The Screengrab

Adaptations of Marvel Comics have been doing great business at the box office for almost ten years now, from X-Men to Spider-Man to Iron Man.  And, just like in the comics, when one creative team doesn't find an audience, the big bosses at Marvel Films have been more than willing to try again with new writers, directors, and stars; Fantastic Four wasn't a critical success, but it made enough money to spawn a sequel; Ang Lee's Hulk was an ambitious letdown, but Marvel handed the property over to Edward Norton for a second chance; and The Punisher is being given another go-round despite two dismal adaptations so far.  The one Marvel superhero franchise that hasn't been talked up for a reboot so far has been Daredevil (and its even worse spin-off, Elektra).  That's probably because the original -- helmed by a hapless Mark Steven Johnson and starring an out-of-it Ben Affleck -- was such a piece of junk that no one wanted a second try at it.

That may be about to change.  20th Century Fox's co-chair, Tim Rothman, insists that the studio will be pairing with Marvel Films to produce another installment of the adventures of everyone's favorite blind lawyer/costumed vigilante; he's just not saying when.  Or who.  Or where, how, or perhaps most importantly, why.  In a cagey interview with IESB, Rothman says the deed will get done, but fails to name names, and cites a curious precedent:  "I think that the thing The Hulk showed...is that it is possible, that if you really do it right the audience will give you a second chance."  Exactly what was done right about Norton's Hulk reboot and exactly who gave it a second chance is unclear:  the movie was tepidly reviewed, and made almost exactly as much money as Ang Lee's famouse 'failure'.  But hey, the spirit is willing even if the facts are weak.

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In recent years, as “sequel” and “remake” have become dirty words in the minds of moviegoers, Hollywood studios have scrambled to come up with new, less offensive alternatives. How many blockbusters based on previously-adapted properties have been tagged with descriptions like “re-invention”? Yet even by these standards, the efforts made by Universal and Marvel Studios to distance their new, more “crowd-pleasing” version of The Incredible Hulk (“You’re going to like him when he’s angry!”) from Ang Lee’s 2003 film Hulk have been particularly aggressive. And for good reason, as Lee’s take on the classic comic left most viewers disappointed or even pissed off. Does Hulk deserve its reputation? Not really. But just because it’s not that bad doesn’t mean it’s all that good either.

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Recently, our own Phil Nugent took a look at the debut of Marvel Studios, the big-screen production arm of the comics company behind Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four.  While Marvel's been taking a critical beating lately with its flagship comics, losing retail ground to longtime rival DC, the opposite has been the case in the multiplex:  Marvel's aggressive approach and multifaceted marketing has proven to be a success at the box office, and as a rule, Marvel's properties have outperformed DC's and brought in piles of cash for the company.   

One of the reasons that Marvel became such a hit amongst comics fans in the 1960s was its 'multiverse' approach; unlike DC, which at the time told all their stories in a disconnected, separate manner, Marvel ran with the pretense that all their stories were taking place in the same world, at the same time, and pushed the idea that any one of their characters could show up in any of their titles.  Fans took to the idea that all the stories were connected, that all the pieces mattered, and that what happened in one book made a difference in other books.  The idea that the world of the Marvel Universe was unified and that the storytellers were actually creating pieces of a whole was so appealing that DC was forced to adopt it as an editorial policy for their own characters.  

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A long time ago when the world made sense, there were two kinds of comic books: DC comics and Marvel comics. And while Marvel reigned supreme at the comics shop, the company dearly wanted to break into the lucrative and ego-stroking business of licensing it characters for major motion pictures, and it was there that DC pantsed Marvel and took its lunch money. While DC was the home of Superman and Batman, Marvel was the home base of Howard the Duck. For years, Marvel's role in the Hollywood fod chain was epitomized by the 1994 Fantastic Four movie, a cheesy, cheap-looking affair that Marvel put into production without bothering to inform the people who worked on it that they had no intention of releasing it to theaters or even home video but were contractually obliged to make something if they wanted to hang onto the film rights to their own characters. All that started to change in 2000 with Bryan Singer's X-Men, whose success the director was unable to duplicate with his later stab at rebooting Superman. A couple of years later, Sam Raimi's take on the Marvel flagship hero Spider-Man launched a major franchise and proved that Marvel could sire a blockbuster movie without Singer or Hugh Jackman modeling a haircut that could open bottles and cans.

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The Screengrab’s very own Leonard Pierce wasn’t joking in his post earlier today. We are going to drown you in comic book movie related news and you are going to like it! It’s true that nigh on every superhero that’s seen print in the past seventy years has been optioned by a studio. While the solo heroes are all tied up though, Hollywood has been slow to approach the legal quagmire of producing adaptations of one of comics’ most celebrated traditions: the team-up. No, X-Men and Fantastic Four don’t count. They’re individual properties in their own right.

In the past six months, it’s been looking like Warner Bros. was set to make the first big budget superhero team-up with a George Miller (Babe, Happy Feet, Mad Max) helmed Justice League adaptation. But, according to Entertainment Weekly via AICN, today is the day that determines whether or not the flick happens. An anonymous source indicated that January 15th is the greenlight deadline for Miller’s Justice League and while the WB is pushing to have it in theaters within eighteen months, Miller is still pushing for a re-write. It’s not clear whether or not Warner Bros will bring in another director or if they’ll allow Miller to pursue a non-WGA approved rewrite.

I’m right there with Mr. Pierce in the belief that the most promising comic book material for screen adaptation waits in indie comics. That said though, if the popcorn superhero movie is going to continue to be profitable and entertaining, it has to evolve beyond the origin story-good sequel-bad sequel franchise mold that’s been established in the past decade. Team-ups are a smart way to do this provided they are, unlike most comic book movies (*cough* Ghost Rider), well made. Get someone like Steven Soderbergh, who’s proven just how successful and entertaining an ensemble of colorful characters can be, to make an Avengers movie and then we’ll be getting somewhere.