Why Comic Book Movies Are Doomed

Why Comic Book Movies Are Doomed

An editorial on why the comic book movie will not be around in its current form forever

Editorial Opinion
By thecomic - Feb 02, 2014 07:02 AM EST
Filed Under: Other
Source: Christopher Hammond

I think that the current numbers of comic book movies are unsustainable, below I give 4 reasons why I think the comic book movie will run out of steam sooner than we may think.

1, Movie tastes are cyclical, Star wars spawned lesser clones, launched cinematic star trek and influenced other franchises such as James Bond. The era of Star Wars spilled into TV with shows like Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica. Before Star Wars there was a time when there were hundreds of westerns released year on year. Film noir, war movies all have held centre stage, and subsequently passed on. Film, like anything, is subject to zeitgeist, in this instance a cultural response to 9/11 in which a civilian population devastated by an attack embrace the idea that one person could make a difference. The comic book movie feeds that ideal, and the comic films themselves embraced this, the Dark Knight trilogy is almost exclusively about Batman vs terrorists, fanatical foreigners who judge Gotham’s way of life and seek to punish its citizens (sound familiar?). Meanwhile Superman’s first act in Superman Returns is to save a stricken plane falling from the sky, it is not analogy, its explicit reference. Zeitgeist, or more crudely fashion has one constant, that it changes.

2, The economic case: The Comic book movie is becoming increasingly common, Marvel release 2 movies a year, Fox are releasing at least one Fantastic Four or X Men film a year and Sony is looking at releasing a Spiderman franchise film a year. DC/WB are releasing their own movies at a slower rate but if predictions are correct then we can expect at least an annual instalment of Batman, Superman, Wonder woman, Flash or Green Lantern or any team ups therein. 2016 could easily see the following line up; X Men Apocalypse, Fantastic 4, Thor 3, Captain America 3, Venom, AMSM 3, Batman vs Superman

On TV we will have Arrow season 4 and Flash season 2, Gotham series 2, Agents of Shield, Peggy Carter Director of Shield, Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones TV series.
This is without considering the likelihood of other comic related films like the Chronicle sequel, Dredd, Spawn, The Incredibles, Hellboy, Constantine etc. That is a lot of comic related product, on average every month you will be able to buy or watch a new CBM and watch 3 new episodes of CBTV.

The conclusion is simply that it is unsustainable for 6 or more comic films to be released in a year without harming each other’s box office and/or dvd sales. Simple economic rules are that price and in most cases demand go up in relation to a product’s scarcity, 6 or more major movies and up to 175 TV episodes starts to make the product disposable, and what happens when an Avengers movie makes less than 1 billion? It is deemed a failure, the studio gets nervous and decisions are made. Again there is precedent for this, After the launch of Star Trek The Next Generation we had 7 seasons of TNG, 7 seasons of DS9, 7 seasons of Voyager and 4 seasons of Enterprise, a whopping 800 episodes of Star Trek! The 20 year old fanbase had been established on 69. The end result of this deluge? Increasingly poor box office for the TNG films, and dwindling ratings for the TV show leading to its cancellation and after years in the wilderness two reboot films that have brought nothing original to the table and divided fans and critics alike, failed to ignite merchandising despite significantly bigger budgets than previous instalments. If Agents of Shield, Peggy Carter, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Gotham City PD, Arrow and Flash all run for 7 seasons, joining the ten seasons of Smallville we’ll have 1700 hours of modern comic book TV, double that of Star Trek at its point of market saturation. Its also worth pointing out at this juncture that this calculation does not include the very good comic book Animations in production as well.

Add to that the inevitable rising expense of actors, Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine a whopping 7 times in 5 x men films and two solo spin offs. He owns the role, in the public mind he simply is Wolverine. What will it cost to put Wolverine in X Men Apocalypse? What will the box office effect be if Jackman is recast or Wolverine is missing? Robert Downey Junior has played Tony Stark 5 times with a contract for a 6th and 7th appearance. Is a fourth Iron man film (but 8th appearance of the character) without Downey Jr such a box office draw? Would a recast Iron man command a lower budget, what happens when one of these risks doesn’t pay off, or when a star simply demands too much? Lucasfilm had plans to re release all 6 star wars films in 3d, the interest in The Phantom Menace derailed these plans. This demonstrates that there is precedent for amajor studio to change or withdraw from its product if the numbers stop adding up. I suggest that the saturation of the market, freely available TV versions of similar stories and increasing costs vs a reduction in garuanteed box office return will, at some point, make the kinds of numbers of comic book movies we see in production economically unviable.

