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Nice rant there Junker. What you say is partially true, but then there's also the possiblity that they only release shit, and if nobody watches it, no comic movie will come out, good or bad. That's a hypothetical senario thoguh. The fact is good one are on their way. And the best solution is, for those who have broadband, download the movie if it's ify. Watch it to see if it's any good. The only problem there is you have to have the disipline to force yourself to go see it and pay for it if you do like it, so you can support the movie. Of course, that will take alot more time on your part (unless you wanted to go buy the ticket to support the money and then not watch it ??? ), but it's the only honest right thing to do.

 

And as far as a Namor movie goes...can the character support his own movie and make it good enough so the thought "This guy is just a no-frills second class Aquaman right off!" isn't the only thing in the audience's mind when they watch it. And the laws for crossover don't say that it CAN'T be done, you just have to pay for the characters and get exclusive rights to them (like Daredevil did with Kignpin, Bullseye and Electra). So don't go counting your chicken (or your comics book charaters) just yet.

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Oh, mr fancy-pants film guy dont want us watchin bad comic movies! So youd just have Dolph Lundgren starve, wouldnt you?!

Eh, he's got a point.  I wont judge any till i see/hear s'more but even the Marvel reserves - Namor, Dr Strage, Ghost Rider, the ones who cant quite hold a monthly book, but a good mini-series with a skilled writer at best - are now gettin movies.  The Daredevil franchise has me worried as well, especially with an Elektra spinoff already up for grabs..? Quite literally, any big namer at Marvel, DC or Image (Strazinsky's Rising Stars might be interestin, not plannin on seein Spawn 2 tho) are being bought up.

As an obviously avid comic reader, my best guess for movies goes like this: If theyve had good writing - specifically, good story arcs - in the books, youve got a chance at somethin good on screen, at least past the formulaic "origin" 1st movie anyway.  Spider-Man, for instance, has had far too many good villians and stories not to produce just a few strong movies, and again, with Frank Miller and Kevin Smith among his big-namers, believe it or not, Daredevil has some stories i consider even better, but again you wont see them in the first movie, at least.  

Characters like Ghost Rider and Green Lantern are ones i find interestin, but with very few really good stories.  The only way i think they'd come out good is if they had a director like the guy who did the first Crow movie.  Not to rank on James O' Barr's original Crow story, but i didnt think it was all that great m'self (perhaps i shouldve been gothic, i hear its the best thing since Poe and Vincent Price to them).  But you can get a good hour or two out of them, if the guy who's makin up the story as he goes along has some strong ideas himself..i think Blade's another example of a much better movie than the book.

Now, the Vertigo titles have a different mission entirely: theyre finite series, and you cant tell their entire tale in one movie, nor will it do well enough to get more of em out.  I honestly dont think ill see the Constantine/Hellblazer one for all its been butchered. and as ive told Junker, ill catch the Preacher one, despite his previous rant, just to behold it in the same way one insists on rubbernecking the car wreck of a loved one.  

Bascially, your big name Marvel ones that youre hearing about i expect will, at the least, stay entertaining, as Spider-Man or X-Men have been.  The only comic-esque films i think have a shot at breaking new ground are Batman: Year One, possibly The Hulk, and of course Matrix 2.  Give these ones a shot.  Read reviews, here and otherwise, before the lesser-known characters (although i assure you, if you catch the Vertigo movies you aint gonna save it, these ones either become quiet hits like Ghost World of fade away), and for godsake dont watch any Lobo movies. :ill:

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I dunno about daredevil.  It's written & directed by the guy who did "Simon Birch" apparently, so this might as well be his first movie since that one wasnt too stylish and it was obivously and entirely different kind of movie.  He also wrote "Jack frost" (the micheal keaton comedy, not the B-movie) and "Grumpier old men"... um, yeah, so, this might as well be his debut, since he's never done anything like this.  The cast is fine with me, and the teaser was just that,  a teaser.  I'd at least need a full trailer to start being able to tell if it looks any good.  It seems that coolio is in it, playing "Daunte jackson" so it can't be all that bad.

 

 I think the crow and blade were great examples though.  I was also pretty unimpressed by the crow comic. Especially after seeing dark city, you can tell that the crow was good because of alex proyas, badass director that made two incredible movies and then decided to take a break...  :mutter:  Anyways, blade is another, sometimes these superheroes are just a good way to get a cool action movie made, the best part is that noone gives a fuck how faithfull you are to some of these characters, so yeah, somehting like ghost rider could be surprising because they could just take the general character design and do whatever the fuck they want with it.  I heard they wanted to follow up spawn with a completely unrelated, actionless sequel that was more of a detective movie, ala se7en, but that was a long time ago.  Gee, wonder why that never got made...

 

I am a bit more interested in stuff that people wont know is based on a comic untill they look into it though, I like the idea of people seeing the movie, judgeing it as they would any otehr movie, and then "Oh, that was based on a comic book?  Wow."  I think that if enough of those types of movies come out (road to perdition being a fuckin great example) and maybe even touch the oscars, that would make some great progress for comics.

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Well, you may be in luck Junker, Road to Perdition is getting Oscar buzz like crazy. Of course, studio generally release their 'Oscar' movies at the end of the year (Oct, Nov, Dec), so it's the freshest in peoples minds when the voting goes down. Evidently, the academy people far such a short attention span that if a few is a few months more recent, it has a big edge over movie that are nearly a year old ( :0 ). Plus if the movie is still in theaters when it's nominateed, it gets increased revenue.

