CGI effects, so that it usually animated sequences. The love interest is usually captured by the main boss and this becomes a point of contention between the rivaling superheroes. There is often a need to keep the identity of the superhero hidden, so sprinkle a couple scenes of close-calls (or tongue-in-cheek comedic asides). The superhero almost always is seemingly defeated, everyone cries “Nooo!!!” and main boss goes to claim his/her spoils, but, wait, the superhero is moving, he gets up, it appears that the fight isn’t over after all. The main boss is undermined by a nicely planted bit of hubris on his/her part, superhero calls him/her on that, and saves the love interest and music swells.
rinse and repeat.
I think there’ll always be superhero movies because there will always be children who like idiotic power fantasy stories about a blonde guy smashin stuff with a magic tool n gettin mad at his dads unfair bedtime rules
Good call on the hidden identity, Rot, that’s definitely an important semantic element. The increasingly difficult baddies are found in Beowulf, too, though. But the more immediate reference would be video games. Or vice versa, since the comic book version of superheroes pre-dates video games. But the current crop, it seems, are pulling from video games for sure – like Mario always needing to save the princess from yet another castle.
I just recently watched Zemeckis’ Beowulf and was surprised how kind of awesome it was. Reminds me of another feature of superhero films, they are usually fairly PG, if there is violence it is rarely with any kind of stakes, any kind of blood and guts. Violence is muted by an interest in box office, which, once again is a limitation on the viability of the genre (it wants the veneer of violence but will rarely probe the consequences of it). I don’t see Haneke doing a superhero movie anytime soon.
again, when I say Superhero movies I mean mostly Marvel, which, really, is mostly all of them:
(2012)Spider-Man (2012)
(2012)Marvel’s The Avengers
(2011)Captain America: The First Avenger
(2011)X-Men: First Class
(2011)Thor
(2010)Iron Man 2
(2010)Planet Hulk
(2009)X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(2008)Punisher: War Zone
(2008)The Incredible Hulk
(2008)Iron Man
(2007)Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
(2007)Spider-Man 3
(2007)Ghost Rider
(2006)X3: The Last Stand
(2005)Fantastic Four
(2005)Man-Thing
(2005)Elektra
(2004)Blade: Trinity
(2004)Spider-Man 2
(2004)The Punisher
(2003)Hulk
(2003)X2: X-Men United
(2003)Daredevil
(2002)Spider-Man
(2002)Blade II
(2000)X-Men
(1998)Blade
(1986)Howard The Duck
Nolan’s Batman is a very refreshing exception, as it is intensely violent, it probes the real world implications of some of these tropes, it wants to complicate the usual narrative.
@Mike “I think there’ll always be superhero movies because there will always be children who like idiotic power fantasy stories about a blonde guy smashin stuff with a magic tool n gettin mad at his dads unfair bedtime rules”
What he said.
viable = popularity of course
viable = quality nope
im one of those children a lot of the time to be fair but in my comment which upon rereading seems harsh I actually meant honest to goodness young people, the kind of people comics were actually for for like 50 years
For most of comics’ existence they have been geared towards adults. It wasn’t until the rash of legal battles in the 50′s that adult oriented comics were claimed to be intended for children by socially conservative politicians in an effort to outright censor the world’s most popular form of entertainment.
huh, I didn’t know that. I guess I just assumed they were for kids because I read em when I was a kid and also they were mostly like about super stupid stuff
I recommend reading better comics. I grew up on Marvel and DC too but they are hardly the guideline of quality in the medium, just simply the most popular.
“For most of comics’ existence they have been geared towards adults.”
Look I have as much of a deep appreciation for comics as the next guy but I just don’t think that’s true. Despite who the writers thought they were writing for or which demographic’s letters were actually printed in the back of comics published in the 70s/80s the rack at the grocery store always said ‘Hey Kids, Comics!’ And if ‘for the majority of comics’ existance’ they were geared towards adults, then superhero comics writers, for the most part, must think that people who read comics are complete idiots
Uhh, comics have existed in the form we know them as since the 19th century. Two decades (which were arguably dedicated to kids) is a drop in the bucket in the existence of the medium.
Also the racks at the comic stores could hold what, 30 titles? In their heydays Marvel and DC each had well over 60 titles each, the majority of which were not geared for kids. And this isn’t even counting off-shoot lines like Vertigo or smaller companies, Indie comics and various British titles.
