Marvel Studios' Black Widow - Official Teaser Trailer

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by marmalade166, Dec 3, 2019.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    I disagree with that. Yes, there were superhero movies before Batman 1989 and Superman 1978 was one of them. But Superman didn’t begin a superhero/comic book craze. That void was currently filled by Star Wars clones. The aftermath of Batman though immediately gave us a host of big budget comic book movies and TV shows getting green lit: Dick Tracy, Rocketeer, The Flash, Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, The Shadow, Spawn, etc. There was a consistent stream of the genre hitting theatres for the next 20 years until Iron Man really put it into hyperdrive. That all began with Batman.
     
    Chrome_Head and BeatleJWOL like this.
  2. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    No, I think Maggie's right. She's saying Superman was the template for modern superhero films. The Batman model, the one that is darker, heavier on art direction than story, casts stars in the leads rather than unknowns, and is directed by someone who claims they were not a comic book fan, was followed in the '90s. But those were lesser known superheroes, and didn't produce big hit movies.

    X-Men in 2000 was a bit of a hybrid of the Batman and Superman model (and was produced by the Donners), but definitely started moving back to the 1978 Superman model, by casting unknowns in the leads and paying more attention to the comic book lore. But Spider-Man in 2002 was the turning point. It's still one of the most successful superhero movies ever, and was a complete return to the 1978 Donner model. It cast relative unknowns in the leads, it was made by someone who proclaimed himself a lifelong fan of the comic books, it didn't feel the need to make the material darker, and it didn't overwhelm its story with flashy art direction. Spider-Man is what inspired the comic book movie boom of the 2000s, and it followed the filmmaking tradition of the 1978 Superman as much as any other superhero movie ever did, right down to retaining the nerdy alter ego of the hero (which arguably had been more of a Peter Parker thing than a Clark Kent thing anyway, although even Peter had evolved out of it by the 1970s).

    What's interesting too is that many superheroes on TV in the 1970s pre-dated Superman: The Movie. Wonder Woman, Hulk, Shazam and even the short-lived Spider-Man TV-series all aired before Superman came out. These of course followed on from the Batman TV series (and were maybe more directly inspired by the success of the early '70s Six-Million-Dollar Man), but they moved in the direction of more realistic, less campy writing just as Superman: The Movie did. Superman: The Movie had been in pre-production and its script had been finished before these DC/Marvel shows started, but I don't know if that had an effect on them getting produced. Certainly it was common then to try and beat your rivals to the punch by rushing out cheaper versions of what they were doing.

    It's a good question why Superman didn't lead to a lot of copycat superhero movies at the cinema. Part of it is that the biggest superheroes of the time had already recently been done on TV. And more were done on TV as a reaction to Superman, including specials for Captain America and the Justice League-like Legends of the Superheroes, which actually brought back Adam West and Burt Ward and teamed them with other DC heroes like Green Lantern and Hawkman. And soon the much more well-known original series Greatest American Hero debuted, that successfully aped the Adam West model of campy superhero comedy into the 1980s.

    Spider-Man is less than 20 years old at this time and failed as a TV series. It took years before Hollywood understood the popularity of that character. And of course Spidey's popularity was still growing. Hollywood was also deeply confused back then at the difference between a comic book, a comic strip and a cartoon (hence why Superman 3 opened with a comedic, slapstick sequence that resembled Mr. Magoo). The production of Popeye and Annie were likely inspired by Superman, because of Hollywood conflating these three different artforms. DC hero Swamp Thing got produced as a way of capitalizing on both the superhero and horror booms. Flash Gordon similarly was a hybrid reaction to both Superman and Star Wars, but still could not escape the camp comedy element so firmly established by Adam West's Batman. Pulp heroes and superhero antecedents Lone Ranger and Zorro were also resurrected as films soon after Superman, with, you guessed it, camp comedy added in.

