Comic Book Adaptations...are they good for the movies?
Comic books and graphic novels are being bought up by the hundreds to adapt into screenplays. Is this good for the industry or do filmmakers water cutting edge content down to make it palatable for movie goers?
i.e. Wolverine and Batman both lose their darker sides in the movies.
i.e. Wolverine and Batman both lose their darker sides in the movies.
posted by coachmike | 11:59 PM
6 Comments:
Marvel is definitely saturating the market with a plethora of heroes, high revenue making heroes I might ad.
Each movie gets more and more expensive. Superman won't see a clean profit for years.
I personally love comics and think there are many good stories to be told. The trick is how to get production companies to make some of these good stories and not green light Spiderman 6 or X-Men the Final, Final, Final Fight 2.
Not that I don't like these movies, but come on. Sin City was good, History of Violence was a great pick-up but they failed in the execution or the adaptation (I didn't see the sp).
I'd like to see some new stories and a little more culture as well.
"Each movie gets more and more expensive."
Maybe if actors weren't charging MILLIONS per flick this wouldn't be an issue.
But this a free country, and as long as studios have money to burn, whatever.
Anyway, as far as the question goes, I think comic book movies are as much a part of our culture as the comic books themselves. They will always be remade and remade, and then remade again.
They're the equivalent of the Greek heroes, I think.
The thing is, with comic heroes, we want to see them over and over, in new situations and new conflicts. It's basically another soap opera. But Batman can't live forever, so you have to remake him every couple decades as a new, younger, fresher version of himself. The downside to that is the entire series is spent re-introducing characters that we've dealt with time and again, i.e. The Joker.
Now, I love The Joker, but the next two Batman flicks are going to focus on Joker and Two-Face, and haven't we already seen these blokes on the big screen??
Not that that will stop me from watching the films and enjoying them immensely.
But still, at least with Spiderman, these are characters that haven't really ever been on the BIG screen.
Superman needs to go home. Loved the latest flick, but that needs to be it. A tribute to the old films, nothing else. Of course, it won't be. I believe the sequel is already in the works. Oy.
Superman 2..to the second power that is. Yes, I loved the film and yes the sequel was green lit before the current flick hit the screen. The studios knew how much they would make a year before it went out.
I have to agree that no matter how many times they re-make or sequelize (is that a word) comic book heroes, I will watch them. And that is why they will always make money. I loved Batman Begins, even better than the original movie. My wish is that they would get new material with different skill sets...if I see one more super that gets an overdose of radiation I will puke..i.e. Stan Lee's new hero on Sci-Fi (I can't even remember the title) and that awful reality show.
I would like to see some of the B&W hard edged stuff, like Dark Horse put out in the beginning.
Studios PG-13ize everything for a bigger audience and half the comic books suck on film.
Remeber the Mutant Ninja Turtles in a B&W mag. They were brutal and interesting, not surfers and yo boys. It's insulting.
Being a fan of comics and not being able to buy the last Civil War on time, I ran across this on Alan David's Doane's blog.
http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/blog/
Posted by ADD:
Civil War Lateness Endangers Superhero Convenience Shops -- You'd think Brian Hibbs suing Marvel for being chronically late might have been an early indicator that maybe you shouldn't tie your personal fortunes to the publisher's timeliness. But greed and the promise of short-term gain are historically more powerful than, well, paying attention to history. I cannot personally imagine allowing Marvel and/or Diamond to determine the health of my personal financial stability this late in the game. I have kids to feed.
I've been reading both the timely 52 and the now-late Civil War for free from the internet's Preferred Store (as it's known). I like CW enough to actually buy the eventual hardcover, whenever the hell it comes out. I loathe 52 enough that I have stopped reading it even for free.
The message to retailers, it seems to me, and it's been apparent for at least a couple of years now, is that the day of the fucking floppy is over, and you need to transition to the new reality. In other words, when BORDERS starts bitching about how Civil War is late, then I'll think it matters to comics as a whole.
This "tragedy" is mainly impacting superhero convenience stores, who should know by now that Marvel's Slurpees are an unreliable factor when planning out their long-term financial health. Over the next three or four months, the three-out-of-four people in my household who read comics every week will be affected exactly not at all by Civil War being late -- two of them (my kids, on the very cusp of becoming independent, comics-buying adults) read graphic novels and non-Marvel periodicals, and the other, the fat old nerd that hooked them on comics, is waiting quite patiently and happily for the trade, which will have a consistent writer and artist all the way through, and which may not be Watchmen, but will still be of interest to sooperhero fans ten years from now, unlike the timely-as-hell 52.
Diamond is no longer comics. Marvel is no longer comics. Look around, in libraries, in real bookstores. Comics is bigger than one distributor or one publisher, especially a distributor and publisher who historically cover their own asses to the detriment of those they do business with. Diamond and Marvel essentially supply Slurpees to sooperhero convenience stores, and they're all managed by guys who, if they are professional businessmen -- you know, have READ HIBBS'S BOOK ON BEING A PROFESSIONAL COMIC BOOK RETAILER -- know they need to study the history of their industry and of their own store, and make sound business decisions based on the information they have. The information about Marvel has been clear forever, to anyone not suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Every smart retailer I know has spent the past few years diversifying their product line, opening up alternative lines of distribution so that their future and their financial well-being is not entirely, fatally tied to Marvel and Diamond.
I can imagine quite a few sooperhero convenience shops going under because of this. And you know, I felt bad for the people who had 100 percent of their stock in Enron, too. But they should have known better. I know nothing about investing, but I know you have to diversify your portfolio if you want to be solvent and prosperous in the long-term.
Diversification would have saved Enron's investors, and in the long run, it's the only thing that will allow comic book stores to exist in another five to ten years. The smart retailers already know this -- walk into Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, Massachusetts or The Beguiling in Toronto. Yes, they have Marvel available. As one of the many, many publishers they carry. And they have diverse customer bases that wants comics of all sizes, shapes, genres and languages. What percentage of income do you think Marvel represents for Borders? The ones near me all have some Marvel stuff, and quite a bit more Manga.
There's room for superhero comics, especially in North America. But the day of Ellis's Nurse Novel is long since over, and bravo to him for pointing this out so long ago:
"I don't doubt that there are excellent nurse novels in there. But the fact that in our nightmare bookstore, 90% of all books published everywhere are about nurses tends to choke off all other genres and a literary mainstream."
Diversify or die, comic book stores. The Civil War debacle is very likely the final warning bell.
Bush is forever saying that democracies do not invade other countries and start wars. Well, he did just that. He invaded Iraq, started a war, and killed people. What do you think? How does that work in a democracy again? How does being more threatening make us more likeable?Isn't
the country with the most weapons the biggest threat to the rest of the world? When one country is the biggest threat to the rest of the world, isn't that likely to be the most hated country?
If ever there was ever a time in our nation's history that called for a change, this is it!
We have lost friends and influenced no one. No wonder most of the world thinks we suck. Thanks to what george bush has done to our country during the past three years, we do!
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