And yes, up until the comics code appeared in the early 60′s comics were aimed strictly at people over the age of 18, because they were the ones with disposable incomes. And even in the 70′s and 80′s you had people like Crumb, Spiegelman and Pekar writing comics aimed at older crowds, and in the late 80′s that once again rose to the forefront as the dominant buyer of comics and still is today. Heck, the average comic book reader’s age is something like 30 years old today, with over 25% being over the age of 60. In 2007 it was 27. In 1995 it was 25. And decade by decade consistently the highest sold comics are geared towards older crowds. Heck, the X-Men of the 70′s was a pretty damn seminal work, integrating a major comic team for the first time, addressed issues of race and bigotry and even heading straight on into storylines dealing with character’s religions (Nightcrwler’s Catholicism, Kitty Pride’s Judeism and Wolverine being an Atheist being the most obvious). On top of that they kill of major characters left and right. And that comic set sales record after sales record, because it wasn’t aimed at kids or treated adults like infants.
The idea that comics are for kids is a myth, plain and simple, propagated decades ago in an effort to censor the medium, and the belief continues today because people would rather repeat ignorance than actually spend some time researching the matter.
Yeah I agree old ass dudes read comics a lot now.
Sorry, I had assumed we were talking superhero comics. Obviously Crumb, Spain, etc were all responsible for adult-oriented comics in the 60s, as were many manga works by Tezuka, etc. The medium has a long and rich history filled with work that caters SPECIFICALLY to an adult reader.
If we’re talking, as I had assumed, strictly about superhero comics then yes, I’ll also agree that there have been a large number of superhero comics written by someone with half a brain for a reader with half a brain. Your Xmen example is great, and you can also lump in the body of alan moore’s work and so on and on and on. There exists a lot of evidence to support that superhero comics as a whole aren’t JUST for kids.
BUT to suggest that, for example, in comics’ golden age (late 30s & 40s) superhero comics in the west were sold/marketed as adult reading material and were perceived as such by the general public, I’d have to disagree… Toys, games etc. (for kids) were all produced to cash in on comics’ popularity with kids, and one by one every popular superhero quickly adopted a kid sidekick – in order for them to be more relatable to kids. Why make that decision if they were ‘strictly’ aimed at adults?
And I’m NOT arguing that these comics weren’t enjoyable to adults, because clearly they were (and still are – hey, I still get sucked in by the dumbest comics imaginable) – they were big with soldiers on the WW2 front, as an example. I’m just saying that the level of writing on display in MANY of these old comics is very simplistic and demonstrate writers taking huge shortcuts and often ignoring simple logic in order to get their characters form A to B. Every time I pick up an old issue of whatever random comic from this period it’s because I’m curious and interested in the history of the medium…. And also looking for a bit of a laugh. It’s not because I’m looking for a quality read.
I don’t remember implying R. Crumb’s comix of babes with huge fuckin dumpers were for kids but I did always think that Superman and Spiderman and Batman and X-Men and Hulk – the things we’re talking about – were for kids. If not, if Luke Cage fighting Gideon “The Mace” Mace, who had a mace that sprayed mace was in fact for adults, then the whole thing is waaaay funnier that I even thought it was
…which isn’t something that could be said for adult-oriented prose writing of this period
Also remember guys on the front in WW2 were basically kids.
I just KNEW Mike was gonna bring out Gideon “the Mace” Mace. Hell, if he didn’t I would have.
Great and entertaining debate. Thanks to all involved.
Kurt you said: “Marvel has taken ownership of their properties and is now making movies under their authorship, the same thing they did in the early 90′s which caused the whole comic book crash.” What did you mean by this? As the comic book crash had more to do with spectator crash combined with Marvel trying to self distribute their own comics, which eventually resulted in just Diamond being the sole distributor.
Addressing some of the comments, I’m of the opinion that Nolan’s Batman is quite good, because he steals ideas, set pieces and more from some of the best Batman comics. Mainly, Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween and The Killing Joke. I still think The Dark Knight would have been even BETTER had it adapted some more from the Killing Joke. As many times it brushes up against some of that books ideas without getting into it.
