“I used to think that my life was a tragedy. But now I realize, it’s a fucking comedy.” – Arthur Fleck/Joker (played by Joaquin Phoenix) “I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it.” – Christopher Smith/Peacemaker (played by John Cena) Today, my summer blog series on the evolution of comic book movies comes to an end. I’ve examined the origins of the genre with Richard Donner’s Superman and Tim Burton’s Batman and looked at how this genre’s come to dominate cinema before and after the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not to mention the impact of the MCU itself). Thus, what better way to end this series than by looking ahead to try and predict where this genre is going for the next ten years…and beyond? And what better way to do that than look back on four comic book movies that (in my humble opinion) foreshadow trends within the genre in unique yet equally interesting ways? Before we get started, I have decided to not write about James Mangold’s Logan here because I wrote about it so extensively in another blog. So, click here for my full thoughts on Logan both as a western and as a groundbreaking comic book movie. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for several movies. You have been warned.] Black Panther (2018) By the early 1990s, Wesley Snipes (Blade, Dolemite Is My Name) began working to get a film about the Marvel Comics superhero Black Panther made out of his desire to offer an artistic counter to how he felt Hollywood typically portrayed Africa in cinema. By 1994, Snipes entered talks with Columbia Pictures to star in the project and was in talks with writer-directors like John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) about the movie. However, by the early 2000s, issues with the drafted screenplays and at Marvel’s corporate level stalled the project in the midst of Snipes starring in the Blade trilogy for the company. In 2005, producer and at-the-time Marvel CEO Avi Arad (X-Men, Spider-Man 2) restated the company’s intentions to adapt Black Panther to the silver screen under the newly-formed Marvel Studios. This intention was reiterated two years later by Marvel Studios producer Kevin Feige, but Snipes’s involvement was on hold due to him serving a three-year sentence for tax evasion. In 2011, documentarian Mark Bailey (Ethel, Last Days in Vietnam) was hired by Feige to write a screenplay for the project. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe in full swing by this point, seeds were being planted related to the world of Black Panther and Wakanda (i.e. the introduction of vibranium in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger). In October of 2014, Feige officially announced the feature film Black Panther set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Chadwick Boseman (42, Get on Up, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) cast in the lead role of T’Challa that would first appear in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Several directors, including Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th) and F. Gary Gray (Friday, Straight Outta Compton), were in talks with Feige about directing the movie. Discussions with another emerging filmmaker, Ryan Cooler (Fruitvale Station), had stalled but picked up once again after the successful opening of his 2015 sports drama Creed. In January of 2016, Coogler was officially hired to direct Black Panther. Part of Coogler agreeing to join the project was Feige allowing him to bring on some of the crew from Fruitvale Station and Creed in order to differentiate the look and feel of Black Panther from other Marvel Studios movies. Specifically, he hired cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Dope, Mudbound), production designer Hannah Beachler (Moonlight, No Sudden Move), and composer Ludwig Göransson (Creed II, The Mandalorian, Tenet) for the film. In addition to directing, Coogler also co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story). Coogler and Cole were heavily inspired by Jack Kirby’s Christopher Priest’s, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ comic runs on the character, among others. Specifically, Coogler wanted to feature Kraven the Hunter as a main antagonist for the film but could not due to Sony holding the film rights to the character. While Coogler ensured with Cole that the story of the film remain independent from anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Feige ensured fans that the story and the location of Wakanda would be cemented as “a very important” link to Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel, Avengers: Endgame. Furthermore, Coogler wanted to integrate the Wakanda language (first introduced in Civil War), which was heavily inspired by the Xhosa language of southern Africa, into the screenplay as much as possible. He particularly wanted characters to utilize it organically, but often. By July of 2016, much of the supporting cast for the film was officially announced. This included Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave, The Jungle Book, Us) as T’Challa’s lover Nakia, Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station, Creed, Just Mercy) as the main villain Erik Killmonger, and Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead) as Wakandan general Okoye. Later announcements that year were Winston Duke (Us) as renegade chieftain M’Baku, Forest Whitaker (Good Morning, Vietnam, Bird, The Last King of Scotland) as King T’Chaka’s trusted advisor Zuri, Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah) as T’Challa’s best friend W’Kabi, Angela Bassett (Boyz n the Hood, Malcolm X, Soul) as T’Challa’s mother Ramonda, and Letitia Wright (Ready Player One, Death on the Nile) as T’Challa’s little sister Shuri. In designing the look of Wakanda, Coogler was inspired by the African nation of Lesotho due to its geography enabling it to mostly resist European colonization. In doing so, he aimed to ground the environments of the film in reality and overhaul some of the more alien-looking looks of Wakandan technologies found in Kirby’s comic book aesthetic. Furthermore, Beachler looked to the pre-colonization architecture of the Mali Empire in West Africa as well as the aesthetic of other nations (i.e. