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."
The Incredibles 2! (Score:3, Interesting)
Pixar's The Incredibles was everything I could have possibly wanted from a super hero movie. How about a sequel to that?
Re:No mention of TV? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, and I agree with the conclusion of the summery that "television may be the ideal medium for comic book adaptations", as B:TAS is probably the best adaptation of Batman in any medium outside of the comics. Further, I'd say that it was better than many periods of the Batman comics.
I guess it all comes down to who is in charge and how faithful they want to stay to the source material and create stories from there.
They will wreck it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
TV Series! (Get good writers) (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The change of pace (Score:2, Interesting)
It's impossible to make a good movie from a video game.
Gilligan's Island: Rebooted! (Score:4, Interesting)
The dark, edgy reboot as Gilligan and the Skipper land on the "Lost" island. A threeeee hour tour. A threee hour tour.
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just that, but DC absolutely FAILS at utilizing any of their IP not-named-Batman
Superman did well back in the Christopher Reeve days, but now it's being rebooted for the second time in short order. Green Lantern? Garbage movie. Wonder Woman? Probably the most popular female in all comics... no movie to speak of. Maybe it's all the BDSM from the source material. The Flash? Nope. Robin/Nightwing? Nope.
Sure, Marvel has more options, but DC isn't using the options it has. Before Robert Downey Jr got involved, was Iron Man any more popular than Flash? Was Black Widow a bigger name than Wonder Woman?
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's more than likely they reboot for contract issues. "Amazing Spiderman" is not "Spider-man" so they don't have to honour contracts/buy out individuals who have a stake in the series. Given that specific example, Tobey Maguire had signed a deal for Spider-man 4 & 5 but the director didn't like the direction it was taking or the actor so they scrapped Spider-man 4 & 5 and rebooted under the new title.
Nobody remembers Atom :( (Score:3, Interesting)
I want an Atom movie. And Flash.
Re:write a new story? (Score:5, Interesting)
One reason I don't see addressed below : Licensing rights.
Marvel Studios sold off the rights to the Spiderman movies to Sony back in the late 90s (before Marvel had their own movie production studio) with a "Use it or lose it" clause. Basically, Sony has to keep the franchise active, or control reverts back to Marvel. And Sony really doesn't want that, especially with what I'm going to outline below. So in the meantime, Sony grabs up some cheaper actors*, particularly in the lead role, a no-name director who won't give any lip, and churns out this quick flick to make sure they get to keep their rights.
Consider what Marvel Studios has been up to recently, [imdb.com] and that's been in the public eye since Iron Man 1 back in '08. Also remember the minor spoiler cameo [wikipedia.org] during the credits of Avengers. In the comics, that particular villain sparked a multi-series cross over, bringing together Avengers, a few XMen, Spiderman, 75% of the Fantastic Four. With all that in your mind, is there any doubt that Sony wants to make extra sure they keep complete control over Spiderman's movie rights? Marvel's probably going to want him back pretty soon, and Sony will require a LOT of money to negotiate the return of rights. They're certainly not going to let the rights lapse, and they're probably not going to spend a lot of money or effort on a franchise that they're planning on selling.
*I dig Emma Stone as much as the next guy, but a big-name star she isn't. Likewise Martin Sheen and Sally Field are a bit past their prime, and certainly aren't too expensive for background roles. Denis Leary is somewhat recognizable for the Fireman show, but the other 80% of his work in the past decade has been Ice Age and it's runty offshoots. It's like Sony was aiming for recognizable names, to help sell it, but not TOO recognizable, because we don't want to pay them too much.