 

Alot has been said, but I think it can summed up as such: Don't go see bad comic movies and well-established highly recognizable character can create for some entertaining movie because of the wealth of material to draw on, but the lesser known comics allow for greater freedom, which in the right hands can produce film gold. Is that about right?

 

Oh yeah, and Nick, you should see Spy Kids.

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  • 2 weeks later...
He also wrote "Jack frost" (the micheal keaton comedy, not the B-movie)

Wait one minute! Hold the phone! "Jack Frost" starring Michael Keaton as a father turned into a living snowman ISN'T a B-movie? Does that make it an A-movie? What kind of world are living in where Jack Frost isn't considered a B-movie. What's next, Snowdogs playing on TCM? Will teh AFI declare Batman & Robin the greatest movie off all-time? Maybe a poll of hundreds of thoasands of people will declare The Godfather Part III to be the best of the trilogy!

 

Just messing around. :D

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Right, and Steve Irwin will get this year's best acting Oscar, with Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course will win best picture. Oh, and wait! Who is that coming up to accept the lifetime achievement award? Why, it's Judge Reinhold! <_>

 

Sounds like armageddon to me.

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ERRRRR :D I wanted to see "The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys" but I thought it was comign out in August. Now I check a few sites and it came and went in June! Now there aren't any theaters playing it within a 40 mile radius of FIU! :D If I had only heard that it was out I would have made an extra effort to have gone out to see it! DAMNIT! Hey, Junker, did you see this one. All the reviews said it was really good. :D DAMNIT!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally, something else to add to this post. I'll mention this in "Movie News", too, but it belongs here. (Ahem) Taadaaa! The first X2 trailer.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x-men_2/

This looks like the footage they showed at the last big comic convention in...uh...San Diego(?), I think. But now the rest've us can see it, too.

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But as for officially, no, no word yet. Daredevil's second trailer is supposed to be released in the next couple months. I'd imagine it'll be something along the lines of the footage they showed at the San Diego comicon. If so, they may release it early on the net, like that X2 trailer. They're both 20th Century Fox movies, so their campaigns might be similar. As for the Hulk, last I heard, there will be a trailer released towards the end of the fall that will finally reveal the actual Hulk in all his CGI glory. S'pposed to be an impressive clip.

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They're both 20th Century Fox movies

Oooh, does that mean the potential for acknowledging each other's existances in each other's movies. Like DareDevil could say something like "Hey, I'm not a crazy freak like one of those x-men". Not that that's particularly in his character to say, but that means they could, right?

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I think that would be badass, but way i hear it, its unlikely even when theyre in the same camp like that 'cause the way licensing goes down. i.e., Batman can get a cameo in a Superman movie if Batman has no movies out and none on the drawin board, think that's how it goes. Anyone know more bout this? I looked into it when it occurred to me that legal red tape would prevent a cameo of Spidey swingin by in the background of Daredevil...: :( :angry:

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Technically, yeah, there could be mention of each other, if both producing teams okayed it. And with both of them at 20th Century Fox, that probably wouldn't have much trouble. But I doubt they will mention each other, just because the stories don't allow for it. It's all something that decided case by case. Comic movies are generally friendly with each other (Batman & Robin mentioned Superman ::shudder::...hell, even Spider-man was able to mention Superman). So, yeah, legally, Daredevil probably could mention the X-Men, but I dunno if they'd want to acknowledge the existence of such super-human powers in a movie that's looking to be grounded in gritty realism (wire-assisted martial arts being an exception, of course). Hey, did everyone else ever find that easter egg on the X-Men dvd? The one with Spider-man in it? Funny stuff.

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Yes, mentionings! It's been a while since I've been into comics, but I read tons of Spidey and other Marvel books from Spidey's Maximum Carnage era to about when the entirely years long clone story arc just got beyond ridiculous (what? Peter Parker WAS the real Spider-Man, and Ben Reily, after being told for about a year that he the real Peter Parker, is actually a clone again? What the fuck? Argghh!). And I remember not being able to read any Marvel book without there being some reference to some other book. I mean, they were all in the same universe, so it was only natural that they mention each other in regular dialogue! That's what I'm hoping for between the X-Men and Daredevil.

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Let us not speak of the clone saga.

Eh, X-Men & Daredevil might be cool, but DD's tied a lot more into Spidey, their teampus are cool. Id rather see/hear somethin along those lines, honeslty, but if DD is truly the gritty film Bob's been sayin, then maybe its for the better.

I just really liked it in Ultimate Marvel Team-up when Daredevil lectured Spidey to take the costume thing seriously or quit, that was interestin.

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It's only natural that DD would be more involved with spidey than with the x-men, seeingas they both live in New York and have ties to the Bugle. But the point is that they could create a world where DD isn't the ONLY superhero in the world. I don't know. I just seems all the marvel character make more sense in the marvel universe context (same with DC characters, don't know much about any indie comic universes). And being the kind ex-comic-freak I am, I like a comic movie the more like the comic it is. It kinda bothered me that spider-man didn't make his own webbing (though I thought they handled pretty well), but while it kinda bothered me, most other people didn't even know it was innacurate to the books. Bah to it all! I guess I can't hope for anything more than a good movie in it's own right!

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