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia) in order for the sets of the film to serve as a love letter to the African continent. Regarding the clothing for the characters in the movie, costume designer Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm X, Amistad, Dolemite Is My Name) looked to the wardrobe of several African tribes (i.e. Maasai, Basotho, Zhosa, Zulu) to inspire the film’s costumes. Specifically, she aimed to avoid objectifying the women of the Dora Milaje by fully armoring them in red which reflected many African cultures while also being practical outfits for battle. The hair department, supervised by Camille Friend, sought to encourage the actors to keep their natural hair by utilizing braids and twists while only using extensions or wigs when necessary. Principal photography lasted from January to April of 2017. Mostly shooting both in the studio and on location in Atlanta, Georgia, with the crew moving to various parts of Busan, South Korea for the car chase scene in the first act as well as Uganda, South Africa, and Zambia for aerial footage and capturing scenic environments. During post-production, several visual effects studios (primarily Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM) were involved in enhancing the urban environments of Wakanda with the mission of sticking to Coogler’s vision for including and preserving authentic aspects of African culture. Released in February of 2018, Black Panther became the second-highest-grossing film of 2018 by earning more than 1.3 billion dollars on a 200-million-dollar budget (it is currently the thirteenth-highest-grossing film of all time). Critically, the film was almost universally praised for its direction, screenplay, costume and production design, music, and the performances of Boseman, Jordan, and Wright. It earned the first Best Picture nomination for a comic book flick, and Marvel Studios’s first Oscar wins for costume design, score, and production design. Culturally, critics and film historians recognized the significance of the film as an achievement in non-stereotypical representation for the African and African-American communities due to its majority-black cast and making Africa and African culture the focus of a major Hollywood blockbuster. Having written about Black Panther twice, once on its own terms and another time within the broader context of the MCU, I’d rather focus here on the film’s cultural significance within the comic book genre. So, if you’re interested on my criticisms of the movie in and of itself, I recommend clicking either of those links. Despite my mixed feelings about it, I cannot deny how important Black Panther is for the superhero genre. Without question, it aimed to elevate blockbuster filmmaking in the modern age with some relevant and potent social commentary about the history of abuses towards black and brown people. I imagine that’s part of the reason why the film (particularly Jordan’s character of Erik Killmonger) resonated so much with so many people. That being said, the movie does a decent enough job injecting its political messages without forgetting what makes these kinds of movies entertaining. By having some solid action scenes (I always enjoyed the casino fight and car chase in Busan, South Korea), Black Panther retains the fun-spirited nature of comic book movies for much of its runtime. While I don’t believe that it always does so well, I acknowledge that there’s enough action-adventure beats to make the film a fun ride most of the time. Arguably, however, the film’s legacy will not lie with its story, characters, or themes, but with its cultural resonance and impact on Hollywood as a whole. Peoples’ thoughts about the credibility and relevance of the Academy Awards may vary, but (in my humble opinion) Black Panther cemented its name in modern cinematic history by becoming the first superhero flick nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Simply put, the fact that this kind of a movie can be viewed in the eyes of industry figures and critics as a great movie worthy of awards-season recognition shows just how much this genre of cinema has become mainstream with both cinephiles and general moviegoers alike (it also proves that The Dark Knight was robbed, but I digress 😊). Needless to say, this movie has hopefully paved the way for future comic book movies that are just as, if not more, deserving of such Oscar recognition to receive it. All that being said, Black Panther is undeniably an important watershed moment for positive representation of African and African-American culture in film (preceding how Shang-Chi did this for Asian representation and Ms. Marvel for Muslim representation). As a white person, I cannot personally speak to the importance of this. Yet, I will not argue against the fact that seeing black superhero role models like T’Challa, Okoye, and Shuri on the big screen gives hope to black and brown kids around the world that they can achieve their dreams and make a difference in the world. Regardless of my opinions about the film as a work of art, the cast and crew of Black Panther deserve the praise they received on this level alone. And, hopefully, its sequel coming out this November will have a similar cultural significance in addition to being a great comic book movie. Image by eduardo merino from Pixabay Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Considered a less-than-ideal way of this kind of news breaking, the public learned of Sony Pictures’ intentions to develop an animated comedy Spider-Man-focused movie with writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie) following Sony’s computers being hacked in 2014 and e-mails about the project being leaked. Producer Amy Pascal (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Venom) approached Lord and Miller about the project, who agreed on the condition that they were allowed to adapt Marvel Comics writer Dan Slott’s 2014 “Spider-Verse” storyline with Miles Morales as the protagonist. The project was officially announced in the spring of 2015, with Lord Miller attached to produce as well as write a story treatment, as a standalone story from previous and concurrent live-action Spider-Man flicks. Initially intended to be solely directed by writer and animator Bob Persichetti (Shrek 2, Puss in Boots), both Peter Ramsey (Batman Forever, Rise of the Guardians) and Rodney Rothman (22 Jump Street) signed on to co-direct the project by the end of 2017. In writing the screenplay with Rothman, Lord knew that a good reason was needed for this particular Spider-Man project (ultimately deciding that it was telling Morales’s story becoming the famous web-crawler that made this project unique). Once figuring that out, Lord and Rothman were consulted by Morales’s co-creator Brian Michael Bendis. In the original versions of the script, a romance between Morales and Spider-Gwen was included but scrapped. However, the character of Spider-Gwen was kept as a prominent supporting player thanks to the efforts of producer Christina Steinberg. Finally, in brainstorming a post-credits scene, Lord and Rothman initially aimed to feature a union of all three live-action Spider-Man actors but Sony advised against it in order to avoid confusing the audience. By April of 2017, Shameik Moore (Dope) was cast to voice Miles Morales while Live Schreiber (Scream, Goon, Spotlight) would voice Kingpin as the film’s antagonist. By June of 2018, Morales’s father Jefferson Davis and uncle Aaron Davis were cast with Brian Tyree Henry (If Beale Street Could Talk, Eternals) and Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Green Book) playing the roles, respectively. Also, Jake Johnson (21 Jump Street, Jurassic