Men of Steel 'n' Spandex

My eyes are beginning to glaze over from the Hype-a-Thon that is the interwebs around Comic Con time. The Earth is so overrun with superheroes that it's remarkable that crime still exists at all. I went to get coffee this morning and the street in front of my favorite deli was cordoned off as a crime scene. Not joking. The heroes are all trapped in airconditioned movie theaters our moviegoing fates having been long since sealed.

See, the grosses for every superhero movie that's arrived, yes even notorious "flops" like Green Lantern, divisive films like Watchmen, or the ones that would've been 'Straight to Video' in other decades like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, have had little trouble breaking $100-200 million globally so the only logical thing is to greenlight as many as possible with tighter budgets. Superheroes are the new Horror Flicks -- you'll always make a profit if you control your budgets.

Man of Steel teaser poster

If Hollywood had any cold feet at all about greenlighting every superhero they own the rights to, this summer's one-two-three KO that is Avengers + Spidey + Batman (a trio that will obviously clear $3 billion globally) will surely doom us to one superhero movie a month or more by 2015. Soon superhero movies will be as ubiquitous as horror flicks. Especially if Warner Bros ever gets its act together. They own ALL DC characters -- unlike Marvel Studios/Disney which has to work from a deck with several key cards missing -- and yet, apart from Batman regularly and Superman every once in awhile they can't seem to get anything working properly.

So, what's next?

Next Weekend
The Dark Knight Rises - this is the last we'll see of Bruce Wayne for awhile though Nolan is already suggesting that Anne Hathaway deserves a Catwoman movie. Careful what you wish for *cough* Halle Berry

The massively spandexed release schedule as it currently stands after the jump...

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Contest: Development Hell

If this blog were a movie, you'd have never read it. I'd have typed up innumerable drafts and discussed them with producers. They'd have missed the point entirely -- 'Have you thought about adding more unmade superhero movie rumors (the internet loves those) and ditching the actresses (booooorrring!)? -- then they'd hand over the reins to another writer entirely and another. No one would hit publish.

But this blog is not a movie and I hit publish all the time. The only "Tales From Development Hell" that effect me here involve plans for series that have trouble getting going or lose their way during production. 

If this blog post were a movie it would never be published and the books I have to give away to you would gather dust, cobwebs, and cat hair... so so so much cat hair (curse you, summer!). 

Anyway... THE BOOK! 

It has crazy stories about various aborted versions of The Planet of the Apes which led to Tim Burton's trainwreck. It charts the difficult journey of Total Recall  to the screen just in time for the remake.

Ahnuld demonstrates the face worn by all people working on movies in development hell.

'First of all, I really wanted to cast William Hurt,' he says, 'and the difference between Bill Hurt and Arnold Schwarzenegger probably tells you everything. I was doing something that I thought was faithful to Phil Dick and also to my own sense of the complex understanding of what memory is and what identity is. Obviously it would have been sci-fi and you would have gone to Mars, but it would have been like "Spider" goes to Mars,' he adds referring to his 2002 film starring Ralph Fiennes as a man struggling to piece his memories together, 'as opposed to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" Goes to Mars.' "
-David Cronenberg on his version of "Total Recall" 

It has a depressing story of Darren Aronofsky's Batman:Year One proposal (depressing because "gimme")... and much more. The movie choices lean a little fanboy -- I'd love to read a book like this on Jodie Foster's Flora Plum -- but the stories are interesting and it'll totally make you respect movies that get made... at all. What a rough business showbizness is.

If you wanna read it send me an e-mail by Saturday July 14th with "Development Hell" in the subject line with the following three pieces of info:

1. Your Name
2. Your Shipping Address
3. (Briefly for possible publication here): Name a recent movie you wish had stayed in development hell longer. What two things would you have changed about it before it hit screens.

I'll announce the winners on Sunday! So start e-mailing and rewriting recent movies.

P.S. While we're on the subject of development hell, a version of the 2002 documentary The Sweatbox (supposedly Disney prevented the release from ever happening?) about the difficult production history of The Emperor's New Groove is showing in its entirety on YouTube. Have any of you seen it?

The Not So "Amazing" Spider-Man

originally published in my column at Towleroad

Andrew Garfield hanging about on The Amazing Spider-Man set.