    Richard Donner did claim he was "offered every comic book under the sun" after Superman, but turned them down, thinking he could never pull off his success twice. Certainly, special effects challenges might've stopped some potential superhero films from being made. Superman was a runaway production with an out-of-control budget that Hollywood wouldn't have been eager to repeat with a lesser known character. It was much easier to rip off Halloween and Porky's with cheapies. The petering out in popularity of the Superman sequels certainly didn't help matters as the '80s went on. Batman was actually turned down as a movie by Universal soon after Superman's release, and was being worked on for a while even before Warner Brothers signed on in 1980. The project was in development hell for a long time, with a massive creative struggle for whether it should be a campy comedy or a more serious movie. The dark Batman graphic novels of the mid-80s finally turned the tide on that war.

    There's no doubt that the specter of the 1960s Batman series continued to loom large over every potential and actual superhero production after Superman: The Movie. If not for Donner, that's how Superman: The Movie would've been made as well. Arguably the Batman show created such a lasting imprint that even the success of Superman wasn't enough to change that perception in Hollywood. Even the critics were much less accepting of the more serious scenes in Superman than the more comedic scenes. Donner was really ahead of his time, in that many people perceived the more solemn first half of the movie as being overly serious for material based on a comic book. The conflating of "comic" with "comedy" was almost hard-wired in the minds of the adults of the day. That's one reason his template wasn't truly embraced by most superhero film directors until people like Sam Raimi, Chris Nolan and Bryan Singer, who actually saw his movie as kids or teens, grew up and became directors themselves. As young people, their minds were open to letting Superman: The Movie define their idea of what a superhero movie should be.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2021
    BeatleJWOL, GregM and Maggie like this.
  3. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    But...those were all flops!

    Anyway, what I said was that Superman was the formal template for superhero films, i.e. that they tend to take their story structures and tone from it (and Superman 2). There's no doubt that a real glut of comic things started in the '90s, mainly due to Batman's merchandising success, not necessarily its content. And very few of those '90s projects were successful.

    If we're talking about what kicked off the 21st century craze, I tend to agree with the mainstream opinion that it was X-Men and especially Spider-Man. That was all underway well before Iron Man and the Dark Knight.

    Edit:
    @JediJones articulates all this very well. And his point about Superman spawning comic strip movies like Popeye is very well taken. So, for that matter, is his point about the budget challenges posed by comic stories in the '80s -- the first two Superman movies were massive money sinks in addition to big hits.
     
    BeatleJWOL and JediJones like this.
  4. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    A couple things. Right now the market forces aren't real, but imposed on the public by the policies and fears surrounding the pandemic. As those policies, restrictions and fears evaporate, we will see the real market forces command consumer behavior and revenues. I think the demand for movie theater tickets will return to normal. Streaming revenues will be on top of that. Black Widow was released at a good time to prove that theory. I believe it was held for release to capitalize on it, just as the new 007 film is being delayed for the same reason. Studios have market analysts who have this sort of prediction down to a science and don't leave much to chance on these kinds of things.

    I think there are arguments to be made pro and con regarding the transparency in streaming numbers. As long as there is protection of consumer data, it's fine to share the data. But I am leery of tech companies and studios having too much consumer information about what people watch in the privacy of their homes. Sadly, that ship has already sailed. If it was just a matter of sharing streaming revenues, that's no problem. But there is a lot of consumer data behind that.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2021
  5. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Yup. 1989's "Batman" did spawn a bunch of comic book movies, but they didn't turn into big hits.

    "Dick Tracy" really worked from the "Batman" template, but while I don't agree it flopped - Wiki claims $162 million WW on a $46 million budget - it was far from the massive hit the studio expected.

    10th place at the US box office is precisely 9 spots lower than the studio figured it'd be.

    1990 did have one big hit comic book movie, though: "TMNT"! :)

    Anyway, outside of "TMNT" and the Batman sequels, the only movies adapted from comics that did really well in the 90s came from lesser-known indie properties like "Men in Black" and "The Mask" - and these weren't superhero movies.

