The superhero movie thing needs to stop...

06-08-2014 12:32pm

Fysh wrote: »

There's no universal definition of art, and throwing commercial distribution backed by profit-oriented companies into the mix certainly isn't going to hurt.

Unless you can provide verifiable proof that the production of superhero films is directly contributing to a downturn in production or distribution of arthouse cinema, I think you're stuck with the position you've staked out for yourself, which appears to be "self-appointed taste police".

What, exactly, is so hard about not watching a film if it doesn't interest you?

For the third time, Ive already said i dont watch them anymore! Does that eliminate me from being allowed to have an opinion on them? Or perhaps say why I dont go and see them? Or must I adopt the same opinion as everyone else who loves these movies and just toe the line and say nothing?

Back to the discussion, I don't have verifiable proof or anything like that. I'm just giving my opinion based on whats in front of me.
Im not big into art house films. Im into films and art that show creativity and originality. Edge of Tomorrow as an example of a recent one. I feel like the constant reproduction of the same stuff is mind numbing.

Zubeneschamali · 06-08-2014 12:35pm

Deleted User wrote: »

True. But I do like blockbuster movies,

What about the antithesis of art baloney you were spouting earlier? Why is Die Hard 4.0 art, but not Ironman 3?

06-08-2014 12:44pm

Why didn't you pick Die Hard 3 instead of 4? Because one is written by and directed by people who are artistic and made original work, and the other is a studio driven puppet show.

Zubeneschamali · 06-08-2014 12:49pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Why didn't you pick Die Hard 3 instead of 4? Because one is written by and directed by people who are artistic and made original work, and the other is a studio driven puppet show.

OK, so movies which are not superhero movies can also be rubbish, sez you.

Your actual complaint boils down to thinking that too many superhero movies are commercial crap. Well, duh, too many movies of every kind are commercial crap. Nothing to do with superheroes.

And many of the current crop of superhero movies are at least as feckin artistic as Die Hard 3.

06-08-2014 12:54pm

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

OK, so movies which are not superhero movies can also be rubbish, sez you.

Your actual complaint boils down to thinking that too many superhero movies are commercial crap. Well, duh, too many movies of every kind are commercial crap. Nothing to do with superheroes.

And many of the current crop of superhero movies are at least as feckin artistic as Die Hard 3.

My argument is simple. Theres too many of the same movie coming out again and again and again. Thats why I think its not artistic. It doesn't take artistic people to do that, it just needs some robots. My point has been made anyway a few times, your all welcome to continue firing at me for my 'radical' opinion on superhero movies, but I dont want to continue making the same point.

Mickeroo · 06-08-2014 12:56pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Why didn't you pick Die Hard 3 instead of 4? Because one is written by and directed by people who are artistic and made original work, and the other is a studio driven puppet show.

All the Die Hard films were big budget studio driven productions, the only real difference was the first 3 were really good and the last 2 weren't.

You're just writing off a whole genre, a genre responsible for some of the best blockbusters of the last 15 years (imo), hell even the last year. Edge of Tomorrow being a prime example of a really good comic book film funnily enough.

Guardians of the Galaxy is probably the best Marvel film to date and it ticks all the boxes for lots of people which you are claiming to be lacking. Sure it's a studio driven production designed to make money, but so are all blockbusters at the end of the day, even the best ones and you know what, they're still art imo.

ancapailldorcha · 06-08-2014 1:00pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

All the Die Hard films were big budget studio driven productions, the only real difference was the first 3 were really good and the last 2 weren't.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the fourth. The third wasn't great IMO.

Back on topic, there have only been a few superhero flicks this year. I think the total is 4. They're hardly saturating the market but they do seem to be making moves towards inserting the sort of nonsense that puts a lot of people along with myself off the comics.

06-08-2014 1:08pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

All the Die Hard films were big budget studio driven productions, the only real difference was the first 3 were really good and the last 2 weren't.

