Let's pretend for a second that a major motion picture studio is going to make a new big budget movie based on a major event in either the DC or Marvel Universes i.e COIE, OWAW, IG, WWH etc. Now let's also pretend that the writers of said movie actually care more about making a movie that die hard comic book fans will enjoy rather than making money.
Is there any event in either comic book universe that is so sacred that it would prevent a movie being made according to these stipulations? No matter who is cast, who is directing, or how much money is put into the project.
What will please "die hard" fans will vary depending on which fan you talk to. I don't think there's a set criteria that a director could work toward thinking "ok, this is for FANS, not profit."
Also, if your criteria for that is simply adherence to the source material, that can backfire as easily as work. The mediums are not equivalent.
I think there's a lot of stories that wouldn't translate well to film, regardless of writer, budget, etc. Many stories are way too unbelievable to produce convincingly on the large screen.
I don't think that there is any "sacred cow" material. As digi pointed the issue is just that some material flat out translates better to the silver screen then others.
I think it's part of the reason Galactus failed so hard in the FF movie (among other things that failed in that film). Would a giant pink and purple douche standing in Manhattan have worked any better? No, at least not without the perfect director and portrayal. There's such an insanely fine line to walk with stuff like that. By contrast, it's WAY easier to, say, make a tragic lizard man run around Manhattan and have audiences not scoff at it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I wouldn't touch anything cosmic if I were a movie director doing a superhero film.
Same with the GL film. It was bad, sure, but I think the writers and director were fighting an uphill battle trying to portray a yellow monster that represents an abstract concept. Obviously the Avengers is the exception here, but I honestly don't think they did anything as dangerous in terms of subject material. I actually think the initial Thor movie was way harder to pull off in terms of believability.
The biggest issue I could see is the constant Name-Dropping that occurs in comics.
If you had Death of Superman and wanted to make it relevent, you'd need to establish the following characters in a movie setting (Sort of like Marvel Did):
Blue Beetle
Guy Gardner
Guardian
Supergirl (Matrix)
Booster Gold
Maxima
Fire
Ice
Bloodwynd (And establish the fact that Martian Manhunter has changed into him)
I'm sure there's more, but this is if you're TRULY trying to appeal to the hardcorest of the hardcore fans. Frankly, all this would be unnecessary to me.
If it were for film, they'd change most of that, or ignore it. Stories like these can and should be handled in recurring media, like TV shows. For example, as much as I enjoyed the Avengers movie, Avengers: ESM handled the "invasion" story so much more thoroughly than a movie ever could.
It's true. You have to hold that fine line well. I like to see crossovers, it's one of the things that makes comics awesome. But there are certain things that must be modified.
You raise an interesting point with regard to Galactus in the FF movie. I remember there being a fanboy outcry that Galactus wasn't shown in his entirety and I was one of those voices. However looking back at it, that probably would have failed as well. I'm just not sure how well that one can portray that concept on film without it being corny. Perhaps familarity with concepts like Godzilla and the like would somewhat compensate for the size factor. But outside of that, just what exactly do you do with the character? I mean it's frickin Galactus, so his demise however it would've came would have almost certainly upset fans as well
There was far more wrong with the fantastic four movie than just galactus, though I believe it is possible to show galactus in a physical form without it being too cheesy.
Thing doesn't look good. The actor portraying doom didn't fit at all. The only actor to actually get the character right was Johnny Storm's character and an argument could be made for Grimm. If you think the only thing the fantastic four amount to is "Reed is smart as hell, Sue is eye candy, Johnny is an ego maniac, Doom, like the parasite that he is, sneaks around in the background waiting foran opportune moment to leech on and steal someone else's powers" then you have a lot to learn about them.
Rofl. Go read pretty much any review on the film. There's a lot they did wrong. And I honestly can't believe you think the Doom portrayal was spot on. He was butchered pretty thoroughly by the movies.
Also lulz at Sue as nothing but eye candy. Do you read FF?
Anyway, this is threatening to sidetrack us. My point was about Galactus alone, setting aside the rest of the movie. I think there's a lot to be said for the difficulty in translating anything that isn't Earth-based in comics to movies.
I agree with this. Though I do think certain ones can be done easier than others. The Kree wouldn't be as hard as, say, a flying silver guy on a surf board.
GL could have been cool but they picked a villain, out of the hundreds available, that no non-comic reader would have any real interest in seeing, same with the FF movie.
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Sep 27th, 2012 09:17 PM