    "Blade" did reasonably well in 1998 and some like to pin the start of the "comic book movie era" to there, but I don't agree. It was a relative hit but not something that made a dent with the pop culture consciousness.

    I agree that 2000's "X-Men" really kicked off the "comic book movie era", and 2002's "Spider-Man" was what sent the genre into overdrive.

    That said, 2008 still feels like the year where superhero movies really took charge of the box office.

    Between 2000 and 2007, if you eliminate X-Men and Spidey movies, only 2005's "Batman Begins" acts as a hit in this genre. 2003's "Hulk" was a major financial disappointment, and stuff like 2005's "Fantastic Four" did okay but didn't imply the genre's eventual dominance.

    2006's "Superman Returns" also sold a good number of tickets but I think it was another financial disappointment and not a movie that helped the genre. If it'd gotten a better reception, there would've been a sequel, but instead, Supes stayed on the sidelines until his 2013 reboot.

    So I think Spidey and X-Men got the ball rolling, but not until "Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" did superhero movies really start to turn heads - and even then, I don't think the MCU established dominance until 2012.

    "Iron Man 2" was a hit in 2010, though not as big as the first film.

    2011's "Thor" and "Captain America" did fine, but not close to what we view as "MCU numbers". Neither even cracked $200 million in the US.

    2012's "Avengers" made the MCU the Big Thing it remains.
     
    Simon A likes this.
  6. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    The studios have major ulterior motives to extend the "pandemic panic" and keep people watching at home for longer, since they get all the revenue and also sign up more subscribers. And looking anecdotally online, YouTube comments and such, you can find people saying they watched it at their friend's house or something, but if the choice wasn't available they would have gone to the theaters. So this "discounted" option is being used by some people just for the cost savings, not because they're motivated by COVID-19.

    There's no reason the streaming services couldn't store only the views for the movie, divorced from any consumer data. I'm sure of course they also want to see consumer data to study consumer habits, to see what else the people who watch Black Widow are watching, for their own purposes and to recommend other programs to those viewers like Amazon recommends products. I'm not sure if Disney+ or Netflix have any "opt out" options to avoid that kind of tracking. Ultimately, if you're choosing to deal with a company, you always have the option to not do business with them. And whatever you don't want tracked, you don't have to do. It's different from the government tracking your activity where you have no ability to opt out. My belief is that the streaming services should report on viewership, so we have numbers as accurate as we do for box office figures. There's a lot of cultural and historical relevance there.

    Nielsen does some kind of viewer measurements on 4 of the services, only when TVs are used to view the programs. I'm not sure how fast they report on numbers, or how accurate they are. Interestingly, for 2020, 8 of the top 10 views movies were cartoons. It suggests that streaming viewing bears more resemblance to home video viewing, where Disney used to rack up huge sales on their animated movies, than to theatrical viewing, where live-action special effects movies tend to be the king. Disney beat out Netflix in movie viewing last year, but Netflix absolutely crushed them in TV series viewing, with only one Disney+ TV series showing up in the top ten for acquired or original series.

    'The Office' by Far the Most-Streamed TV Show in 2020: Nielsen - Variety

    Interestingly, Dick Tracy completely wrapped principal photography before Batman was released. The Batman trailer had come out before filming started though, in Christmas 1988, so it's possible Dick Tracy was influenced by that. Or that tweaks were made in reshoots or effects.

    I've also always been baffled how 1988's The Naked Gun seems to have a parody of the chemical factory shootout in Batman where Joker falls into the vat of acid. With Batman being in development for so long before being made, maybe every studio had access to the script and inside knowledge of the production?
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2021
  7. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    These movies hit the pirate channels five minutes after they're loaded to legitimate streaming outlets. And not flea market bootleg quality, either, with full resolution and alternate sound options.

    Generally speaking, that doesn't happen with theatrical-only releases until the Blu-ray hits.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2021
  8. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I've definitely seen people admit to watching the bootleg versions. Who knows how many aren't admitting it openly?