World) was announced as the voice of Morales’s mentor, Peter B. Parker/Spider-Man, and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, The Edge of Seventeen, Bumblebee) was revealed to be voicing Spider-Gwen. In choosing which alternate Spider-Man characters would be in the movie, Lord and Miller aimed to find characters from Marvel Comics lines who “were as diverse as possible.” In overseeing the animation design, Lord and Miller wanted the audience to feel like they had “walked inside a comic book” in order to use animation to tell a Spider-Man story in a way that live action was unable to. After nearly one year of work by two animators, ten seconds of footage was signed off on by Lord and Miller which became the basis for creating the visual language of the movie. In order to hit the film’s late-2018 release date, the initial crew of one animator grew to over 170 by the summer of 2018 (the largest animation team in Sony’s production history). By having artists working on top of rendered CGI frames in 2D, the creative team for the film aimed to make every frame “look like a comic panel” with some inspiration from Japanese anime (particularly the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli). Released in December of 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse grossed over 375 million dollars on a 90-million-dollar budget and earned rave reviews from critics who praised the film’s animation style, characterization, story, voice acting, and humor. Many people, including actors from other comic book media, praised the movie and deemed it a game-changer for the medium of both animation and the superhero movie genre. It became the first Sony Animation film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and is to date only one of five non-Disney or Pixar animated films to win the award. For my more extensive thoughts on Into the Spider-Verse in and of itself, click here. Instead, I want to focus my thoughts here on what this movie did for the comic book movie genre both at the time and going forward. As I’ve said before, I don’t love Into the Spider-Verse in the way that many comic book movie fans do. However, similar to Black Panther, I greatly respect what it has done both for the genre and for moviemaking in general. I think that sometimes people forget how this movie pulled off a multiverse story months before the release of Avengers: Endgame (let alone years prior to Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). In fact, I’d contend that general audiences may not have bought into the epic time-travel story of those aforementioned Marvel movies as much as they did without the success of Into the Spider-Verse. On its own terms, however, the movie excels as an innovative piece of visual storytelling. The work that Sony put into designing its signature style and flair made an incalculable impact on how filmmakers can faithfully adapt the look of comic books and graphic novels for the silvers screen. While the frenetic nature of Into the Spider-Verse can be (in my humble opinion) overwhelming at times, it’s undeniably the most forward-thinking aspect of the film. But the part of the movie that I’ve found to be generally underappreciated is its subtle celebration of diversity. Without ever drawing attention to Miles Morales’s Puerto Rican heritage, audiences can pick up on those hints without being taken out of the story. Furthermore, the fact that two of the Spider-People (Gwen Stacy and Peni Parker) are women does not come off as a cynical example of forced inclusion, but rather serves the filmmakers’ thematic lens of telling a story about how people with different backgrounds can come together to help others not in spite of what makes them unique, but because of it. Without question, that’s the most beautiful thing about Into the Spider-Verse. And combined with its prescient multiverse story and hyper-creative animation style, it’s no wonder that the movie remains culturally relevant nearly four years after it first came out (and with two sequels on the way!). Joker (2019) During the early 2010s, Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator, Walk the Line, Her) was looking for a low-budget “character study” project centered on a comic book villain. He was more interested in a one-off experience compared to offers from Marvel Studios to sign a multi-picture project to play Doctor Strange or another comic book hero. Around the same time, Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover) turned down multiple offers to direct superhero movies because he lacked interest in the genre. However, he was intrigued by creating a more grounded comic book movie, and was specifically attracted to telling the origins of DC’s Joker because the lack of a definitive backstory gave him more creative freedom than other characters. Following the premiere of his black comedy crime film War Dogs, Phillips pitched his idea for a standalone Joker origin story to Warner Brothers. Despite being known for his comedy movies, Phillips was driven to do something more “irreverent” and proposed to the studio that they differentiate themselves from Marvel Studios by producing low-budget, one-off films. They were particularly swayed by this prospect after the critical and commercial success of Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, and decided to de-emphasize the DC Extended Universe by revealing plans for a Joker film with Phillips directing and co-writing the screenplay with Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter), while Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street) agreed to produce. In writing the screenplay, Phillips and Silver struggled to have some of the subject matter be approved by Warner Brothers. Furthermore, they sought not to make the film overtly political despite its themes being relevant to modern society. Instead, Phillips had childhood trauma and mental illness in mind when writing the script. Drawing inspiration from several of Scorsese’s movies, notably Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, Phillips looked to several character studies of the 1970s as well from Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to Sidney Lumet’s Serpico. In terms of looking to comics, the premise for the movie came from the 1988 graphic novel “Batman: The Killing Joke” while the climactic talk show scene was inspired by a scene from the 1986 graphic novel “The Dark Knight Returns.” Yet Phillips insisted that he aimed to not tell the story of Joker, but rather “the story of becoming Joker” and thus “picked and chose” what they liked from a variety of comic books featuring the character. Phillips looked not just to fiction for inspiration, but also living conditions in New York City in the 1980s. A specific instance that inspired the movie’s subway shooting scene was Bernhard Goetz’s shooting four men on a New York City subway in 1984. But in bringing another interpretation of Joker to the silver screen, Phillips aimed to