My first article on this site starts out with an admission: I’ve dreamt of writing about Cookie Crisp. Not because I am obsessed with the cereal, but rather because my desire to get my voice out there somehow manifested into strangely comforting—and awfully realistic—dream in which ascendancy to stardom is precipitated by writing about miniaturized versions of unhealthy sugary delights. In this dream, the Nostalgia Critic became my financier after having been introduced to me by the discoverer of my talents, the Cinema Snob—a strange mental movie from which I quickly snapped back to reality, with a promptness to rapidly take to the keyboard and write this article, which I have delayed doing since I realized Comicbookmovie is a user generated site.
I’m not sure where my paralysis came from, though it probably has something to do with a desire to appease and garner a fan base. I realize my job is not easy given that my press access at the moment does not extend to industries outside the NYC fashion world. And news is what most of the people on this site want. But after having a designer ask me whether I like the fashion industry, and to that sheepishly responding that I like to write, I realize I need to do what I love. And that is writing about what I actively search for obsessively on a daily basis: comic book and comic book movie updates, along with analyses of those slivers of information. I hope to also acquaint you to my own character—SeaSpider—at some point. This is of course taking our relationship too quickly to the next level. For now, I just want to slowly ease myself into this yet to be defined role (though I hope critic and storyteller are a part of it) and hope that you will accept me as a fellow contributor and hopefully guide me to things that you would want to read and that I being in NYC could deliver.
For now, I pose a question that seems to be on the minds of many this summer. Is the shine of comic book movies wearing thin? The performance of the comic book blockbusters—Thor, Green Lantern, X-Men First Class—is out of step with what many in movieland expected from them in ticket sales. Green Lantern, even with its 53 million opening, massively underperformed and, with the second weekend’s precipitous drop, all but sounded the death knell to a potential sequel. X-Men: First Class was outperformed by the movie with Barakapool. And Thor has made much of its money overseas. Is this not a clear indication of fading interest? The short answer, no. The question I posed at the beginning still needs answering, but these examples are not indicators of decline.
Let’s take a brief look into why.
Thor, according to Box Office Mojo, has made $176,410,181 in the U.S. and Canada and $259,103,354 in international markets for a total of $435,513,535 worldwide. The sequel is certainly coming, but the performance shows a large drop from the $318,412,101 the first Iron Man earned domestically. Now granted Thor’s theatrical run has not yet ended, but the receipts in the end will hardly change the fact that even with all the hype of Avengers, Thor was not able to reach the same sized movie base as did the armored warrior.
What surprises me though is not its inability to perform like Iron Man, but its ability to perform as well as it did. Thor is a non-traditional comic book character who is obscure to the mainstream audience (the after credit scene in Iron Man 2 not withstanding) and whose very premise both potentially challenges moviegoers’ religious notions and pushes them away from the firmly rooted realism that has been trending in comic books. When many look to Dark Knight as the greatest comic book movie, it is difficult to go the other way and expect a great crowd behind you. Yet there was a sizable turnout. Partly that’s a product of good reviews, partly a strong marketing campaign by Marvel. The truly amazing thing is that we are at a point in comic book movie history where movies like Thor can be greenlit, and can find success. And with this movie, we have opened up the possibility of setting a movie on other planets, focusing on other races.
Of course, Green Lantern is the counterargument to that. But then again, that movie is actually worse reviewed than Mr. Popper’s Penguin. And from the grainy footage that I watched online—for I shall not fork over money to watch a movie worse than one starring CGI penguins—the direction is lousy: some things need more explanation like why is willpower green and fear yellow? Why is willpower the strongest energy in the universe? Why were the sectors divided into that particular number? Why does only one green lantern patrol each sector? Batman Begins spent an entire movie setting up why Bruce wears the suit. Even Smallville spent a good portion of its last season trying to explain why Clark needs a secret identity. Green Lantern thinks that it could just jump straight in and no one would mind. I minded—and I actually am a comic book fan—what can we expect from the more casual fans? A feeling by them of the silliness that they are watching, that’s what. And that silliness is presented in the first five minutes of the movie! Of course, the delayed marketing campaign and the CGI did not help either. With Dark Knight raising the expectation of quality from comics, moviegoers can’t be blamed for staying away from a movie that registered in the 20s on the Rottentomatoes meter.
And X-Men: First Class? Great Movie done in by its lackluster predecessors. When you’ve watched garbage before, it’s hard to get excited. I don’t doubt that many will discover this gem when it comes out on DVD, or whatever format people are watching things in nowadays. And we will get a sequel in the end.
Looked at in context, none of these films reflect a trend toward declining interest. If the argument is that before people would go see any garbage comicbook movie, I would argue against that. Elektra bombed. Fantastic Four 2 bombed. And those were bad movies. Yet those were made during the early years of this expanding genre. Granted, though, they were made before Dark Knight. Maybe what ended up happening is not that we stopped wanting comic book movies, but that the shine of just seeing comics on screen wore off and we began to clamor for quality. That’s not weariness. That’s common sense.
I look forward to hearing your comments.