    Before the MCU, only the big-name heroes made the big bucks at the box office. Other than those certain obscure comics like Men in Black where people didn't even know they were a comic book. The MCU's greatest success was in wrapping an overall brand name around their movies, so that audiences would even flock to obscure heroes like Guardians of the Galaxy. Again, all they did was copy what Marvel the comics company did. If they wanted to boost sales on a comic, they'd stick a big name hero in as a guest star. That was also frequently done when debuting a new series. And both DC and Marvel would often team up a bunch of different popular heroes into one series. Marvel Comics also invented the company-wide crossover, where all the heroes would appear in one limited series to battle a certain villain. The MCU makes a little more use of the technique of introducing a new hero in another hero's movie as a preview before their own movie comes out. Marvel did it a little differently, in that they would constantly be introducing new characters in all of their titles, but would wait to get feedback on who was popular before greenlighting them in their own series.

    At the same time, you can't wave away the successes of the numerous Spider-Man and X-Men movies in the 2000s. It coincides with an expansion of the foreign box office, as by the time of Spider-Man 3 it was racking up huge foreign grosses. The MCU was really started as a reaction to the huge successes of X-Men and Spider-Man. Marvel wanted to stop letting other studios take all that money, so they adapted all the characters they owned themselves. They've stayed greedy in some ways, as there would be clear demand for another solo Hulk movie, but Universal by contract gets to take profit from any solo Hulk movie. Hence after the MCU established itself, Hulk is only used in team-up movies.
     
  9. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I didn't wave away anything. I said that X-Men and Spidey set the table.

    I just don't think the superhero genre really became the Big Honkin' Deal it is now until 2012! :shrug:
     
  10. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    I will not, under any circumstances, pay $30 to watch a new release movie at home, especially if it's on a subscription service I'm already paying for.

    The only circumstance I would, would be if at the end of the deal I get a free copy of the Blu Ray when it was released. Otherwise I feel this price is far too high.

    $9.99 tops. Comparing $30 to the cost of going to a movie theatre doesn't sway this viewer, it's not apples to apples.
     
  11. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    They’re assuming that you are going to be watching the film with others and in that situation $30 would be fairly reasonable. If you’re watching alone then a trip to the theater is definitely the right move. I took my two kids to a matinee at a theater that has lowered their prices due to the pandemic and our tickets added up to about $19.50. So even with three of us we still saved money (on tickets… snacks still cost us another $25 but that was optional and we wanted to help the cinema stay in business).
     
    JediJones likes this.
  12. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    Maybe you’re right in a way, but personally I see something like Robocop as setting more of the tone and structure of modern day comic book movies than the Superman movies. Whether or not a movie is a success or not is neither here nor there where intent is concerned, and studios have seen comics as a potential goldmine ever since Batman 1989 became a huge hit. There really wasn’t a run of comic book adaptations between Superman and Batman, but there has been a steady stream of movies for the last 31 years that Batman began. If anything, I see Superman more as a culmination of the popularity of superheroes on the small screen: Wonder Woman, Incredible Hulk, Shazam, Captain America and the like rather than creating something “new”.
     
  13. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Interesting discussion about how the genre originated. I think it's also interesting how DC vs Marvel shaped up. DC was a victim of its initial success with the Dark Knight trilogy taking a more somber, realistic, humorless take on Bruce Wayne's story. It worked because of Nolan's trademark filmmaking and his way of making orphaned children, symbolism, illusion and self-discovery such important pieces of his already-established conception. Without him, there was no way to successfully capitalize on the formula, and subsequent DC movies failed miserably.

    Marvel didn't even try to compete. They were modeled much differently and produced in such a way that the audience wouldn't think to take it too seriously, while still delivering some of the greatest heroes, villains and action sequences to grace the screen. They were mapped out more thoughtfully with the four Avengers movies dovetailing nicely with each of the other MCU films, up to and including Black Widow. When DC tried to compete with Justice League, everyone knew the foregone conclusion that it would suck.
     