retain the ambiguous nature of the character’s past by having him be a delusional and unreliable narrator (and thus giving the audience total freedom to interpret the film as they prefer). Despite the studio pressuring Phillips to cast Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Aviator, The Revenant) in the lead role, he insisted on casting Phoenix to play Joker. However, despite the story initially exciting Phoenix he hesitated to accept the offer due to his concern that the character could become a “simplified, reductive archetype” and thus cause the audience to feel distant from him. In the wake of the disappointing performance of 2017’s Justice League, Walter Hamada took over as head of DC Films at Warner Brothers and sifted through the movies currently in development to decide which projects should move forward. Unsure of the prospects of the Joker movie, Hamada shrunk its budget to fifty-five million dollars in an effort to dissuade Phillips. However, by July of 2018 Phoenix had made a deal to star in the movie after four months of back-and-forth negotiations with Phillips. As soon as Phoenix signed on, Hamada greenlit the film and set it for an October 2019 release date. Principal photography began in New York City in September of 2018, and moved to Jersey City and Newark by October before shifting back to the city by mid-November. Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2, The Harder They Fall), who accepted a supporting role in the movie, described how Phillips would rewrite scenes the night before and she and Phoenix would rehearse them in the make-up trailer before shooting the scene that day. Furthermore, according to Phillips, Phoenix was known to sometimes walk off-set while filming out of a need to compose himself (which confused some of the actors because they felt that they messed up). However, Phoenix apparently never walked off set while shooting with Robert de Niro (The King of Comedy, Goodfellas, The Irishman) who commented that what Phoenix was doing was “very intense.” In designing the look of Gotham for the film, Newark was specifically chosen due to the presence of poverty which Phillips wanted to be apparent in Arthur Fleck’s surroundings. To prepare for the role of Fleck, Phoenix lost 52 pounds so as to appear “malnourished,” studied videos of people diagnosed with pathological laughter, and read books about political assassins in order to grasp the motivations of killers. After premiering at the Venice Film Festival in August, Joker debuted in theaters on October 4, 2019. On a budget of approximately 62 million dollars, the film grossed over one billion dollars worldwide becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film and the third-highest-grossing DC film of all time (surpassing Deadpool 2 and The Dark Knight, respectively). While critics were generally towards the film’s direction, visuals, score, and cinematography (with universal praise going towards Phoenix’s performance), they were more divided over its portrayal of mental illness and violence. Still, the movie received a leading eleven nominations at that year’s Oscars (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won Best Actor for Phoenix and Best Original Score for Icelandic musician Hildur Guðnadóttir. Joker is a divisive comic book movie, and understandably so. Coming from Todd Phillips, a generally-liked comedy director, it’s a film that takes so much of what fans of superhero flicks have come to expect and turns those expectations on their head in pursuit of crafting a gritty story about insanity, violence, and closing society off to those deemed “undesirable.” In other words, it’s one of those movies that’s not really enjoyable to watch yet works in spite of that. Yes, I’m someone who really likes Joker. Apparently, to some, this is a controversial opinion. Honestly, though, I’ve seen the film twice and struggle to be convinced by many peoples’ major criticisms of it. However, that’s probably a topic for another time. Because even if you don’t like Joker, it’s a movie that (in my humble opinion) will heavily influence how some filmmakers approach taking the comic book movie genre in a new direction going forward. First of all, Joker laughs in the face of those who describe other superhero movies such as The Dark Knight as “grounded.” It’s clear that Phillips’s intentions in making the movie was to capture a villain’s origin story on a plane of realism that most comic book films can only dream of (if they even try at all). In that regard, Joker is not a movie about the Joker—at least the comic book villain that Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger and (unfortunately) Jared Leto have portrayed. Rather, Joaquin Phoenix crafts a deeply troubled, lonely, and psychologically fragile man—Arthur Fleck—whose transformative break from reality puts him on the path to becoming the infamous archenemy of the “Caped Crusader” of Gotham. By doing so, Joker transcends its comic book roots in the ideas it explores and its visual and aesthetic homage to the hyper-realistic crime films of the 1970s and 1980s. Whether or not that makes for a good movie is a matter of taste, but it certainly makes for a pretty unique approach within this genre of cinema that only films like Logan or The Dark Knight even come close to. Aside from Phoenix’s one-for-the-ages performance, I think the best part of Joker from a cinematic perspective is how well it uses the various elements of filmmaking to explore its themes and establish a distinctively dark tone and gritty atmosphere. The score, composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, stands out as one of the more haunting uses of music (particularly during the bathroom scene) that I’ve seen in a drama in the last ten years. In addition, the Oscar-nominated cinematography of Lawrence Sher utilizes some incredibly inspired shot choices (the meaningfully awkward close-ups on Phoenix’s face, to be specific) to make the film exclusively from Fleck’s tragically distorted point of view. Simply put, these elements of moviemaking combine to create a tour de force of a character study that encapsulates so much of the anxieties of modern society which turn Fleck into a psychopathic killer. Again, you don’t have to agree with me that the film does this well. But, I think it’s safe to say that Joker has several artistic merits that alone make the movie worth watching. Furthermore, it cemented in the minds of Hollywood the reality that audiences want darker and grittier superhero stories (in the same way that Logan did). Regardless of your opinions of Joker, it’s difficult to deny the conversation that the film started and the fact that it’s commercial success proves how much the comic book movie genre is here to stay because it can branch out in such a different direction than Marvel Studios are doing. Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊 祖 武 ) from Pixabay The Suicide Squad (2021)