You're just writing off a whole genre, a genre responsible for some of the best blockbusters of the last 15 years (imo), hell even the last year. Edge of Tomorrow being a prime example of a really good comic book film funnily enough.

Guardians of the Galaxy is probably the best Marvel film to date and it ticks all the boxes for lots of people which you are claiming to be lacking. Sure it's a studio driven production designed to make money, but so are all blockbusters at the end of the day, even the best ones and you know what, they're still art imo.

Mctiernan had creative control that was the difference of the first Die Hards and why they were good. Just shame what happened to him with that court case.

I'm gona watch Guardians of the Galaxy then and see if it will stop me writing off the whole genre

Mickeroo · 06-08-2014 1:12pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Mctiernan had creative control that was the difference of the first Die Hards and why they were good. Just shame what happened to him with that court case.

I'm gona watch Guardians of the Galaxy then and see if it will stop me writing off the whole genre

I think Gunn probably got a bit more creative control than the other Marvel films bar maybe Whedon. It's also not technically a super-hero film either so it does feel a bit different to the other Marvel stuff.

VinLieger · 06-08-2014 1:31pm

Guardians while technically being a superhero movie and being based in the Marvel movie universe has a distinctly different feel than any of the others so far. Its being likened a lot to Firefly.

While this is a good comparison its by no means is exactly the same, just a chip off the same block as far as humor, characters and story are pulled together.

I think its easily the best Marvel movie yet and ive heard the same from many others

Mal-Adjusted · 06-08-2014 1:40pm

I really think you're writing a whole sub-genera off out of hand without giving it a real chance. beyond the mere superficial, Iron Man 3 is nothing like Winter Soldier, and neither of them are anything like Days of Future Past.

You mightn't like them, which is fine, but it's very immature to whine about films and the people who do like them because it doesn't suit your taste.

However, what i do agree with is there are too many of them. We're fast reaching a point of over-saturation (some will argue we're already there) where the audiences will just get tired of it, sort of like with westerns.

Fysh · 06-08-2014 8:34pm

Deleted User wrote: »

For the third time, Ive already said i dont watch them anymore! Does that eliminate me from being allowed to have an opinion on them? Or perhaps say why I dont go and see them? Or must I adopt the same opinion as everyone else who loves these movies and just toe the line and say nothing?

Back to the discussion, I don't have verifiable proof or anything like that. I'm just giving my opinion based on whats in front of me.
Im not big into art house films. Im into films and art that show creativity and originality. Edge of Tomorrow as an example of a recent one. I feel like the constant reproduction of the same stuff is mind numbing.

Nobody's saying you can't have an opinion or that you have to "fall in line", but if your opinion is based on nonsense (or is factually incorrect) you're going to get called on it

So if you openly admit to not watching a bunch of films, you can't expect your statement that "they're all the same" to be given any weight. Why not just say "Nothing about them interested me so I didn't bother watching them?"

I don't like a lot of superhero films, for the same reason I don't like a lot of action films - when they're well-made, with a good cast and a strong script and/or choreography, they're great (The Raid is my go-to example for a film whose script was sparse to the point of barely being there, but which made it through on strong film-making and excellent choreography). But a lot of the time I find the script weak and predictable, the acting lacklustre and the action kind of dull. I figure the best thing is for me to skip those films, leave them to the folks who enjoy them and watch something else.

I guess where I'm going with this is, if you know you generally don't enjoy a film (or a type of film) there's a limited amount of interesting discourse to be had on the topic, and I don't really get why that conversation would be preferable to a conversation about something you actually enjoy.

ps3lover · 06-08-2014 10:22pm

I have good news for OP. DC have announced 9 more comic book movies between 2015-2020

Fysh · 07-08-2014 9:33am

ps3lover wrote: »

I have good news for OP. DC have announced 9 more comic book movies between 2015-2020

Ah here, don't start with "comic books = superheroes", that drives me up the wall

If you want to talk about "comic book movies" you have to include Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Road To Perdition, American Splendor, Ghost World, 300, Sin City, The Crow, A History Of Violence, Scott Pilgrim, 20th Century Boys, Oldboy. And that's just the good ones I can think of easily (mostly based on English-language comics).