3, The case of quality. The quality of comic book movies is not the highest standard, even hard core comic fans cant agree if the Avengers was delightful or dross, for the general audience a film like Avengers may answer a hidden craving to see multiple heroes on screen at the same time, but when that becomes Avengers 3, justice league 2 will there be an appetite for more of the same? Look at Iron man as an example, the first one was a real feel good ride with great production design, iron man 2 was, to most, a big disappointment and part 3 divided its audience. Imagine a recast Tony Stark in Iron man 6 with a hokey explanation giving us the ‘real’ Mandarin because a new creative team don’t agree with Shane Black’s vision. I suggest that it can’t win, its either too complicated too swallow, or its more of the same, or it bares no relation to its original instalments… leading to yet more division, negative reviews etc. Despite a long history in comics just how many more of Iron Man’s villains can be used, how many are interesting? How many different ways can he defeat them? Despite being a reasonable film the Amazing Spiderman suffered the criticism that it simply regurgitated what had gone before. Again Hobson’s choice for the studio/Webb, either pick up where Raimi left off and be forced to deal with a Spiderman with a steady girlfriend, dead rogues gallery, public acceptance and no arch nemesis, or reboot the franchise and be accused of repetition? The X-men franchise is suffering from the early loss of pivotal characters like Cyclops and Jean Grey, it may be that DOFP is partly an effort to resurrect these characters into the franchise. The Dark Knight Trilogy with its universal high regard and first billion dollar comic book movie take, still had a quality problem… it was divorced, or at least separated on bad terms, from the source material! We have a Batman who deals with terrorist threats and spends 2 out of 3 films trying to give up the cowl so he can have a girlfriend! And whilst the interpretation of the Joker gives us a redefined vision of the character that has translated back into the comics, for that single success (and a reasonable job of two face) we also have Ras al Ghul, Catwoman, Robin and Bane who are equally bastardized versions that don’t satisfy or translate anywhere near as well. They feel like embarrassed token gestures made to service Bat fans who hadn’t realised they turned up to see 24 but with a guy dressed as a Bat instead of Jack Baur. The Dark Knight Trilogy is a story about terrorism and national security with few or none of the crime fighting elements you expect from the character Batman, one wonders why he even turned up at the bank robbery at the start of Dark Knight, perhaps he was outside using the cash point and just popped in to see what the fuss was about?

So, amidst two-film-a-year shared universes the franchises risk repetition, alienating the fans or confusing the general audience. At some point this will translate as reduced ticket sales. There will be a time when simply seeing a curiosity like a live action Thor movie isn’t enough. That’s is if that threshold wasn’t already reached with the blink and you’ll miss it villainy in Thor 2 that interrupted the dicjotemy of an excellent character study of Loki and a series of lamentable trousers down comedy sketches. Helmsworth’s other film of 2013? The excellent Rush. I know which of those two I am buying on Blu Ray. How many times can the Hulk flee the military? How many times can a rival business man try to usurp Stark using his technology against him? How many times can Batman save the city from an unrealistic doomsday device? 2 hour movies do not have the time and/or budget to retell some of comics finest hours, and studio fears prevent the riskier or more personal stories being translated to the screen, e.g. Death in the Family or Demon in a Bottle. At the other end of the scale the big stories like the Death and Return of Superman or The Age of Apocalypse were told over something like 30-50 comics featuring numerous characters, will the movie version of Age of Apocalypse be a 6 film extravaganza with the same depth as the comics, or will it, like Robin Blake or the Trevor Slattery Mandarin turn out to be a pale and largely unsatisfying imitation? What happens when the films stop meeting even the most basic expectations of the audience? Even Superman’s bold 2013 reinvention, with an all star cast and predictable apocalyptic anti terror overtones drew the criticism that it wasn’t enough like the 1979 take on the character. Itself an unsatisfying vision in which Lex Luthor is little more than a used car salesman and Superman’s powers include the most implausible and ill thought demonstration of time travel ever conceived on film, and that includes hot tub time machine. If the quality, or perceived quality falls, then so does the genre.

