Monday, June 25, 2007

Are we running out of superhero movies to make?



With Spiderman 3 and Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer doing big business,plus upcoming film versions of Wonder Woman,Captain America and Iron Man in the works(not to mention the Batman and Superman sequels being geared up as we speak),there is one question on this fangirl's mind and that is this;are we low on superheroes to adapt for the big screen?

It almost seems that way,what with X-Men,The Hulk,even Ghost Rider already out and about. Many feel that some of these characters didn't deserve a film in the first place or atleast not the one they were given. Others say that this whole superhero movie thing is on the edge of burnout. I have my doubts about that,especially with TV shows like Heroes and Smallville gaining a wider mainsteam audience.

Let's look at a few powerful folk who haven't yet hit the live action realm and see how they would measure up:


GREEN LANTERN


There's been talk of a GL movie for awhile now,with such fellas as BTVS' Nicholas Brendon and Jack Black being cast as the lead. Green Lantern has made some guest appearances on such animated shows like Justice League Unlimited and Superman:The Animated Series,but never a solo gig. GL would be great for a big studio film,with all of the CGI advances that we have now. The only probelm is,which Green Lantern would be the star?

For those of you not in the know,the Green Lantern postion has been held by several characters(it's a position of responsibility granted by a benevolent alien group known as The Guardians of the Universe,to be passed on to those deemed worthy). Hal Jordan was the original GL and still a big fan favorite. Kyle Rayner is one of the more modern GL but John Stewart has been represented in the current Justice League series and I'm sure there's a few people going"Hey,don't rule out Guy Gardner!". Hopefully,someone will come along and get one of the GL Corpsman a greenlight for production some time soon.




STATIC SHOCK

Static is a younger and more up to date superhero and I think he'd be great to watch at the multiplex. Some might whine about how the whole "meta-human" thing is just DC's rip-off of the X-Men but come on,guys! That concept isn't the most original for anybody at this point and why complain about it if it works? The animated series was alot of fun and clearly shows the potential appeal of a major movie version:





LADY DEATH

There's been an animated film of LD that was pretty much direct to video and now that the rights to her character have changed hands from Chaos to Avatar(with her origin story altered),a live action version might be tricky. I personally prefer the old school Lady D,who started out as a side character in the Evil Ernie comics and was given a book of her own(which also spawned a spin off or two). Lady D is one of the coolest anti-heroines to come along in a long while and could make a really great
wicked girl power version of 300:





WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO?

Superheroes are not just born from comics,sometimes they are created solely for the movies. That creates a 50/50 chance of a decent film,because for every success like The Incredibles,you get two or three like Meteor Man and My Super Ex-Girlfriend(which thanks be to Netflix,didn't cost me alot of out-of-pocket money to see). The Sci Fi channel will be showing it's second season of Who Wants to be a Superhero this July and even tho the winner gets a SciFi channel movie as one of the prizes,that's more of a punishment than a reward. I'd certainly pay ten bucks to see a Major Victory movie and I'm not the only one:



Well,take heart,true believers-perhaps the superhero adaptation trend is only at it's peak for the moment but there are plenty of caped crusaders waiting in the wings to strut their stuff and save the day. If we're real lucky,we might get that big screen version of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl that many of us gals have been dreaming about since grade school:

2 comments:

  1. They'll never run out of superheroes. Though it would be great to create some new ones.

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  2. You're probaly right,PCD. I just worry about genre burnout there,but sometimes it's only way to clear the path for better things to come along.

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