  14. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I think Hollywood essentially learned the wrong lesson from Nolan's Batman movies. Of course Begins was only a modest success that picked up momentum on home video. It was The Dark Knight that was a massive phenomenon the same summer as Iron Man. The momentum and audience goodwill from Dark Knight is the main reason why the third one was successful.

    The thing is, The Dark Knight connected with audiences because it was an exciting crime thriller with terrific acting. It wasn't because it was "dark and gritty." (I didn't think it was anything special myself.) It's telling that a pile of "dark and gritty" comic book movies have followed in its wake, with varying degrees of merit, but the only one that can really be called a massive hit is Joker -- which, coincidentally or not, also fundamentally has a memorable acting performance at its center.

    This is something that Marvel has gotten right since the beginning. Make a human being the centre of your movie and people will connect with it. That's why their villains are so half baked -- we spend so much time and energy on the hero on a human level. And honestly, that goes back to Superman more than it does Batman or anything else (although the poster above who mentioned RoboCop, Darkman, and the like has a point too). The human connection (even if it's to a scary character like Heath Ledger's Joker) is what gets audiences to care, and that in turn is what triggers the goodwill that turns a marketing campaign into a cultural phenomenon.

    Zack Snyder, by contrast, was so determined to make his heroes into aloof gods that he made them difficult to care about. This was apparent as early as Watchmen, where he axed almost all of the non-costumed characters from the comic, leaving them in a strangely empty, non-human world, the very antithesis of the original story. He carried this same sensibility over to his Superman and Batman movies. But I will say, it is a sensibility, it is some kind of vision, and it does seem to resonate with some people.
     
  15. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I do think the trilogy was something special, possibly because I am a big Nolan fan. And I also think Batman Begins was well received in theaters in addition to home video. I actually saw it first in Vietnam of all places, as I was touring Asia at the time, and weeks after opening, the biggest theater in Ho Chi Minh City was absolutely packed. People there couldn't get enough of it--maybe aided in popularity because of the League of Shadows/Ras Al Ghul tie-in to Asia. The formula was perfected with The Dark Knight having a Hong Kong connection that generated more success globally. I'll take Joaquin Phoenix's Joker over Heath Leger's any day, but neither of them are what anyone would consider fun to watch.

    You're right that Marvel has mostly failed in creating great villains, even as it succeeded in creating great heroes. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Captain America arc, where the Avengers become basically split down the middle as each other's villains. Cap and Iron Man in particular start to hate each other. That is frankly the most annoying part of the franchise. But it's not totally MCU's fault. We live in a time where you can't pick a human villain to demonize without being labeled some sort of "-ist" and so the strongest villains were from other dimensions/galaxies, often with blue skin like Thanos and Ronan, with megalomaniacal, genocidal objectives. Although I was happy to see Mads Mikkelsen as the villain in Dr Strange. He always plays the bad guy to perfection.

    Great point about the way Snyder makes his heroes inaccessible. I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like Watchmen while my buddy thought it was so great, but that helps explain it. Snyder's conception worked for 300--possibly because it was a quasi historical account, but not for the DC comics where you need something concrete to anchor the characters in the real world. Otherwise, they drift away as totally inaccessible. Nolan succeeds in anchoring his characters as Snyder never could since 300. The MCU directors all hit their stride throughout so that you could almost feel what the characters were going through, and humor is a great way to break down the barrier to the audience.
     
  16. PH416156

    PH416156 Alea Iacta Est

    Location:
    Europe
    eh, with a $370M gross on a $150M budget, technically "Batman Begins" barely made a profit, actually it's possible it did no profit at all.

    Imho, they still all owe to Burton, Singer, but most of all Raimi that -although on Sony- paved the way for the whole MCU success.