There’s such a huge wealth of source material for movies to draw from when it comes to superhero movies. It reminds me of the saying of an infinite number of moneys typing on an infinite number of keyboards will eventually result in the works of Shakespeare. That’s not to say comic book writers are monkeys, or that they have produced any Shakespearian works. Just that there’s a lot of garbage, and within that some incredible stories made through out the years.
Meanwhile going back into something Kurt said, about people getting sick of reboots, James Bond’s success has been about constantly keeping the series alive and rebooting it with a new lead on a regular basis and audiences don’t seem to mind. I think as long as they don’t try to retell the same stories again and tell stories lines from the comics that have not been adapted into films, then they should be okay. I mean, I wouldn’t mind Venon eventually be revisited and done properly, but give that one a rest for a decade or so.
I think my biggest problem with Superhero movies IS the whole reboot factor. No need for another Spiderman franchise this soon after the previous one. And I’ve heard that they’re ALREADY talking about a new batman series when Nolan wraps up which I think is absolutely insane. I take your point about James Bond, but I think those reboots have the benefit of at least 5/6 years inbetween new incarnations… Pierce Brosnan was all but forgotten by the time Daniel Craig showed up, whereas I can still picture Tobey swinging through Manhattan
Gamble could probably answer this better than I, but marvel tried to Vertically integrate themselves to cash in on the spectator boom, with self distribution and gimmicked up their titles and their product line had bloated to hundreds of titles and imprints.
This from Jason Sanford,
“”The worm had turned, and comics fans were pissed off. Comics collectors were finally mad at Marvel for churning out garbage for the past few years. They were mad at Dark Horse for never making an issue #5; all of their movie comics were four-issue miniseries, the logic being that #1 issues sell better. They were mad at Image for producing comics based solely on their namesake – image.”
Now obviously the market dynamics behind the comic book collapse and the current boom of superhero movies aren’t exactly the same. However, the similarities are startling.
In that article, the anonymous “Noun” (who sold comics during the 1990s) describes how Marvel and other publishers used crossover events to boost sales – where stories from one comic crossed over into other titles, meaning you had to buy all those comics simply to follow the story. Does that sound similar to what’s going on with their current line of Marvel superhero movies as we build toward next year’s much promoted Avengers film?
Other similarities include how “publishers abused the gimmicks.” Think the same thing isn’t happening today? Can anyone say 3D films, or the rebooting of characters like Spider-Man who starred in a successful film series only a few years ago?
And the final similarity is Marvel Comics itself, the company which was one of the main culprits behind the collapse of the comic book market in the 1990s. Marvel was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1997 because it lost sight that the most important aspect of their “properties” was in the telling of stories which resonate with readers.
A simple truth of any market-driven enterprise is that if you flood the market with crap then the market will collapse. That happened with comic books back during the 1990s and its happening today with superhero films.
Superhero films are a great art form when they focus on the compelling stories, characters and visuals which first attracted people to comic books in the first place. For evidence of this look no further than the last two Batman movies. But in the rush to exploit the demand for superhero films, Hollywood and companies like Marvel are flooding the market with too much mediocre crap.”
“Addressing some of the comments, I’m of the opinion that Nolan’s Batman is quite good, because he steals ideas, set pieces and more from some of the best Batman comics. Mainly, Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween and The Killing Joke.”
I agree that everything that people like about Nolans movies are taken from these books. Of the three, I’m way more into The Killing Joke than the others, which I find quite boring (I actually preferred Dark Victory to Long Halloween). Especially Year One is typical Frank Miller bullshit, and unsurprisingly, I found Begins to be a waste of thinking peoples time.
I know rot has deflected the criticism of unoriginality by saying that as long as it hasn’t been done in the movies, it’s fresh, but it’s really hard to praise Nolans Joker in any way other than execution if you’ve read The Killing Joke. Same problem with Kurt pseudo-praising Zack Snyder for Watchmen, when obviously, the person they should be praising (and I think, want to be praising) is Alan Moore.
“Superhero films are a great art form when they focus on the compelling stories, characters and visuals which first attracted people to comic books in the first place. For evidence of this look no further than the last two Batman movies.”