If you expand it to cover Franco-Belgian & Italian comics, or manga for that matter, you get loads more - and a much wider variety of genres and styles.

danrua01 · 07-08-2014 9:46am

There's a huge variety of films available, being released all the time. The reasons you're seeing a lot of superhero films are 1) they're the popular ones that most cinemas will take in, 2) you'll always see a trend like this- look at armageddon and deep impact, the illusionist and the prestige. What happens is Film Company A releases this type of film, which gets a lot of attention and hype, Film Company B then realises it's had the same type of film waiting to be produced/picked up etc., for years, and hunts it out to get in the money.

Of course it'll fizzle out. I don't like Marvel films, I much prefer the darker DC ones, but you just have to go along with it...

pickarooney · 07-08-2014 10:05am

Speaking of comic book adaptations and unnecessary sequels, I just checked out Spielbergs's IMDB page to see are there any more Tintins planned (there are, two apparently) and saw this:

Indiana Jones 5 (????) (announced) (producer)

Reekwind · 07-08-2014 10:17am

danrua01 wrote: »

There's a huge variety of films available, being released all the time. The reasons you're seeing a lot of superhero films are 1) they're the popular ones that most cinemas will take in, 2) you'll always see a trend like this- look at armageddon and deep impact, the illusionist and the prestige. What happens is Film Company A releases this type of film, which gets a lot of attention and hype, Film Company B then realises it's had the same type of film waiting to be produced/picked up etc., for years, and hunts it out to get in the money.

I think it's more than that though. Already the sheer volume of superhero films has blitzed that released during Hollywood's post-Gladiator 'swords and sandals' phase. And certainly I can't recall anything like the aggressive plans to bring at two franchise films to the cinema every year. That's a scary pipeline.

Nor can I simply write this off as 'something to avoid' in the cinema. The reality is that if $300m is spent making and marketing a superhero film then that's $300m that's not been spent on other, non-superhero, films. That doesn't mean that the films that aren't being made would necessarily be good but they would at least be different.

danrua01 · 07-08-2014 10:21am

It's two massive film production companies, Marvel and DC, that are fighting it out. That's why it's much more increased than your example of the "swords and sandals", etc. It's happening, might as well enjoy it.

Penn · 07-08-2014 11:29am

Reekwind wrote: »

Nor can I simply write this off as 'something to avoid' in the cinema. The reality is that if $300m is spent making and marketing a superhero film then that's $300m that's not been spent on other, non-superhero, films. That doesn't mean that the films that aren't being made would necessarily be good but they would at least be different.

They're not mutually exclusive. Between box office, dvd sales, toy and merchandise rights etc, superhero films can make huge profits for the film companies, which can then be spent on other, non-superhero films.

The film company might never spend the initial $300m on non-superhero films because those films, while different, are more of an unknown quantity and might make a loss, whereas superhero films, for the recent past and probably for most of the next decade, are almost guaranteed to make a profit.

Building up profits with superhero blockbusters can allow the production companies to take more of a risk with films which might not make a profit.

Mickeroo · 07-08-2014 11:33am

It's not like Marvel or DC would be financing other movies if they weren't making super-hero films anyway...

Fysh · 07-08-2014 11:56am

Reekwind wrote: »

Nor can I simply write this off as 'something to avoid' in the cinema. The reality is that if $300m is spent making and marketing a superhero film then that's $300m that's not been spent on other, non-superhero, films. That doesn't mean that the films that aren't being made would necessarily be good but they would at least be different.