4, The case of Fandom. I have a fondness for Spiderman, Superman and Batman, I like some X books and my comic collection is wide and varied. I never really considered Marvel and DC to be at war with each other, and still don’t. Moreover however they present as rivals I think their mutual success is essential, feeding a symbiotic relationship between the big two. For example Marvel Now! is a riff on the new 52, itself an expansion of the successful All Star… series, which was of course inspired by the Ultimate universe. Avengers taking a billion dollars can only have acted as a defibrillator on the development issues surrounding the Justice League movie, not utterly defeated it as is suggested in some reader responses to other articles. The worst thing that could happen to the DCCU would be the failure of the MCU. However with so much product on the shelves (see argument 2) fandom is dividing itself, people define themselves as Nolanites or Marvelites in much the same way as fans of Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal hate and vilify each other. And whilst many football rivalries are based on religious division or geography, there is no such cultural imperative for CBM fan division. 20 years ago I would have assumed liking Superman was a good predictor that you would probably like Spiderman and the Hulk, the same assumption now, it seems, would be lunacy. And this rivalry, perceived or real {since most Man of Steel detractors certainly seem to have seen the movie} is generating hatred. This ill feeling is expressed as bad press, hostile fan reactions, twitter threats and anti ‘this film’ or ‘that actor’ facebook pages and twitter trends. At some point this will begin to have a real impact on the genre, film boycotts, pickets, what happens to the public perception of the CBM following the first suicide brought about by an online row about Superman’s costume or the Human Torch’s “racially inappropriate” casting? Maybe that is an exaggeration but whatever the crunch point is, at some point it will happen, and it will change the game. And in turn it will affect box office (see argument 2)

The good news is that between the plans already in place, current CBM popularity and ever cheaper CGI there are probably a few years left of this current fashion. The coming of Star Wars may well lead to resuscitation of the space action adventure genre and one Star Wars film a year will by definition feel more special than the 6th or 7th CBM. Like comics themselves it may be that future CBMs become less obsessed with continuity and shared universe and that a Ben Affleck version of Killing Joke in 2017 may be followed in 2018 with a version of The Dark Knight Returns starring Clint Eastwood. We may see Disney and/or Pixar producing lower cost Marvel CGI movies where, free of contracts and licensing issues, and aging actors, every Marvel Character can star in the Infinity Gauntlet or the Secret Wars. This would give fans the comic faithful intimate or blockbuster stories they are looking to see realised on the big screen, The DC Batman Animated Series was superb, as are the continued DC animations. These approaches would give the studios and creative talent the freedom to chop and change without upsetting the needs of a cultivated shared universe. The current trend of quickly produced generic CBMs may be heading to an inevitable decline, but fortunately the aftermath may be significantly more satisfying.

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Brainiac13
Brainiac13 - 2/2/2014, 8:24 AM
You need to break it up and put pictures in......then maybe someone will read it.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/2/2014, 8:30 AM
First editorial, was more focused on content and logic than pictures, especially given warnings about copyrighted content? Bottom line is if the audience need pictures to draw them in, then I'm probably not the writer for them. Thanks for your comment.
sikwon
sikwon - 2/2/2014, 8:56 AM
Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond are all older then me, yet have been a viewing presence on t.v or in the movies for my entire life. Superman, Swamp Thing (great, cheesy movie!), Batman, Wonder Woman, Howard the Duck, the Incredible Hulk, Super Friends, Spider Man and friends, Conan the Barbarian... all of these are from when I was a kid or just before I was born and minus a few (Howard the Duck, Swamp Thing) they ALL still have some sort of present day relevance on t.v or in the movies. Comics have proven to be incredibly resiliant as film/tv properties despite some terrible movies. The Shadow was terrible for example yet every time we think comic movies are dead one comes along and makes 800 million dollars... like Batman with Jack as the Joker, and Hollywood gains confidence in them again. The longevity of cbm's is evident, when they are good people flock to the theaters. Star Wars and Star Trek prove that properties are sustainable for years provided they are GOOD movies (Bat nipples are bad) and entertaining stories. Is the sheer number of movies that are coming out sustainable? Not if the movies suck. What I mean is.. if DoFP isnt good then people wont see it but that wont stop them from seeing BvsS or Age of Ultron. People have zero problem supporting a property, a story, for years provided its good, fresh and well told. 007, Star Trek, SW all prove that out. The question isnt will people get bored with these movies, the question is can studios maintain a high level of quality story telling? Because after the buildings are all blown up, at the end of the day its the characters and the story thaf keeps people coming back.
sikwon
sikwon - 2/2/2014, 8:59 AM
Ya, my last sentence was a dig at MoS (which I really really liked). And I think casting Super Nerd as Lex was a brilliant idea on WB's part. That, more then anything, gives me confidence that they actually have a plan for their movies.
GoldSlayer1
GoldSlayer1 - 2/2/2014, 10:36 AM
@Sikwon
i agree with the freshness part and the repetitiveness (which the OP stated)

for example one thing i didn't like about old superman movies was that Luthor was mainly the villain.