Despite the negative critical response to David Ayer’s Suicide Squad that came out in 2016, Warner Brothers deemed it enough of a commercial success to warrant fast-tracking development on a sequel. As Ayer was intent on directing an all-female team-up film centered on Harley Quinn, the studio began the search for a director to the Suicide Squad sequel by early 2017 and considered figures such as Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom, Uncharted), Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies, Long Shot), and Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Hacksaw Ridge). By July of 2018, Catalonia native Jaume Collet-Serra (The Commuter, Jungle Cruise) was the new favorite to direct the sequel. However, after accepting Jungle Cruise and preferring to do an origin story (in the form of the upcoming Dwayne Johnson-led Black Adam), he left the project. A month later, Gavin O’Connor (Miracle, Warrior) was chosen to direct and co-write the film, but left by October to make The Way Back with Ben Affleck while also being frustrated that Warner Brothers was moving ahead with Cathy Yan’s spin-off film, Birds of Prey, that had a story remarkably similar to his script. By this point, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jared Leto were expected to reprise their roles of Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Joker, respectively, despite the fact that the movie still lacked a director and shooting script. Around that same time, however, a miracle fell into Warner Brothers’s hands in the form of James Gunn (Slither, Guardians of the Galaxy). In October that year, after being fired by Disney from directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Gunn closed a deal to write and possibly direct a sequel to Suicide Squad. After initially expressing hesitancy due to the studio’s insistence that he direct a Superman movie, Gunn became more interested in working with DC when Warner Brothers gave him creative license to adapt any DC property that he wanted to. After choosing to make a movie about the Suicide Squad, Gunn was given near-complete creative control over the project (their main hope was that he would include Robbie’s version of Harley Quinn in the story). But the day after Gunn was officially hired to direct the film, Disney reinstated him as director of Vol. 3 and Gunn spoke with Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, who agreed to delay production on Vol. 3 for Gunn in return for Gunn agreeing to “make a great movie” in the Suicide Squad sequel. By January 2019, the film received its official title and release date (The Suicide Squad was Gunn’s joke title, but Warner Brothers liked it and agreed to it). Based on a three-page treatment, Gunn wrote several drafts of the screenplay which the studio very much liked. Gunn aimed to make the movie “its own thing,” as opposed to a direct sequel or full-on reboot, by not referencing the events of Suicide Squad or Birds of Prey while also not outright contradicting or retconning them. Aiming to make an R-rated superhero comedy (despite Warner Brothers insisting that it be PG-13), Gunn took inspiration from John Ostrander’s original “Suicide Squad” comic book run in the 1980s as well as 1960s war movies like The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen. In choosing his team roster, Gunn spent days sifting through the library of DC Comics characters in order a formulate a team that would work well together while also ensuring that each of them felt like they were pulled out of different genres. Furthermore, he wanted his team to feel different from the characters in his two Guardians of the Galaxy films by making the audience uncertain of who would end up being bad or good. Several characters, from Deathstroke to Mr. Freeze, were rejected. Notably, he decided not to include the Joker because he felt that Amanda Waller would have no need to use him as part of the Suicide Squad. Regarding the story itself, Gunn wanted to take risks by making a film that “didn’t play by the rules.” To do this, he incorporated sequences from certain characters’ explicit points of view, an isolated subplot where Harley Quinn is separated from the rest of the action, and title cards to segue between scenes. When it came to the film’s primary antagonist, Gunn put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Waller and the U.S. government given the real-world history of American interventionism in underdeveloped nations. Initially interested in making Superman the big-bad that the Suicide Squad team goes to fight, Gunn ultimately chose to feature Starro the Conqueror as a character that he found both ridiculous and terrifying, but also he figured it was the only major DC Comics villain very unlikely that the character would be adapted by another filmmaker in the future. Furthermore, in deciding what characters to kill off, the studio gave Gunn permission to kill any character. However, Gunn did not want to give in to the temptation to not kill off any of the major characters in the end. Thus, he decided that Pola-Dot Man would be the best choice given his arc was the most complete by that point in the story. When it came to casting his Suicide Squad team, Gunn defend Ayer’s casting choices in spite of the overall negative reception of 2016’s Suicide Squad. First and foremost, Gunn wrote in Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Viola Davis’s version of Amanda Waller while Smith was revealed by February of 2019 to no longer be involved. In place of Smith’s version of Deadshot, Gunn met with Idris Elba to play a different character which Elba felt “honored” to be considered for the movie. Not long after, both Joel Kinnaman and Jai Courtney were preparing to reprise their roles of Rick Flag and Captain Boomerang, respectively, from Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Unlike Elba being cast as Bloodsport (Gunn was initially unsure which character Elba would play), Gunn wrote the King Shark character with Sylvester Stallone in mind. After Dave Bautista was busy filming Army of the Dead with Zack Snyder, Gunn oversaw negotiations for John Cena to play the role of Peacemaker after Gunn saw Cena’s performance in Judd Apatow’s comedy film Trainwreck. In April, David Dastmalchian and Daniela Melchior were cast as Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher, respectively, while Michael Rooker was in negotiations to play Savant in May. By September, the full cast was finalized and included Peter Capaldi as the Thinker, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Flula Borg as Javelin, Nathan Fillion as T.D.K., Alice Braga as Sol Soria, and Sean Gunn performing motion capture for Weasel. Principal photography began in late September of 2019 at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, and lasted for about three months before moving to Colón, Panama for a month to shoot scenes on the streets of Corto Maltese. Gunn utilized many practical effects (especially compared to other comic book movies), such