Contradicting Popular Opinion
Heroic Limitations (taking the time to contemplate a template)
The comic book has become not so much a source for cinematic material but a genre of film unto itself. We’ve had our Ghost Rider, Spider-man, and Fantastic Four movies already this year. Work on Thor is starting to pick up and next year’s Iron Man is already generating buzz. The Flash is also due out next year despite not having a cast as of yet. People are talking about a fancy pants JLA cartoon. The word on the street is that Spider-man 4 is coming regardless of who is starring in or making it. Of course, we here in Chicago have been watching buildings implode for a little film called Rory’s First Kiss. Even toys are obsessed with this phenomenon.
Currently, the Hulk is looking to have the world’s fastest franchise relaunch, this time with Ed Norton. If that thing works, can we get more of the same for Daredevil? Fuck, film a version of Daredevil: Born Again, and call it that thing to re-enforce the reboot.
It’s never going to happen, mind you, but you can’t blame a Daredevil mark for trying.
It’s never going to happen. It’s never going to happen.
It’s never going to happen, at least not in any form that is good.
But why is this thing, and why am I so sure of it?
Well, it has something to do with the nature of super-hero movies and their limitations. You see, graphic novels (or trade paperbacks as the case may be) only become movies so long as there isn’t a comic book super-hero in there. Movie studios will produce a version of Sin City, but not Kraven’s Last Hunt. They’ll make A History of Violence or Ghost World, but not The Killing Joke or Days of Future Past.
They’ll film a faithful version of 300, but the “Phoenix Saga” becomes the b-storyline in an already crowded movie.
It’s an odd thing isn’t it?
As a rule, comics are serial and that tends to make for a strange world even without mutants and radioactive spider-blood. 45 years pass in the setting of Spider-man from 1962 to 2007, yet he ages maybe ten of those years. In the same timeframe, Reed Richards doesn’t appear to have aged at all, perhaps even getting younger. It’s an odd thing.
But I digress.
For some reason, whenever a super-hero flick makes it to the screen it follows a particular formula. You get the origin of the super-hero and a super-villain in the first act, a series of random fights between the two in the second act, and one long action sequence of a third act in which the fate of the world/New York City/ all human life is at stake. (Sequels, of course, can skip retelling the super-hero’s origin.)
It’s not necessarily a bad formula; it’s just a narrow one. Though the results can be disastrous when applied to non-super-heroey comics: Constantine becomes a bland exorcist, and don’t get me started on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. One can only imagine how this template would destroy concepts like Planetary or Astro City.
If an honest-to-god super-hero movie breaks the template, a lot of folk are going to be confused. People were upset that Superman had nobody to fight in Superman Returns. That’s what super-heroes do in movies: they fight a (fairly) evenly matched super-villain. Perhaps this disappointment could serve as an inoculation to more super-hero flicks that buck the formula. Perhaps we could see a Batman movie in which it is relevant that he is the world’s greatest detective. Perhaps we could see a comic book movie in which our hero fights crimes like those crimes that I see on the news or on my block. I would cheer on Daredevil as he broke up a white slavery ring. Maybe I could see a movie with the Demon Etrigan, or Swamp Thing fighting underwater vampires.
Yeah, I could use some Swamp Thing.
Currently, the actor who played Sabretooth is starring in a remake/sequel/relaunch/red-headed stepchild of Halloween. It got me thinking. If studios aren’t willing to film classic super-hero stories, storylines, mini-series or graphic novels, why not throw super-heroes in rip-offs of classic films?
Now, I’m not suggesting making the Lex Luthor version of Citzen Kane or the Kingpin’s version of The Godfather, but. . . well, hell I’d see either of those.
But seriously, think about it.
Take Yojimbo, for instance. This is a film which is always ripe for the re-making/ re-imagining (e.g. Fistful of Dollars, Miller’s Crossing, the remarkably silly Last Man Standing, etc.) It’s a fairly durable and timeless story. A badass gets in the middle of a gang war, and plays each side off the other for shits and giggles.
It doesn’t take much imagination to rip that off for a Punisher movie or a Wolverine movie. Do it with rival vampire clans and you got Blade 4. If you really wanted to, you could turn Ghost Rider 2 into the anti-Yojimbo, i.e. a badass getting played by both sides of a gang war. Just use the ready-made Garth Ennis perspective of the character, which is: very powerful yet very gullible.
And if this thing works, we can sell them a Kraven film under the pretenses of The Most Dangerous Game.