The thing is, there is no world with anything like our current film-production setup where any studio that might decide to make a big-budget superhero film was ever seriously trying to decide whether to spend that money on a big-budget film (superhero or otherwise, if you unfocus your eyes enough the similarities are more notable than the specific differences) or whether to bankroll a bunch of cheaper but riskier ventures.

Unfortunately, that's how stuff works. One thing I find a bit odd with the Marvel films in particular is that they aren't a broad-spectrum studio - they are specifically exploiting Marvel's predominantly-superhero-oriented comics IP in film form. So where WB also get involved in a variety of different productions, with Marvel it's capes all the way down. Whether the parent companies redistribute the profits to support smaller projects is difficult to say, but it's the sort of thing that's going to be interesting to watch in a few years time, once the accumulated weight of their film output starts to weigh down new Marvel productions...

Reekwind · 07-08-2014 2:26pm

Penn wrote: »

They're not mutually exclusive. Between box office, dvd sales, toy and merchandise rights etc, superhero films can make huge profits for the film companies, which can then be spent on other, non-superhero films.

So companies are making so much money on superhero films that they're keen on investing in non-superhero films? Surely the opposite logic hold true: to optimise their investment they should invest that capital in more superhero flicks?

And, in truth, I don't know how the funds are split between Marvel (itself a Disney company) and any studio partners but surely the former will siphon off a large amount of the cash.

Mickeroo wrote:

It's not like Marvel or DC would be financing other movies if they weren't making super-hero films anyway...

Are they stumping up all the cash themselves? I mean, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (snigger) also involves Warner Bros and a third party financier.

Fysh wrote:

The thing is, there is no world with anything like our current film-production setup where any studio that might decide to make a big-budget superhero film was ever seriously trying to decide whether to spend that money on a big-budget film (superhero or otherwise, if you unfocus your eyes enough the similarities are more notable than the specific differences) or whether to bankroll a bunch of cheaper but riskier ventures.

I'm not going to suggest that all that money would have otherwise been invested in Russian social realism films or the like but, frankly, at this stage I'd take another dumb blockbuster over a dumb blockbuster with a cape. At least these would have the potential to do something new, whereas superhero films are just becoming monotonous.

One thing I find a bit odd with the Marvel films in particular is that they aren't a broad-spectrum studio - they are specifically exploiting Marvel's predominantly-superhero-oriented comics IP in film form. So where WB also get involved in a variety of different productions, with Marvel it's capes all the way down. Whether the parent companies redistribute the profits to support smaller projects is difficult to say, but it's the sort of thing that's going to be interesting to watch in a few years time, once the accumulated weight of their film output starts to weigh down new Marvel productions...

They'll just start again. We're currently averaging a Spiderman film every two years. At this rate we'll have the opportunity to watch a new take on how Peter Parker gets his powers sometime around 2018.

danrua01 · 07-08-2014 2:43pm

Why is it such a big issue?

Fysh · 07-08-2014 4:29pm

Reekwind wrote: »

So companies are making so much money on superhero films that they're keen on investing in non-superhero films? Surely the opposite logic hold true: to optimise their investment they should invest that capital in more superhero flicks?

These companies are also aware of two things:
1) that they can get valuable tax breaks by broadening their diversity of production (either because this leads to using different locations which offer tax breaks, or by providing productions which can at least offer the appearance of being a massive loss centre against which ludicrous profits can be offset)
2) genres go in and out of fashion, and the smart way to not bite it entirely is by not being overly reliant on one genre. Marvel Studios is considerably more exposed than anyone else thus far, in that GotG is the first non-overtly-superheroic film they've done and even then it still appears to fit the same overall action-fantasy-adventure template as the rest of the Marvel Studio films (I say "appears" because I've seen 4 Marvel Studios films and been bored by three of them, so I'm disinclined to watch any more of them).

Reekwind wrote: »

They'll just start again. We're currently averaging a Spiderman film every two years. At this rate we'll have the opportunity to watch a new take on how Peter Parker gets his powers sometime around 2018.