as for the scene of King Shark ripping a person in half. Filming wrapped in late February of 2020 in Porto, Portugal. According to Gunn, Warner Brothers never interfered with his creative process except for a few minor notes. Furthermore, he claimed that The Suicide Squad was the most fun that he had making a film due to being able to prioritize creativity over perfectionism, being in a good place mentally and emotionally, having a “stupendous” cast, crew, and producers, and feeling at the height of his directing talents. Released on August 5, 2021, The Suicide Squad was positively received by many critics due to Gunn’s direction and screenplay, and people generally agreed that it was a significant improvement over Ayer’s movie. However, the film was a box-office disappointment as it grossed less than 170 million dollars on a 185-million-dollar budget. Analysts surmised that the movie’s poor financial performance was due to anxieties about the COVD-19 pandemic, the movie being simultaneously released to stream on HBO Max, and some confusion among general audiences about whether the film was a sequel to or a reboot of its 2016 predecessor. In spite of its poor box-office performance, I think that James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad has immense potential to impact the future of comic book movies more than we may think right now. First off, it improves upon the success of the Deadpool films by turning away from relying almost exclusively on meta humor and out-of-left-field pop culture references. Instead, Gunn’s writing (combined with the performances of the cast) makes this movie undoubtedly one of the funniest comic book films ever made (the only other major contenders being Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy films and Taika Waititi’s Thor movies). But why is it funnier? Well, if you ask me, The Suicide Squad does what a movie like Deadpool does but better. Essentially, Gunn made a “soft parody” the superhero movies by subverting most of audiences’ expectations about what this kind of movie is. Whereas other comic book flicks spend two hours trying to invest you in the main hero’s journey and character growth, Gunn makes it clear from the get-go that you’re not supposed to empathize with most of these characters. Also, while other comic book movies use team-up scenarios for the payoff of seeing them work together, Gunn makes their teamwork the most chaotic and anti-climatic part of the movie (albeit in the best way). Essentially, The Suicide Squad is a great example of showing a different path that filmmakers can take within the superhero genre without being hyper-experimental so as to turn off general moviegoers. Undoubtedly, it’s one of the best things that DC Films has offered in the last decade (I’d throw the spin-off show, Peacemaker, into that conversation as well). Did it make a ton of money compared to other comic book movies? No, but I don’t think it needed to in order to leave its mark on the genre in the way that it did. Simply put, if DC and Warner Brothers can offer comic book fans creative visions as starkly different (but equally interesting) as Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and Matt Reeves’s The Batman, then I wouldn’t count them out yet as being a solid alternative producer of blockbuster superhero entertainment. Certainly, there are other superhero movies that you could argue serve as predictors for where the genre is going. Whether it’s Zack Snyder’s four-hour director’s cut of Justice League, Matt Reeves’s crime epic The Batman, or Taika Waititi’s zany romantic comedy Thor: Love and Thunder, there is clearly still plenty of room for filmmakers of all different sensibilities and styles to innovate within the comic book genre and leave their mark on it for viewers of all ages and backgrounds to enjoy these kinds of blockbuster movies. And with so many superhero movies announced from Marvel, Sony, and Warner Brothers like The Marvels, Blade, The Flash, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we won’t have to wait long to see what comes next for superhero fans. Which of these comic book movies do you think best foreshadows where the genre is going for the next decade? What are some other recent superhero flicks that you think people should check out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay In 1988, the Penny Marshall-directed fantasy comedy Big made a significant impact upon its release. Not only did it gross over 150 million dollars on an eighteen-million-dollar budget, but critics universally praised the movie for the performances (notably Hanks) and it received two Oscar nominations (including Hanks’s first acting nomination). Surely, many people place Big alongside the best comedies of the 1980s (from Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters to Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally…).
But I have to ask…why isn’t Big great? [NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Big.” You have been warned.] What’s It About While trying to impress a girl at a traveling carnival, pre-teen Josh Baskin (David Moscow) is prevented from boarding the Super Loops ride due to his height. Feeling dejected, Josh goes to the fortune-telling machine Zoltar and wishes to be “big.” Despite the machine being unplugged, it dispenses a card stating that Josh’s wish is granted. The next morning, Josh (Tom Hanks) looks in the mirror revealing that he has grown into an adult man overnight. Despite trying to explain the situation to his mother (Mercedes Ruehl), she kicks him out of the house out of a belief that Josh is actually a stranger that kidnapped her son. After discovering that the carnival with Zoltar has moved on, Josh finds his best friend Billy Kopecki (Jared Rushton) and manages to persuade him that he is, in fact, Josh. Once they learn that it will take them six weeks to find the carnival again, Josh decides to rent a cheap apartment in New York City and ends up getting a job as a data entry clerk at a toy company. After impressing his boss, Mr. MacMillan (Robert Loggia), with his knowledge of toy lines and childish enthusiasm, Josh is ultimately promoted to Vice President of Product Development after impressing senior executives at a pitch meeting. Josh becomes enveloped by his “adult” life through his work and blossoming relationship of co-executive Susan Lawrence (Elizabeth Perkins), all at the expense of ignoring his friendship with Billy. However, the pressure of being the “idea man” at the company makes Josh wish for his old life back and tries to explain his situation to Susan (to no avail). After learning of the Zoltar machine’s new location from Billy, Josh abruptly flees a corporate meeting at work to run to Sea Point Park and get his old life back. Susan follows him to the machine, where she finds him wishing to become “a kid again.” She confronts him about leaving, but upon realizing that he was telling the truth about being a child is saddened by the fact