    Burton and Singer made highly successful superhero movies, but I doubt that in the long run there would be an audience for 20+ movies like Batman Returns or X-men (this from someone that considers 2003's X-Men 2 as one of the top superhero movies ever).

    Raimi's Spider Man films had all the balance of humour/action and small drama that would make the Fiege's MCU saga successfull, and actually it took a few years for MCU to match the obscene amount of money - and profit- Raimi made. Heck, the first Spider-Man made more than $800M..and it was 20 years ago.
     
    JediJones likes this.
  17. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    No way. Robocop was an R-rated, hyper-violent thriller. Comic book movies almost never followed in that direction. Robocop is part of the dystopian or violent, adult science-fiction trend of Mad Max, Blade Runner, Terminator, Alien, etc. and has little connection to any superhero movies before or after it came out. Sin City would be one of the few based on a comic book that could be seen as similar to Robocop.

    LOL, sounds like a Marvel fanboy rant. The DC films after Nolan did NOT fail miserably. Man of Steel was bigger than Superman Returns. Batman V Superman made almost the same amount of money as Spider-Man: Homecoming (literally $7 million less). Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman did about $800 million each. Aquaman and Joker did over a billion each. Shazam was a solid success for a lower-budgeted, out-of-fashion character. Justice League failed because of horribly ill-conceived studio interference, which is definitely a big problem compared to Marvel Studios. When Marvel Studios interferes with their creators, they might dumb down the movies and make them blander, but they don't produce something ham-fisted or tonally disjointed. Birds of Prey is the only other one they did that underperformed since the Nolan trilogy ended, other than WW84 which was released in the middle of the pandemic.

    As for Watchmen, it's one of the most brilliant, intelligent, mature superhero movies ever made, and almost stands in a class by itself. There's so much more to think about with Watchmen than most other superhero movies, including the Marvel Studios output, which functions primarily at the level of family-friendly action comedies that don't offer deep insights into their characters' humanity (like the earlier X-Men and Spider-Man films did better) or do anything to intellectually stimulate or challenge the viewer. It's meaningless and pointless to compare Watchmen to the graphic novel. It should only be compared to other superhero films, because those are what it's competing with in the marketplace and on a creative level.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2021
  18. L.P.

    L.P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austria
    I paid the 22€ to watch it with my wife on Disney+ because she argued that that's cheaper than two cinema tickets, and I figured we could watch it in german together and then I could rewatch the original english version on my own.

    Generally speaking my wife is not as much in love with the cinema experience as I am. Mainly because you can't pause the film in cinemas. So, as it turned out, we had to pause it twice for different reasons, and the film wasn't very good anyway. Not even on my undisturbed english version rewatch.

    Of course I will have to buy the bluray one day for completist reasons.
     
  19. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    In the "thank you for your cooperation" scene in the convenience store, the bad guy actually purchases an Iron Man comic and walks by some issues of 2000 AD. The lineage is there and they acknowledge it. In fact Neumeier was originally working on a Judge Dredd movie on spec when he hooked up with Miner to do RoboCop. The original Robo suit design was almost plagiarized from Dredd, complete with an X over the eyes.

    The Judge Dredd script ideas eventually formed the basis of the rejected Robo 2 script, Corporate Wars.

    The new Black Widow movie has at least one scene borrowed from RoboCop (the "pheromone block" scene -- Scarlett even says "thank you for your cooperation")
     
    Isaac K. likes this.
  20. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA


    FWIW, here's what I said about the topic in my review:

    "Dick Tracy clearly takes many cues from Batman, though in some ways, their visuals couldn’t look much different. Batman features a dark universe, while everything in Tracy sports bright and cartoony colors. But both share the fact that they show exceedingly stylized worlds, so the locale of Tracy ultimately reminds me a little too much of Gotham City.

    The basic story seema like a moderate case of déjà vu as well. In Batman, a criminal toppled an established boss to take over his rackets and battle the hero. That’s basically what we find in Tracy. Admittedly, I can’t criticize Tracy heavily for this area, since plenty of movies recycle similar plots, but it seems particularly uninventive to simply duplicate what we already saw in Batman a year earlier.

