I want to begin Super Hero month recap with the following quote (as seen during the credits for Into the Spider-Verse):
Tag: super heroes
The Monthly Movie Theme for June is Super Hero Movies. I chose June for super heroes because it always seems like a new Marvel movie is released in June. However, I won’t limit the movie selections to just Marvel movies. In fact this year I focused on DC super heroes, specifically Batman. The inspiration to choose Batman movies comes from having watched The Batman earlier this year.
If you saw my Top 5 post a while back then you know that I would not have watched all of the movies. I just picked the movies that I think have the best portrayals of Batman, which are:
- Batman
- Batman Returns
- Batman Begins
- The Dark Knight
- The Dark Knight Rises
- The Batman
A New Top 5?
If you are familiar with all of the Batman movies then you may notice that the only movies I watched have Michael Keaton and Christian Bale. As I mentioned in my Top 5, they are my top two favorite Batman actors.
Since The Batman was my inspiration for the selection this month, I watched it again. I may go so far as to update my Top 5 Batman portrayals because I’m fairly satisfied with Robert Pattinson’s touch. I may not really care for his Bruce Wayne but the movie is called “Batman”, not “Bruce Wayne”. “BatDad” may be ousted from the list and Will Arnett may be moved down a spot.
There are not Special Event Movies for the month of June, at least according to my Geek Calendar. Although, we did celebrate the death of Internet Explorer, which was decommissioned last month. Perhaps that should be the day I watch Antitrust.
/cheers
I have talked in the past about how much I’m enjoying the continuity of the Marvel movies and TV series, its been an unprecedented achievement in live-action content. A good friend of mine recently went on a mini-tirade about how Fox has ruined the X-Men franchise (too bad Marvel Studios can’t get the rights). He grew up a long time, hard core, comic book fan. The monetization of live-action content has a tendency to do that and Twentieth Century Fox is most notorious for taking certain liberties in their film adaptations. Granted I haven’t read a comic book in about 20 years but X-Men is a series I grew up on.
I know I’m in the minority when I say that I have actually enjoyed all the X-Men and Wolverine movies. I felt everyone was cast really well. I liked the first Fantastic Four movies (while the latest one is deplorable). I’m going to boldly state that I also enjoyed Ryan Reynolds in the Green Lantern movie (I know it wasn’t the greatest telling of Hal Jordan but I personally felt it was acceptable). I haven’t seen Ant-Man yet but I’ve heard the overall ratings are generally pretty good.
I think the most difficult conundrum producers and directors face when they are adapting a film that has a huge fan base is making a movie that appeals not only to the fans but to the general public as well. They have to draw in enough of a crowd to meet the ROI of making the film and, statistically, the number of fans in the subculture is not going to bring in enough money at the box office. Remember, in the end making movies is a business and to succeed in business you must be profitable. Now, with that said, you have to do better than the recent iteration of Fantastic Four which will cost Fox money instead. Although Fox could be on the road to redemption if the Deadpool movie is as good as it looks in the trailer.
I think we might be nearing the end of the super hero paradigm. The success of X-Men, Avengers, Iron Man, etc has gone to the head of every movie studio executive and we are now a bit overwhelmed with super hero movies. Just like bad film adaptations, the monetization of a subculture can go too far and will ultimately burn everyone out.
/cheers
I could get so much more accomplished if I only had minions!First it was Vampires – post-Buffy vampires. Television networks and production studios became obsessed with vampires (thanks to Stephenie Meyer). Vampires are cool, except for the kind that sparkle *shudder*. Then “The Walking Dead”, “World War Z”, “Day Z”, etc; i.e. zombies! Zombies are much more interesting than vampires (except for iZombie, that show didn’t make sense, from a zombie canon perspective).
During the obsession with the undead Marvel was producing comic-movie-after-comic-movie, culminating in the first Avengers movie and Captain America: The First Avenger. Then the dam burst and the flood waters of Marvel super heroes started spilling forth not only more movies, but TV series as well. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Daredevil and I believe there are more to come. I know DC has been trying to do the same thing with Gotham, Flash, Arrow, etc, but the Marvel shows have been doing something quite unique. All the shows and movies are linked. Events that happen in a movie will somehow directly or indirectly tie back into one of the shows (and vice-versa). This is something even Star Trek couldn’t keep consistent with all the TV series and movies.
I think its actually quite clever and brilliant marketing. I watched Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. just before Avengers: Age of Ultron came out and I immediately wanted to see the movie after that episode. The other thing the writers of the show do quite well is not to spoil the movies in the episodes that follow the movie’s release. I have yet to see The Dark World, and I know there have been references to the movie in an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but they didn’t say anything that gave anything away.
I know I’m probably the biased fanboy, and now all the Twi-hards get an opportunity to roll their eyes, but I really love the new comic content. Granted a few movies have been a little less than stellar (ex: the first Hulk movie), but I’ve been enjoying all of the TV series. Keep up the good work!
I could get so much more accomplished if I only had minions!