that their relationship will end. Josh reassures Susan that he enjoyed being with her and suggests she make a wish to become younger, but Susan declines. After driving Josh home, Susan has an emotional farewell before he transforms into a child again and reunites with his mother. What’s Good About It In my humble opinion, Big only works as well as it does because of Tom Hanks’s central performance. Simply put, he carries the weight of this flawed movie squarely on his shoulders (maybe not an Oscar-worthy achievement, but one worth highlighting). Given the incredibly comedic potential of the premise of Big, Hanks manages to make the most of it in several scenes (notably the initial reveal with him in the bathroom and the early “fish-out-of-water” scenes with him at MacMillan Toy Company). Without delving too much into what I dislike about the film, I just wish the writing and other actors shouldered more of this weight and gave Hanks even more opportunities to shine. As I was watching Big, I kept thinking about how much potential to be really funny it lost in comparison to David F. Sandberg’s superhero flick Shazam! By no means is that movie perfect, but I think the writing and directing on display there gives Zachary Levi and the supporting cast better character moments and more fertile opportunities for laugh-out-loud comedic gold. That being said, Hanks did the best he can with what he was given. That alone is commendable, and thankfully his acting chops only improved over the next ten years in films like Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and The Green Mile. What’s Holding It Back I hope it’s clear by now that I don’t have many kind things to say about Big. While I don’t think it’s a bad movie, its several flaws (in my humble opinion) hold it back from being anything more than okay. The more I think about it, I think what ultimately handicaps Big from achieving greatness is its tonal imbalance from start to finish. On the one hand, Hanks’s entertaining performance as a man-child is funny in small bits but over the course of nearly two hours can be grating to the point of not being funny anymore. Which doesn’t help the fact that NOTHING about the other characters is remotely laugh-inducing when separated from Hanks’s character. On the other hand, director Penny Marshall clearly wanted Josh Baskin to have a meaningful arc where he developed a meaningful relationship as an “adult” that made him appreciate the good things about getting older. Or did she? To be honest, I’m not quite sure what Josh’s journey is actually about. Is it about longing for the innocence of youth and his friends from that life? Or is it about coming to learn something good about maturing which makes him kind of look forward to actually becoming an adult? It’s hard to say, because I don’t think the writing or directing show their hand very well at all in this regard. As a result, Big fails to work as a compelling character study with comedic beats nor as a laugh-out-loud comedy. It lacks the emotional heft for the former, while also falling short of the consistent funny moments for the latter. In short, it ends up feeling as empty and shallow as a slapstick comedy while simultaneously being not as funny. If I were to suggest rewrites (not that anyone’s asking 😊), I would advise the screenwriters to tie Josh’s character growth to something other than a romantic relationship with a real adult woman. I get that the 1980s were a different time (I mean, Marty McFly nearly had sex with his mom, for God’s sake!), but I simply cannot get behind the idea of Josh (who is ACTUALLY a child!) falling in love with Susan who then returns the affection EVEN AFTER she finds out that Josh is really twelve years old. It just feels so lazy and detached from reality, which does nothing except work against any emotional payoff that Marshall and the actors were trying to make work. But maybe I’m wrong, and Big is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I suppose you’ll have to convince me otherwise. 😊 What am I missing about this early Tom Hanks comedy classic? Do you think it’s a great movie or do you agree that something’s holding it back from greatness? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst Having written about multiple classic sci-fi flicks out of Steven Jay Schneider’s book “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die,” from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Ghostbusters, I wanted to share my unexpected adoration for a more recent take on the genre. So, today I examine why I ended up really enjoying Neill Blomkamp’s 2009 action thriller flick District 9.
[NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “District 9.” You have been warned.] The History Born out of a desire to produce a film adaptation of the Halo video game franchise, Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) sought out first-time director Blomkamp. However, after the project was stalled due to financing struggles, Jackson and Blomkamp began work on a new project that incorporated props made for the Halo movie. Writing the screenplay with his wife, Terri Tatchell, Blomkamp took inspiration from his short film “Alive in Joburg” by including characters, events, and ideas he found interesting. Notably, he aimed to inject documentary-style filmmaking by staging interviews as well as utilize alien technology in tandem with one another in order to offer social commentary on the racial conflict surrounding the legacy of apartheid and segregation in his native country of South Africa. Choosing to shoot in South Africa, the project held principal photography over the course of 60 days in June and July in order to capture a deserted, bleak environment for the movie’s aesthetic in Soweto, Johannesburg. The “District 9” neighborhood in the movie was filmed in a real impoverished neighborhood where people were being forcibly relocated to government housing. Due to some filming occurring in December, Blomkamp’s creative team had to edit out some greenery and vegetation from some of the scenery and background shots. While no single movie was the sole inspiration for his film, Blomkamp stated that the “hardcore” sci-fi and action flicks of the 1980s (i.e. Aliens, Predator, RoboCop, Terminator) served as “subconscious” influences because he wanted the movie to look “glossy” and “slick.” In designing the alien creatures for the movie, Blomkamp wanted them to have both humanlike and barbaric features in order to keep them from being “cute” in order to make the audience initially revolt at them before empathizing with them more over the course of the film. Thus, Blomkamp insisted they maintain a face and “anthropomorphic shape” since human psychology often keeps us from truly relating with creatures that lack such things. Released in August of 2009, District 9 earned over 210 million dollars on a 30-million-dollar budget. Critics were almost universally positive, with particular acclaim for the film’s direction, visual