    While I think these areas showed clear “inspiration” from Batman, one could argue that I just imagined the similarities. One could argue that if they both didn’t use Danny Elfman as the composer. One could argue that if Elfman didn’t just write the same score a second time. Oh, the Tracy music doesn’t literally offer a note-for-note replication, but boy are they a lot alike!"
     
  21. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    If "Iron Man" didn't do so well at the same time as "Dark Knight", the MCU could've evolved differently.

    Let's say "Iron Man" does meh business in 2008 while "DK" dominates the box office - and the semi-sorta-MCU "Incredible Hulk" also stalls like it actually did.

    MCU could've gone a different way and thought viewers didn't want the lighter tone and changed the rest to be darker.

    Didn't happen because "Iron Man" was a huge hit - not as big as "DK", but given that "DK" a) came with a much better known character to casual comic fans and b) was the sequel to a well-received flick, that's not a surprise.

    But it's possible the MCU evolves differently if "Iron Man" does "Incredible Hulk" numbers, especially since we wouldn't get another MCU movie for 2 years - and that one was a sequel to "IM". It took 3 years for MCU to touch a character other than Iron Man or Hulk.

    Which says to me that changes easily could have happened, since none of the subsequent MCU movies were in production when "IM" hit screens. "Iron Man" set the template and they largely followed that - with mild success! ;)
     
  22. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I don't view budget/profit as the way to define what is/isn't a hit.

    Whether or not "BB" was profitable - which I'm sure it was once you figured in video/other revenues - it was still a hit. It was the #5 movie in the US that year.

    It also did well via word of mouth. Remember that the Batman franchise was badly damaged by "Batman and Robin", and I think a lot of people viewed "BB" with a wary eye.

    We weren't as accustomed to reboots in 2005 as we are now. I think a lot of people were confused and unclear if it was another film in the 1989 or not, as reboots weren't particularly common back then.

    "BB" had to overcome a lot of issues to become a hit. The movie was well-received, prospered via WOM and eventually sold a lot of tickets.

    Budget or not, it was a hit!
     
    JediJones likes this.
  23. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Yeah, I know RoboCop was partially inspired by comic books, and probably by those "Bionic" TV shows of the '80s, whether or not they admitted it. But we were talking about the other direction, RoboCop inspiring other comic book movies. I know Frank Miller got involved with the RoboCop sequels, and his comic book-based movies were some of the few R-rated ones (but 300 and Sin City weren't superhero movies). There still aren't that many R-rated comic book movies, especially ones with superheroes. And the lineage for the Judge Dredd and Watchmen movies goes back further than RoboCop, to their own comic series, so it's hard to argue they were inspired by RoboCop. That would be like saying the Fantastic Four movies were inspired by The Incredibles, just because The Incredibles ripped them off and made a movie before they did.
     
  24. thegage

    thegage Forum Currency Nerd

    Apart from a few spectacular set pieces, I did not find The Dark Knight Rises a particularly good film. Too many plot holes and wtf moments. If it's true that Nolan only made it in order to be able to make one of his other pet projects, then it shows.

    Regarding human villains in the MCU universe, I struggle to find an example from the comics of a significant one who viewers would want to see but some would object to because of the so-called "-ist" issue. But then I'm not a huge MCU fanboy, so there may be one.

    JohnK
     
  25. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    Somebody needs to rewatch Robocop.

    Inspiration goes in all directions. You don’t think comics were ever influenced by movies even in the 60s? That the Beatles weren’t influenced by the Stones and vice versa? David Bowie was an influence on Nine Inch Nails who in turn influenced David Bowie right back. Nothing in art is a straight line. Robocop is a now classic Hollywood superhero origin story. Even 35 years later it still holds up. Almost all of the MCU origin movies have copied its structure, mixing action with humor (minus the things that gave it the R rating you care about).
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine