The next few years is going to top the last few years in comic book movies, Ghost Rider, 300, TMNT, Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer, Stardust, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk 2, The Dark Knight, and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. This is the short list of comic book movies coming out in the next two years. Why?

Before I go deeper into this rant I want you to ask yourself something. Did we ever need to see a Ghost Rider movie? Of all the heroes in the marvel universe why Ghost Rider? I am predicting something here, I see a daredevil disaster with this soon to be piece of crap. With over 1000 character in the marvel universe why Ghost Rider? Where is the Captain American movie? I almost wish I could go up to Hollywood and ask them to please, please, stop making comic book movies.

Here are the mistakes that Hollywood makes. First get the villain right. You call that Doctor Doom, I would have made a better Doctor Doom if you put a trash can on my head and hung a green towel around my neck. Magneto was well played until the second movie where he went from determined villain to wish washy chump. I do not even want to talk about the third X-men movie. Second do not try story lines that take a year to do in comic book form. The Phoenix Saga, what were you thinking. It was about the best story line in X-men history and they screwed it up. Now Sam Raimi, is going to attempt the Venom Saga. Sam what are you thinking? I do not need to see Venom on the big screen. You know what I would have loved to see Kraven the hunter. Now that is not only a good storyline, but it is more achievable. Then there is the Silver Surfer, why oh why would you attempt The Silver Surfer? Then there’s Iron Man, which could have potential except that they will never get the drama of Tony Stark right. It’s going to be just like the 1989 Batman except with a man in armor.

Hollywood here is a list of characters of the marvel universe that would be fun to see a movie of. Lets try Thor, Cloak and Dagger, Captain America (try doing a world war 2 version, with out the red, white, and blue outfit), Doctor Strange, and even Alpha Flight would be cool.

Here is the real problem Hollywood has a limited imagination. Hollywood also has to stick to the formula, that’s why Spiderman’s main theme is his obsession with Mary Jane. Fantastic Four deals mostly with winning over the invisible women. Daredevil women problems, X-men women issues and Ghost Rider main theme is about a women.

Hollywood the end is near for you. At least Hollywood had the common sense to remake the real TMNT. I hope.

Well that all I have to say for now.

Sapo

There are a few things in this large universe that I do not quite understand, yet. There is quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, atomic physics, molecular physics, computational chemistry, quantum chemistry, particle physics, and nuclear physics. Yet the most baffling thing I have found in this universe has been the comic book movies. Yes you read right, the comic book movie baffles the hell out of me.

To understand why it throws me for a loop, you first have to understand how a movie is brought to life. The first thing you need is a story to tell. Writers are a good source for story telling. The writer creates a story, and then passes the story off to a screenwriter who organizes it into a screenplay. After you have the story in screenplay form, you have to create a visual representation of that story. That usually happens with storyboard artists. The storyboard artists’ draws the whole story out so the director has a sense of what everything would look like. Then you get the actors, film crew, sets, props, and a whole lot of money. Then boom your making a movie. This process has not changed in Hollywood since filmmaking was discovered.

If you think about this process, and you think about what a comic book is you start to put a couple of things together. Wow a comic book is a story with a script in a visual format. All the really hard work is done. Now here is the part that baffles me. If comics book have already did all the hard work, why is the story on the screen never, and I mean never, the story that I have read in the comic book. It’s absolutely drives me insane. I would not mind if the story was a little different or they worked on parts that have not been written before. The newest Batman movie ‘Batman Begins’ did a good job of covering a part of the Batman story that is not completely covered in the comics. I have not read Batman in a long time but watching the movie I did not get that ‘they really screwed this one up.’ Feeling. Of course I could go into depth, on every comic book movie and pick them apart. That’s not what I want to do right now.

I want to take a stab at why Hollywood ruins a perfectly good story by changing it. I believe it all comes down to ego. Everyone in Hollywood is an expert on what the audience wants, so much so that there is a formula they follow down to the wire.  With the comic book movies they take the parts they like then mix it into the formula out the other end come the same movie again and again. I watched an interview with Sam Raimi, I am not going to quote him cause I don’t remember his exact words. He said something like he changed parts of Spiderman’s origin because they did not make sense in today’s world and the audience would not believe it. That’s why the spider is not radioactive and Peter Parker did not create the web shooters. Now I like Sam Raimi, I think he does really good work when, he has created the story. I do however think that it takes some set of brass balls to change Spiderman’s story in any way shape or form. The problem is he thought his ideas were better and he thought he knew the audience better.  I believe the truth is he wanted to put a little of himself in the story to make it his. In the end you don’t so much have the story you grew up on and expected to see, you have a version that they think you want to see.

That’s what makes me sad I did not read these comics because I wanted to eventfully see a ‘better’ version of it on the big screen. I read the comics because I enjoyed the story; I go to see the movies hoping to watch that same story in motion. I have been nothing but disappointed. Wake up Hollywood your not the smartest guys in the room anymore.

Thanks

Sean “Sapo” Pisano

In part 2 I explore what the movies have done to the comic book world.