I would rather point to something like Spider-Man 2 as an example of taking what is good about the comic book, and working within that to create an original movie. The characters and stories in Nolans Batman movies are pretty ‘safe’, compared to the source material. It will be interesting if he does something fresh now since he now has every opportunity to do whatever he wants with it and make it amazing. I don’t really see much happening though, I fully expect a movie and subsequent reaction comparable to Inception. Solid stuff for action schlock, but safe and comfortable.
The misconception of company-wide comics crossovers is this: You have to buy every issue in order to enjoy the whole story. And while at the worst of times this was literally true (DC’s actually THE WORST culprit of this kind of thing – in recent history anyway), the reality, at least in my experience, was that you got the gist of what you missed, which usually wasn’t that important by one or two lines of exposition. Marvel’s Civil War or House of M come to mind – I wasn’t a huge marvel zombie by any means, read only the core titles of these series, understood what was happening and thoroughly enjoyed them.
And what I find most APPEALING about reading crossovers is the perception that there’s other stuff going on in this universe that I’m able to seek out and read if I so choose. The main reason I come back to superhero comics is because it’s the only medium in which a company-wide ‘universe’ is defined. You don’t see all the shows on NBC taking place in the same universe, or all the movies released by Paramount. It creates new opportunities for story-telling and really helps to ground each individual story in some kind of ‘reality’.
And if the Avengers movie is trying to do this then I’m all for it. It’s never been done in film, as far as I can tell. That alone makes this an exciting plus, not a minus…
Maybe as an experiment I shouldn’t have seen Thor before the Avengers comes out, just to see how cohesive it actually is. But I have a feeling that, these being wide release feature films, it won’t matter if you haven’t seen Thor to understand the Avengers. With one line of dialogue they’ll explain who Loki is in relation to Thor and then off they go.
I just read what I wrote about crossovers and realized that I should acknowledge that yes, Marvel fucked things up royally in the 90s with all their Xmen and Spiderman cross-overs.
The 90s were a strange, strange time for superhero comics… Glad they’re behind us.
I’m still not sure wether or not I grew out of serial comics, or if the clone saga in Spider-Man just killed it for me. I stopped reading at that point (For perspective, I have no idea how it works now, but at the time, Spider-Man was a monthly magazine here, and the clone saga ran for 12 issues…). Maybe they were ahead of their time, because weird shitty cliffhangers seemed to take over pop culture about 10 years later!
I remember precisely the moment I stopped reading comics: when Spiderman #1 came out. I bought like four different copies including the prebagged one, and brought them home, thought about how dumb it was and pretty much never went back
Stupid troll is stupid ^_^
That was ’91 or so I think. I started reading comics again when somebody told me about 100 Bullets and I’m really not sad to have missed that decade of comic book art
I’m sorry, I got confused. Spiderman #1 in ’91? What was that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spiderman1cover.jpg
Anyway good debate dudes! You all rocked the hooouse
That’s Todd McFarlane… Todd McFarlane Spider-Man was awesome. Mike, you’re stoopid…
I didn’t say squat about the quality of the comic. It was the “four different variations… collect em all for maximum investment potential” factor that soured me. Not that I feel the need to respond to dude calling me stupid twice in a row
Wait, Mike – YOU’RE Stupid Troll?!
I always thought you were Dashing And Rather Clever Troll.
Mike, you might have missed some lousy superhero comics in the 1990′s, but 100 Bullets is published from Vertigo which had it’s seeds in the late 80′s with Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, the later which I think is some of the best comics ever written. In the 90′s Vertigo published some outstanding comics and the Sandman even managed to become a number 1 best selling comic, as Gaiman wrapped it up and ended the series.
Also Kurt, I see the analogy you are now making with the 90′s comic book market crash and today’s superhero movies, but I don’t think it holds up very well. The problem that happened in the 90′s was that all these speculators buying comics as investments without actually reading them. The stories no longer mattered with anything with a special cover or a big event sold, resulting in the comic book companies fabricating all big events that would sell but didn’t make interesting stories.
We don’t have people buying tickets and not seeing movies. There has been some bad Marvel movies, but audiences have generally liked Thor and X-men: First Class based on the ratings they are getting on such sites such as Rotten Tomatoes (the audience section), Yahoo Movies and IMDB.
Also the Avengers movie is more like the original Avengers comic book rather than the cross overs of the 90′s. It’s not a big over reaching storyline, but characters all existing in the same world and then bringing them all together.
