What's Next For Superhero Movies? 396
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."
write a new story? (Score:5, Insightful)
or has that been done before?
No mention of TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
DC/Warner Bros Should Go Dark (Score:3, Insightful)
Animation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Call me a novel addict... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Wasn't there a time when... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
This is why we can't have nice things. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Oh noes!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Don't temp them to mine the 1960s and 1970s TV shows for more "inspiration".
The Super Hero genre has got very, very old for me. I'm not interested in seeing any more, reboot or otherwise. I once spent about half my disposable (after rent, food, and expenses) income on movies, but find Hollywoods desire to hedge on known quantities (sequels, copy-what's-popular, rehash/remake) is killing the creative content. Scads of great books would make for some awesome movies, I certainly have at least one in mind, but Hollywood is practically run by bean-counters and Wall Street now.
It takes someone with finances or clout (like Spielberg) to do something they want to (and alas, Spielberg's War of the Worlds fell far short of what it could have been) so I don't hold out much hope. Now if I want to see a good flick I spend more of my movie & popcorn money on indie and foreign cinema, some people are still creating and I should reward them with my dollar votes rather than the garbage recyclers Hollywood have become.
Re:The change of pace (Score:5, Insightful)
It's impossible to make a good movie from a video game.
The studios aren't interested in good; they're interested in how many people will pay to see it.
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems well done....characters good, etc. Even if the same director wants to quit, couldn't someone else take over the reigns, but keep the same basic 'flavor' of the current movies.
I don't like this having to 'reboot' every fucking 3-4 movies. I could understand it for the Star Trek movie....and it was done well. I've not seen the new Spiderman yet, but I'm confused for the need to do the 'origin' all over again....and start over. Sure I know new actors, but you don't start the story all over again, just because you have new actors.
Hell, if they did that...James Bond movies would have been only an endless chain of origin movies....I think the audience can handle different actors playing the characters, but we don't need everything around the character to keep changing every 2-3 movies....leave the basic background story going forward and just change cast.
Re:The Incredibles 2! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Insightful)
TV sounds great until the network execs are in... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:write a new story? (Score:0, Insightful)
...you are right that they ought to update the character for a movie... after the flop that was the failed Wonder Woman TV series it probably won't be happening any time soon.
The fact that Warner Brothers/DC Comics decided that David "Ally McBeal" Kelly was the right guy to shepherd a Wonder Woman television series tells you everything you need to know about why WB/DC hasn't been able to capitalize on any of their non-Batman properties.
Re:No mention of TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
Go watch the Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited animated series that followed those two. They were done by the same guys and were phenomenal. The first season of JLU might well have been the high point of the DC universe in any incarnation--comics, animated, or live action. They pulled out almost every minor superhero DC ever created, gave them each their own shining moment, and tied everything together through a season-long arc that was just an awesome piece of storytelling.
Whoever that guy is who's writing the Justice League movie script had better be studying those shows religiously.
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of movies that are created aren't based on pre-existing content. However, the movies people actually care about and go watch generally are. For instance, if you look at Slashdot's "Movie" tags, it's entirely comic books and Star Trek and Star Wars. Not much on "The Queen Of Versailles" or "The Imposter" although these are both supposed to be excellent movies.
Nothing wrong with that, but it's bizarre to complain that you want to see original content, and then not go see the original content that is easily available.