If there's one thing that should earn any screenwriter an automatic kick in the nuts, it's the suggestion of retreading a character's origin story when the audience already knows it. Nolan just about pulled it off with Batman Begins, but that was an exception. Then again, this probably falls under the wider rebootorama problem that Hollywood studios seem to have...

Mal-Adjusted · 07-08-2014 5:35pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Are they stumping up all the cash themselves? I mean, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (snigger) also involves Warner Bros and a third party

just on this point, DC comics is wholely owned by Warner bros, so it's not as if profits are going to be siphoned off that way.

takamichinoku · 07-08-2014 7:55pm

Could easily go on for damn near forever at this stage, to be honest. With Warner owning DC and Disney owning Marvel (find it odd that not everyone is aware of the latter one of those yet) means they're able to make films from successful franchises they outright own and have fanbases will do about 90% of work marketing them regardless.
There's also enough options in terms of characters to base films off that it probably wouldn't be too hard for either of them to ensure any flops only stink up that one thing rather than spreading across the whole superhero movie genre.

I find the whole lot pretty damn repetitive at this stage but they're easy enough to ignore for the most part. Almost every one of the Marvel ones at least has been super handy in terms of being a very easy to watch, competent film to shut the brain down in front of too.

Might need to revisit this post after I see Guardians of the Galaxy, I'm expecting it to be pretty low risk but that could be a huge difference compared to the relative to the usual levels of riskiness in a Marvel film.

Radiosonde · 07-08-2014 9:53pm

Fysh wrote: »

These companies are also aware of two things:
1) that they can get valuable tax breaks by broadening their diversity of production (either because this leads to using different locations which offer tax breaks, or by providing productions which can at least offer the appearance of being a massive loss centre against which ludicrous profits can be offset)
2) genres go in and out of fashion, and the smart way to not bite it entirely is by not being overly reliant on one genre. Marvel Studios is considerably more exposed than anyone else thus far, in that GotG is the first non-overtly-superheroic film they've done and even then it still appears to fit the same overall action-fantasy-adventure template as the rest of the Marvel Studio films (I say "appears" because I've seen 4 Marvel Studios films and been bored by three of them, so I'm disinclined to watch any more of them).

If there's one thing that should earn any screenwriter an automatic kick in the nuts, it's the suggestion of retreading a character's origin story when the audience already knows it. Nolan just about pulled it off with Batman Begins, but that was an exception. Then again, this probably falls under the wider rebootorama problem that Hollywood studios seem to have...

The screenwriter doesn't decide what story is going to be told; despite how often the role is mentioned by cinemagoers, they have next-to-no-power. The studio wants an origin story, that's what the screenwriter writes.

Fysh · 07-08-2014 10:30pm

Radiosonde wrote: »

The screenwriter doesn't decide what story is going to be told; despite how often the role is mentioned by cinemagoers, they have next-to-no-power. The studio wants an origin story, that's what the screenwriter writes.

I figure enough of them get kicked in the nuts for it, the studio will run out of people willing to write that particular variant of stupid script

OTOH, as I said above, the damn things keep drawing viewers and succeeding financially, so apparently there's a financially dependable audience who does want to see basically the same story told over and over again...

07-08-2014 10:36pm

Fysh wrote: »

Ah here, don't start with "comic books = superheroes", that drives me up the wall

It annoys me a hell of a lot too. Looking at my comic shelves and of the hundreds of trades I own I would imagine that less than a quarter are superheroes. Some of the most original, intelligent and adult story telling is in comic book form but most people aren't aware of it and happy to write them all off as superhero nonsense for kids. Rereading Scalped atm and far as I'm concerned it's one of the finest stories of the past decade and the equal to anything we see onscreen. Were it a TV show and you know damn well that it would be up there with Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones in the way that people spoke of it

krudler · 08-08-2014 12:55am

The superhero movie thing needs to stop...

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