After that experiment, fans are still clamouring for Iron Man to do the Demon In A Bottle storyline, where Tony battles with alcoholism. As they have really been setting that up so far in both Iron Man movies and using an actor like Robert Downey Jr. who faced that in real life, has such potential.
There’s a lot of other good stories to adapt, now what the origins of all these characters are out of the way. Which I will add, while not quite necessary at times, I can understand execs wanting to go that route uneasy that audiences are going to immediately accept a super powered character without some initial set up for the audience to understand how the character got to that point.
Rajo: “I take your point about James Bond, but I think those reboots have the benefit of at least 5/6 years inbetween new incarnations…”
I guess modern day James Bond has some decent gaps but old classic Bond didn’t and even switched back and forth between Connery:
You Only Live Twice – Sean Connery – 1967
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – George Lazenby – 1969
Diamonds Are Forever – Sean Connery – 1971
Live and Let Die – Roger Moore – 1973
4 switches to the character in just 6 years.
Then later:
A View to a Kill – Roger Moore – 1985
The Living Daylights – Timothy Dalton – 1987
The major characters like Spider-Man, Super-Man and Batman has all sorts of crazy variations in the comics, with different eras, sometimes different artists and writers doing different takes on same character at the same time. DC recently killed off Batman and Neil Gaiman did a great comic touching on all those variations of Batman together in one comic at Batman’s funeral.
However, then you have different animated series, video games and other tie-ins all slightly different. Plus we now we have Spider-man & Batman musicals.
DC has held off wanting a Justice League movie to be running at the same time as Nolan’s Batman, but I personally don’t think most audiences will have any problems with 2 different Batmans in two separate movies.
I can see some people getting upset about it, but I’m going to guess that they are in the minority.
there are a lot of Matts in this comment thread
Rajo, all these Matt’s and Matthew Price didn’t even add any comments.
I know, I’m shocked!
He’s frightened.
Matt, this Matt says the other Matt should not be frightened and I think the 4th Matt in this thread would agree. There’s power in numbers!
I’m changing my name to ‘Matt’!
The Matt people get taken seriously! The first Matt had a great point, the second Matt, not so much, the third Matt (lost in in Mattranslation), the fourth Mat, yep….got where he was going, but what does it ‘Matt[er]?
Ms Matt Curious
Although one bad film does not a ‘genre’ end, this is the kind of thing that spells the end of these types of films.
From Box Office Mojo:
“Green Lantern’s start landed behind X-Men: First Class’s $55.1 million and Thor’s $65.7 million, and its Friday-to-Saturday drop of 22 percent was steeper than those movies’ eight percent. The gross was also less than The Incredible Hulk and the two Fantastic Four movies, and the attendance disparity was only greater. Green Lantern’s estimated attendance was even lower than Daredevil and Ghost Rider.
Green Lantern continued the tradition of B-list superheroes failing to soar to blockbuster heights (with the exception of Iron Man), despite an enormous marketing push that tried to pound people into submission. But an onslaught of ads is not necessarily the same thing as an effective campaign. The bottom line is that Green Lantern simply didn’t have that appealing of a premise with its distancing sci-fi fantasy angle, and no amount of ads could make it look less awkward.”
Thor has made over $400 million world wide and is liked among the audiences that saw it. I think a chance of sequel for it is pretty high, especially if Avengers does well. X-men: First Class has made over $300 million world wide and is likely to still make more. It was once again well liked by both critics and the public that it will likely to do well on DVD, NetFlix, etc and make more with a sequel.
Green Lantern on the other hand is not well liked and has the press writing articles about who’s fault it is for being so bad and such a miss. So the chance that we will get any more Green Lantern movies is very unlikely.
What both DC and Marvel should be doing is not trying to repeat the success of Iron Man, but repeat the success of the first X-men that costs only $75 million to make. They shouldn’t assume a huge audience first time around. Even Batman Begins, despite it’s quality only made $200 million.
Then again, what the hell do I know they are talking about making a Green Lantern sequel:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-pursue-green-lantern-205703
Matt Zoller Seitz covers a lot of the bases. Extra bonus points for pointing out the craziness of THE APPLE and praise for experimentalisim with Ang Lee’s the Hulk. And it makes me especially happy that he keeps using 28 Weeks Later as a talking point!:
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/05/06/superhero_movies_bankrupt_genre