and TBH when it comes to superman, Luthor IMO isn't a good enough villain to make me spend $10+ at the theater. I understand he's one of superman's most iconic villain, but why go with lex as the main villain when there have been a lot of stories and different enemies for superman that we haven't seen yet?
Brainiac, Doomsday, Mongul and War world, Darkseid (albeit, this character is probably better off in a JL league movie)

Repetitiveness and lack of "exploration" or "taking the right risks" is whats lacking with DC movies.

Take green Lantern for example, they took a risk, but it was a bad risk.
they decided to make the main villain a F***ing cloud.
and if i recall correctly, the last CBM (Fantastic Four 2) that had a cloud be the main villain sucked ass and flopped in the box office.

With the $225 million budget they had, surely they could have paid for a better script and character design? i mean those CGI GL uniforms were unnecessary and awful.
GoldSlayer1
GoldSlayer1 - 2/2/2014, 10:39 AM
I also can see why things can sometime seem the same.

This is a problem when you have one company (marvel) Copying off the other (DC) for material.

now you have 2 companies with characters that are pretty much the same (I.e Deadpool being a copy of Deathstroke)
BenjiWest
BenjiWest - 2/2/2014, 10:45 AM
Good use of "whilst".

1) CBM can be rather adaptable, and they can blend well with multiple genres. Maybe GotG will be responsible for the resurgence of space films, rather than Star Wars.

Its possible.
GoldSlayer1
GoldSlayer1 - 2/2/2014, 10:48 AM
@Benjiwest
GL could be the resurgence of the space film genre if they did him right.
GoldSlayer1
GoldSlayer1 - 2/2/2014, 11:04 AM
@Cerebro
idk about 24 since i never watched it, but i completely hated how they basically made batman fail at so many things.
BenjiWest
BenjiWest - 2/2/2014, 11:06 AM
@GoldSlayer - agree 100%. But there's no way it will be out before Star Wars. I don't think GotG will revive it, just saying that they have a chance since Star Wars moved to December.
Wolf38
Wolf38 - 2/2/2014, 11:45 AM
(Just a note: some of those paragraphs were very long.)

I think that it's hard to say. The biggest obstacle to these films being made in the past was *in my opinion* not so much lack of interest as lack of technology to make them, either at all or without being prohibitively expensive. If technology continues to evolve and CBMs become increasingly cheaper to make, then studios will probably continue to make them. If there are profits to be made.

One thing, though, is that a decade from now, most every major and many minor characters will have been onscreen, finally. Sure, there are always more stories to tell, but the novelty factor will have worn off. I wonder if that will contribute to a decrease in annual CBM film/TV.
sikwon
sikwon - 2/2/2014, 1:51 PM
On Lex as the MoS villain going forward.... My hope is that they develop Lex over several movies. Just really have him grow into his evilness. I would love to see the potential of him being the worst person in the world hinted at early on, developed in a 2nd movie and then finally after a few years have him step out of the shadows and just drop the full on hammer. I think he is a character that if done well can be subtle and nuanced in his scheemes, just fooling everyone. That would be fantastic, years of planning, manipulation and just setting up the board. I for one am very hopeful for Lex.
tonytony
tonytony - 2/2/2014, 1:52 PM
Good effort. But you are flawed in your thinking, the simple truth is that good comic book movies will continue making money. The thing is the more money they make the more studios will want to get on the band wagon, this might lead to some failures but that will be caused by the content not any wider socio-economic changes.
Pedrito
Pedrito - 2/2/2014, 10:50 PM
CBMs have dominated the summer blockbuster box office since May 2000.
This is not a fad. They'll stop only when they run out of good stories to tell.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/3/2014, 11:10 AM
I think my point, which I admit haven’t made brilliantly is in the end the decline of the mass produced comic book movie, may well give way to a new era where we have fewer, but better made, comic book films, if you will permit the movie/film distinction. In comic book films creative teams can explore key stories like The Killing Joke without the weight of a ‘franchise’ or ‘shared universe’ and/or create spectacular multipart animated stories that would be too expensive to produce on film e.g. Age of Apocalypse.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/3/2014, 11:11 AM
@Sikwon – I agree about the endurance of Bond, Star Wars and Trek, however in terms of numbers we are talking about 6 star wars movies (8 if you count the ewok movies), 12 star trek and 24 Bond, that is 44 films since the early 60’s 2014-1962 = 42 years, on average one film from all three franchises per year, as I said the current rate of CBMs is 6/7 per year and growing. I do wonder (not state categorically) if this will lead to market saturation?