Déjà vu  is an unsettling feeling. You can’t quite place the why and whens of it but you know you’ve experienced whatever this is before. Not so with the reboot of Spider-Man which has been optimistically retitled “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” for 2012.  The new webslinging film arrives only five years after Spider-Man 3, that final sour note in Sam Raimi’s otherwise sweet trilogy. This déjà vu is easy to place with the “whens” and thus less unsettling if still perplexing on account of the “whys”. We’re back to summer 2002 when Peter Parker first pined for a high school sweetheart, first indirectly contributed to his uncle’s murder, first learned that with great power comes great responsibility, and first swung around a big screen Manhattan in his iconic red and blue spandex.

Franchises are the comfort food of the movies and though there’s nothing wrong with comfort food beyond its lack of nutritional value, so much depends on the delivery when it comes to the familiar pleasure. The Amazing Spider-Man spins its title card with webbing very swiftly which leaves you hoping for a zippy entertainment with key twists on the mythos to keep you engaged. But after a new corporate thriller prologue featuring Peter Parker’s heretofore unseen parents the movie settles into excessively familiar story beats. We’re forced to wait out the entire numbing origin story again and relive many story beats from the 2002 origin story, with the only major exclusions being the absence of Parker's employment at The Daily Bugle (weird) and no James Franco shaped obstacle to his girl’s affections. Other than that only the names of the major characters have changed: Blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) stands in for Redhead Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) as the love interest Peter likes to photograph; Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) stands in for Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) as the scientist Peter looks up to whose illegal human experimentation (on himself!) wreaks havoc on his mental stability.

Once you start talking to yourself in an out of body "evil" voice, it's just a matter of time until you're a Green Super Villain. More...

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Burning Questions: What's Wrong With An Instant Reboot?

Michael C here to get Spidey's back this Fourth of July.

There used to be a natural life cycle for big movie franchises. It began with audiences thrilling to the sight of Christopher Reeve soaring over Metropolis and ended a few films later with everyone looking away in embarrassment as Superman traded punches with Nuclear Man on the moon. This was followed by a period of mourning long enough for everyone to wonder if the last film was some kind of fever dream, and then and only then could a fresh creative team breathe life into the dormant franchise.

But now, no sooner does Emo Spidey cha-cha his way into an early grave, than the suits decide to shake the etch-a-sketch on the whole show and pretend the last three films never happened. In a world fast approaching franchise over-saturation, with sequels dropping with a frequency normally reserved for Tetris blocks, the idea of a hugely successful series starting over from scratch while the body of the last entry is still warm, feels like a new low in shameless cash-grabbing. 

Time for a new actor to don the mask

But take a step back for a moment, put emotions on hold and ask the logical question: What is so bad about an instant reboot?

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"I said, 'What kind of link are YOU?' "

Lists and Miscellania
Comics Alliance 50 comic book characters that resonate with LGBT audiences. Very few of them have made the trek to the movies. Just sayin'. Hopefully some day some of them will.
The Wrap wonders if Beasts of the Southern Wild can become a commercial hit. 
Hollywood Elsewhere on the Philistines who aren't into Magic Mike. 
Tom Shone on Brave Pro: the hair; Con: bear slapstick. Awww, I loved the bear slapstick.  
Thelma Adams interviews Michelle Williams on Take This Waltz 
Pajiba "Love is Dead Forever!" because the only appropriate response to the impending Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes divorce is total hysteria.
Scene Stealers  the ten most deliciously awkward moments in Wes Anderson's filmography? Written pre Moonrise Kingdom obviously because that's loaded with them.

Into the Future
/Film Screenwriter Hossein Amini (Drive) will direct his first feature, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Two Faces of January with Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac. I have actually read this novel which is a rare thing when we're talking up "future movies". Sadly I don't remember it at all so I can't comment on the casting other than that I find that either of those faces is good for any month.
First Showing Luc Besson may follow up the De Niro / Pfeiffer Malavita with the adaptation of sci-fi French comic book Valerian. 

My Favorite Reviews / Essays o' The Moment
Wesley Morris on Moonrise Kingdom -Wes Anderson finally comes through
Norman Buckley on Birth like Vertigo, it will only gain in stature