You Call That “Super”?
Over the past ten years or so, superheroes have become a hot commodity in Hollywood. Thanks to modern special effects, we can finally have movies and TV shows that do justice to the comics they are based on (who remembers the old Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk shows from the 70s and 80s?). There have been some great superhero movies, and some that weren’t so great. And I’ve been surprised that the genre has survived debacles like Daredevil and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The fact that less mainstream properties like Watchmen and Kick-Ass were produced at all, let alone with blockbuster-sized budgets, is a testament to how much faith the movie industry has in superheroes these days (and it’s really too bad that those two films weren’t more successful; I’d like the studios to be rewarded for taking those kinds of chances).
Ironically, movies have replaced comics as the primary medium for superhero characters. Marvel and DC both make far more money from the box office of movies like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight than they do on the comic book titles where those characters were born. Both of those companies are now just small pieces of enormous entertainment conglomerates, and serve as little more than idea factories for their corresponding movie studios. But now that all of the truly iconic, universally-recognized characters have already appeared in movies (or are about to), the studios are starting to turn toward some of the B-listers.
Marvel has been talking about bringing characters like Doctor Strange or Iron Fist to the silver screen. The most recent idea was to put them in short films ahead of their upcoming features like Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, and The Avengers. Then, if those short films generate enough interest, those characters might get features of their own. I really like this idea. It helps the studio avoid the risk of an expensive flop, and it makes the movie version of the Marvel Universe a more epic place.
A cheaper option for studios eager to jump on the superhero bandwagon is to make up their own heroes. This trend began with the aptly — though unimaginatively — named Heroes. One of the characters on Heroes had the power to create illusions, and I can only assume that she was responsible for me thinking that the show was any good for the first season. After that, my wife and I watched it for another two and a half seasons until we finally had to admit to ourselves that we only liked the idea of the show, not the show itself.
Then there’s No Ordinary Family, or the upcoming The Cape. To be fair, I haven’t seen either one, but from the commercials, it seems that the only superpower on display is the power to bore me. They look like retreads of ideas that have been done before, and done better. The Cape looks like The Fugitive with tights and No Ordinary Family looks like The Incredibles without tights.
At some point, Hollywood’s fascination with superheroes will come to an end, but it probably won’t be until they’ve wrung out every ounce of profit from the characters and concepts that we love. Eventually, there will be movies based on just about every comic character you’ve ever heard of, and superheroes will creep into every genre of TV show (we’ve already covered teen drama with Smallville, and “reality” TV with Stan Lee’s Who Wants to be a Superhero?). When we’ve finally become so sick of people with superpowers that we never want to see them again, then they’ll go away. I just hope I see a Moon Knight movie before that day comes.