Doomsday for the Marvel Movie Doomsday Theory?

According to the Comics Continuum (link courtesy of Markisan Naso), Marvel’s Hollywood head honcho, Avi Arad, said plans continue apace for Elektra, Iron Man, Deathlok, The Fantastic Four, Blade 3, The Punisher, Spider-Man 2, and (dum dum DUM!) Hulk 2. In other words, the kinda sorta disappointing showing of Hulk 1 (again, I’ll just say that I don’t know how anyone in their right mind expected this weird, weird film to make Spider-Man box) was not a deathblow to the Marvel Movie Money Machine, as some are beginning to theorize (love how that link is subtitled “freefall,” Dirk!). ‘Course, it remains to be seen how well each of these projects will do, but the gravy train’s still rollin’. Moreover, as Jim Henley points out, you don’t need movie tie-ins to make big bank off superhero licensing–just ask DC Comics! (On the other hand, you may not need them–but it helps.)

My take? I don’t see “superhero-comic-book movies” as a trend, because unlike other recently deceased Hollywood fads (teen movies, self-reflexive pop-culture-reference-laden horror films), the superhero flicks produced so far are sufficiently differentiated from one another to offer distinct moviegoing experiences for the audience, even if only because the biggest of the characters (Spider-Man, the Hulk) are already familiar enough with the audience to qualify as individual experiences simply by virtue of their lead characters alone. Aside from that, Spider-Man was a rollicking adventure for kids and young teenagers that captured the retro vibe grown-up fans were looking for; Daredevil was a dark, operatic take on a pulp hero that most viewers weren’t already familiar with as a comic-book superperson; the Blade movies were action-horror that few people associate with the superhero genre anyway; Hulk was a weird “term-paper blockbuster,” and moreover was more King Kong than Superman; the X-Men movies were sci-fi action with enough queer theory thrown in to keep things interesting for the hipsters and, again, less awareness of the franchise’s comic-book roots; The Punisher could go one of two ways: a supergrim Death Wish kind of movie or a live-action Road Runner cartoon a la Garth Ennis’s early issues on the comic series; Fantastic Four is rumored to be either sci-fi adventure or a sci-fi tinged suburban dramedy–either way, not too Super; Elektra is a hot-chick-kicks-ass movie waiting to happen; Deathlok will most likely be a black Terminator; Iron Man I’ve heard they’ll be selling as James Bond with more gadgets; I know it’s not Marvel, but even the relatively bomb-y League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would have been number one at the box office its opening weekend had its studio not made the dumbass decision to release it against another period quasi-fantasy swashbuckler–one with the full might of Disney behind it–The Pirates of the Carribean, and again, civilians have no clue that League was a comic book first.

These differences may look superficial to people heavily invested in the theory that you can’t mine anything worthwhile out of the spandex-wearing set, but the average person (as I’ve said time and again) does not share this anti-superhero bias, and if a superhero movie is unique and interesting enough, they’ll go see it.