Hello all, and I hope this week’s article finds you well. I am afraid the same can’t be said for your loyal host here. I woke up this morning in an igloo in the Alaskan hinterland to an Inuit woman trying to force feed me carrot sticks and orange juice. From what I have been able to piece together, I have spent the last three weeks binging on Mike and Ike’s and Orange soda, locked in a hotel room watching CNN’s 24 hour coverage of the Michael Jackson trial. This little Inuit girl found me out by the ice machine trying to suck soda residue from the coke machine. She was kind enough to take me back to her home and nurse me back to health. The last thing I remember was trying to find my remote control underneath a pile of dirty clothes and passing out on my bedroom floor

I have taken the last few hours to read the articles I submitted to my editor and the only thing I can figure is that the combination of high fructose corn syrup and red die #5 must have put me in some kind of diabetic hallucinogenic state. There was no MPAA conspiracy, no thuggee guards. Just Michael Jackson, Larry King, and an overabundance of sugar. The articles I submitted in my altered state seem to be a clear indication of the dangers of a sugar overdose. I apologize to my legions of readers for this abuse of your trust, no matter how unintentional it was, and as god is my witness, I shall never drink soda again.

And now on to this week’s article:

With the release of the new movie Batman Begins, and the long awaited Superman movie in production, I wanted to take this week to look at the phenomenon of huge blockbuster comic book movies. Why are they so huge now, and what “formula” Hollywood needs to stick to to keep these mammoth movies making money.

The word “successful”, means completely different things inside and outside of Hollywood. Successful, by Hollywood standards, is measured by the gross sales receipts from it’s opening weekend, and how much more the movie makes than it originally cost to produce. Successful movies outside of Hollywood strike a chord with their audience, become a part of our culture and are pretty much universally enjoyed by everyone that sees them. In a perfect world, a successful movie will fit both definitions. Those that fit the first and not the second are touted in Hollywood, and we end up seeing parts II,III, IV, V, each normally worse than the last, or even worse, the same people in Hollywood that made the “successful” movie end up making many, many more of the same. Those types of movies include: Independence Day, Rush Hour, and xXx. Those movies that fit the second definition, but never live up to the first are affectionately known as “cult” films, and usually only get recognition after the film’s initial release in the form of a “special collector’s edition dvd”, but are otherwise completely ignored by Hollywood. These types of movies include, Clash of the Titans, Heathers, Evil Dead, and Blade Runner. Most of the big budget comic book movies of the last five years have been able to accomplish both, and have actually given us a kind of formula to look at to determine whether they will continue.

Part #1: Make lots of money

The first part of the formula is very easy to figure out. Make an insane amount of money, enough money that will allow studios to continue to make comic book movies knowing some of them will fail, with less and less risk.

Part #2: take the material seriously, stay true to the material, and do something that has never been done before.

Before the X-Men movie came out in 2000, grossing almost $158 million dollars in the US alone and setting the bar for every comic book movie after it, only two movies could be considered comparable to the original X-Men movie; Superman (1978, 134 million dollars), and Batman (1989, 251 million dollars). All three of these movies accomplished something that had never been done before. Every comic movie before 2000 (with the exception of the two above), was either a parody of the comic books, or was essentially made for children, because it seemed that the conventional wisdom was that only kids would be interested in “funny books.” X-men was a film that no one thought could ever be made correctly. As was Superman and Batman in their time. They were all serious films about subjects that were not really ever taken seriously. This is largely due to the care that each of the filmmakers seemed to take in actually “getting it right”.

Part #3: Use the technology available to bring the comic books to life in a realistic manner

(The first and best example of this is of course Superman, the Movie. I use Superman, the Movie as an example while describing the current phenomenon of Superhero movies because it accomplished every piece of the formula, only 20 years before it’s time. And is surely a great source material for how to “get it right”.)

Spiderman (2002, 404 million dollars) saw the wall crawler do what no one ever thought he would be able to do. Swing back and forth across Manhattan using his web and crawling back and forth along walls. This was the first comic book movie in this slew of movies to use the technology available to the makers to pull off some of the stunts never before seen.

Part #4 (specific to sequels): Bigger is always better, but the movie must be able to stand on it’s own as a movie and at the same time build on the original.

X2 (2003, 215 million dollars) and Spiderman 2 (2004, 373 million dollars) are the only two sequels so far but both have managed to expand on the existing series of movies, without belittling the original or become a parody of them. They are larger movies with more fantastic effects that are (dare I say it) better than the originals, and solid films in their own right. Any sequels that come out of any of the comic movies made since 2000 have to raise the bar of the original, both technologically and through pure storytelling.

Part #5: create a movie where the fantastic special effects and the plotlines normally found in comic books are seamless and come across almost second nature.

What I mean by this is that the movie has to be about the character and the story. That although you are watching a movie about a superhero or group of superheroes, the action and the over the top explosions need to take a back seat to the plot and the story that is being told and need to just become part of the scenery. Spiderman 2 did a really good job of telling a great story without letting the special effects get in the way of the story that was actually being told. But the best example of this has to be Batman Begins. Although, admittedly, Batman does not fly, or shoot flames from his fingertips, all of the action and explosions, and the costumes and such became just a part of telling the story. The characters and story were what drove the movie. Any over the top villains or plotlines were accepted as such because Batman’s world felt real. The special effects in the movie blended with the action around it and only enhanced the story.

I am sure that as time moves on and more of these movies come out, the list of ingredients will get longer, but I think that any successful comic book movie from here on out will have to incorporate and build on these things to make it successful. Otherwise they will eventually devolve back into films where we will see a “Bat credit card”, or a Superman that does not wear his traditional “S”, or even fly.

Read it, enjoy it, live it, because you know I’d never steer you wrong.

Until next week,

Dana

If you think I missed anything or just want to “weigh in” on this article, please email me at DPlace76@yahoo.com.
Or if you want to read any of my random rantings, you can catch me on
www.livejournal.com/users/bigdpimpin.

FYI:
Current comic book movies in the works (or rumored to be):