Comic Book Movies?
December 8th, 2009A friend of mine and I had a conversation recently about the state of the superhero movie genre. He is concerned that the superhero movie is reaching a crisis point. He thinks the genre could be on its way out. With the flood of comic movies in the last few years, one could say the superhero movie industry has never been healthier. But in Hollywood, a genre is only a couple of flops away from being a thing of the past. Whatever happened to the disaster flick?
I imagine anyone reading this will agree that the superhero genre is better material for movies than natural disasters. But every comic movie is tied to every other comic movie, in that one’s success gives the next comic project a better standing with its respective studio. Conversely, a flop hurts the next projects coming along. And a series of flops could burst the comic movie bubble. Let us take a look at some of the comic movie disasters that have hit the screen in the past few years.
The Increbible Hulk was an incredible flop, both critically and commercially. Its best moments were the comic ones; unfortunately, Nick Nolte’s and his mutated dogs were unintentionally funny. Daredevil and Blade: Trinity came and went. I enjoyed Daredevil, but anything attached to the name of Ben Affleck these days is chalked up as a bomb. The Punisher was roundly panned. I’m probably missing a couple, but that begins to be a substantial list of disappointments.
Offsetting this are the Iron Man, X-Men and Spider-Man movies. These have not only been successes, but really major successes. For those that love comic movies, let’s say keep ‘em coming. All in all, after a series of major successes starting the first X-Man and Blade movies, the last couple of years do seem to be a mixed bag. So the next few projects could be pivotal to the future of the genre.
I’m looking down the list. Having Keanu Reeves play Constantine in L.A. with (I’m presuming) an American accent set off Constantine comic fans. Nobody but those fans are going to know who Constantine is. This thing had disaster written all over it, and Reevess star power coudn’t save this project.
The Fantastic Four movie could go either way. The cast hardly wowed anyone. Dr. Doom was really a disappointment.
All in all, a somewhat iffy selection to quicken the comic movie boom. Maybe my friend is on to something. I hope he’s wrong. Hopefully in the era of CGI, when good stories with lots of actions will be needed constantly, comic book heroes will continue to be a major source for movie studios. Maybe the comic movie is here to stay. But we have said that about other movie genres before, only to see them go the way of the western.
I’ve written about movies before, like at my site about Best Movie Quotes. If you liked this post, you’ll enjoy that article too.