The next response to your examples is that each change in Bond lead to a change in continuity and feel. Because of the current movement towards intra film continuity the opportunity to refresh, revisit and rebrand is lost. My point being that given Daniel Craig Bond has no continuity with Sean Connery Bond, a Daniel Craig version of Goldfinger would be fine. However this freedom is not there in a shared universe and by Iron Man’s 8th or 9th appearance his character will start to weaken, already his cocky playboy image hardly fits now! He’s had a steady girlfriend since his first appearance, the arc reactor has been removed, he’s destroyed his suits, if I were writing or playing Iron man in a 4th solo film I have lost a heck of a lot of his trappings to play with. At some point (now) Iron Man will become constrained by continuity and, to return to the Bond example, it would be like looking at that franchise and saying that Bond’s marriage in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service had not ended and that he had stopped working for the British government in Licence to Kill, at some point 5, 10 films later your happily married ex secret agent, which in turn simply stops being the character James Bond. Your only way out of a writing black hole is to conceive of increasingly complicated rationale for him sleeping around guilt free, returning to service and/or the resurrection of defeated foes, at which point you lose credibility, quality and audience interest.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/3/2014, 11:12 AM
@Goldslayer I haven’t seen GL or either FF – I didn’t boycott them specifically but I’ve never been bothered to watch either, especially in light of bad reviews. Which I guess is my point without realising and despite being a fan of comics I haven’t watched every CBM.

@benjiwest Whilst I know very little about GOTG, I take your point. I may be wrong but I suppose the distinction one might argue is that GOTG is a CBM but not a superhero property, in much the same way The Walking Dead is CBTV but also not a superhero property.

@Cerebro Thanks!

@Wolf38 Totally agree about the novelty factor.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/3/2014, 11:12 AM
@tonytony my thinking is not flawed it is the journey not the end result. Looking at the propositions I present, I am not necessarily convinced by all of them myself, but they are worth consideration, even if only to dismiss them. However with all of the arguments taken into account I am pretty convinced that at some point Avengers films, tied into shared universe continuity, will not make a billion dollars, whether that is at Avengers 3, 5 or 10 is the unknown element.
thecomic
thecomic - 2/3/2014, 11:13 AM
@pedrito I think you are making my point for me, was Thor 2 really a ‘good’ story or a rushed 3rd Thor appearance in 3 years. I think it had good moments and was pretty enjoyable but really Melekeith was a very underdeveloped villain in a generic end of the city/world/universe story that actually conveyed very little peril. If your point is that good stories are necessary for the CBM to continue I agree with you, I think that is the thrust of my whole article. If your point is that all CBMs since 2000 have been “good stories”, and continue to be “good stories” than I wholeheartedly disagree, my opinion is that Marvel Studios haven’t bettered their first effort, Iron Man and that their latest film Thor 2, whilst entertaining, was categorically not a “good story”.

Have you considered that maybe Marvel know Thor has a limited shelf life and have rushed out 3 in 3 years precisely because Thor cant be a trusted franchise long term?

Lastly hand drawn animation seemed an immovable part of cinema for the best part of 100 years, no one would have described it as a fad, except now it is a virtually extinct form. In ten years will we be looking at 6 or more big budget summer blockbusters per year based on superhero comics? my suspicion is ‘No’, time will tell.
johnblake
johnblake - 2/3/2014, 4:51 PM
But goku is stronger than superman
HouseSnow
HouseSnow - 2/3/2014, 6:24 PM
LOL
PeterDarker121
PeterDarker121 - 2/3/2014, 10:52 PM
"And whilst many football rivalries are based on religious division or geography, there is no such cultural imperative for CBM fan division. 20 years ago I would have assumed liking Superman was a good predictor that you would probably like Spiderman and the Hulk, the same assumption now, it seems, would be lunacy."

Just ONE excellent point in what for me was the best in-depth editorial I've read this year. I'll have to re-read it at a later time to discuss specific points you raised, but generally speaking, a smart, thoughtful article about a subject I'm in total agreement about. Well done, dude.
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