effects, story, and themes of xenophobia and social segregation. However, there was some mixed reception among Nigerian actors and government officials who argued over whether or not the film’s Nigerian characters were portrayed in a negative light. Furthermore, some critics identified the screenplay as fitting within the mold of the “white savior narrative.” Nevertheless, District 9 received four Oscar nominations that year (including Best Picture), winning none. The Pros In my humble opinion, the biggest strength of District 9 is how well it takes a well-worn story premise—an alien invasion of Earth—but presenting it in a very refreshing and unique way. Rather than portraying the aliens (“prawns” as they’re referred to in the movie) as domineering, aggressive conquerors seeking Earth’s resources or to simply exterminate the human race, Blomkamp turns them into extraterrestrial refugees taken in by South Africa. This alone gives the film so much potential to explore several relevant themes and ideas. Notably, the slum-like conditions of the prawns’ refugee camp in Johannesburg reflects real-world examples of gentrification and xenophobia (like apartheid in South Africa itself). Simply put, science-fiction storytelling is done right when it has something to say about humanity. Without a doubt, District 9 makes for some solid social commentary wrapped in an entertaining package of action and suspense. Speaking of which, the film offers more than just relevant themes to explore. It is also a solid action flick that (mostly) uses its budget pretty effectively. I specifically enjoyed the storming of the Multinational United (MNU) lab where brutal experiments are being conducted on the prawns. But, the best action sequence in District 9 is undoubtedly the climax in the District 9 camp itself with the mech suit. I can’t emphasize enough how a movie from this century with this small of a budget (especially for a sci-fi action flick) could have easily pulled its punches on the action in favor of the drama. But no; Blomkamp seemingly acknowledged all the elements that make a great sci-fi movie. Of course, none of the action or ideas work without some compelling, character-drive moments. Without a doubt, the extent to which District 9 succeeds in that regard is squarely on the shoulders of its human protagonist Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley). A reluctant and unlikely hero, Wikus begins the film as a low-level MNU bureaucrat simply trying to do a good job before being infected by the prawns’ fluid slowly initiates his physical transformation into a prawn. Over the course of the runtime, Wikus generally operates out of his selfish desire to revert the change and become fully human again. So, when his selfless act of risking his life to save Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope) and his son, CJ—two prawns that make a deal with Wikus to help cure him in exchange for his help fixing their dropship—Blomkamp’s direction and Copley’s performance come together for a surprisingly emotional moment that I was not expecting based on the first third of the movie. Strong performances, solid action sequences, sophisticated themes, and superb payoffs make District 9 (in my humble opinion) more than worth your time. However, that doesn’t mean it lacks some notable flaws. The Cons To be honest, I was unsure if I’d like District 9 for about the first twenty minutes. While I think the documentary-style for a narrative film can work in its favor (i.e. the “found footage” approach in The Blair Witch Project), I personally found it an unengaging way of doing exposition. Luckily, the film improves a lot over the next hour-and-a-half which only makes me dislike how it starts more. To be blunt, I think Blomkamp could’ve come up with a smarter and more interesting way of telling the backstory of the prawns’ arrival to Earth and how humanity has treated them (how about some visual storytelling with minimal dialogue?). As I mentioned in “The Pros” section, I was generally impressed with how Blomkamp and his creative team handled a relatively small budget for an action-heavy sci-fi movie. But there were moments throughout its runtime where the low-quality CGI (specifically, the depiction of the prawns) stuck out. While it never quite took me out of the film, these moments were frequent and jarring enough to warrant mentioning here. If anything, Blomkamp’s visual effects team could’ve probably just simplified the design of the prawns a bit to make it either look sleeker or to ease the difficulty of what they were putting on the silver screen. So, what are my final impressions of District 9? Despite a hit-or-miss, exposition-heavy start and some questionable special effects, this movie more than earns its status as one of the better sci-fi flicks of the 21st century. It also is a solid example of international filmmaking that uses quasi-blockbuster entertainment to make some powerful (and, unfortunately, still prescient) arguments about the flaws of human society and the way we treat those we deem “other” than us. What are your thoughts on Neil Blomkamp’s District 9? What other international sci-fi movies do you recommend? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst “When you're dealing with questionable notions like people taking the law into their own hands, you have to really ask, where does that lead? That's what makes [Batman] so dark, because he expresses a vengeful desire.” – Christopher Nolan “When Patty [Jenkins] and I had our creative conversations about [Wonder Woman], we realized that [she] can still be a normal woman, one with very high values, but still a woman. She can be sensitive. She is smart and independent and emotional. She can be confused. She can lose her confidence. She can have confidence. She is everything. She has a human heart.” – Gal Gadot With the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the late 2000s and early 2010s, major studios with film rights to comic book heroes—from 20th Century Fox with X-Men to Warner Brothers with the DC characters—started to recognize the insane financial potential for creating a shared fictional universe involving crossovers of superheroes in team-up flicks. To varying degrees of success, the MCU sparked reboots and slow starts of cinematic universes from the DCEU to Sony’s modern Spider-Verse. So, as the summer blockbuster season winds down, I continue my exploration of the evolution of the comic book genre. In attempting to better understand the triumphant ascent of Marvel Studios’ superhero franchise, I will look at multiple movies that—to one degree or another—were the result of a ripple effect in Hollywood that inspired other studios to try and capture lightning in a bottle twice. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for several movies. You have been warned.] - Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay The Dark Knight (2008) For a summary of the production and release of The Dark Knight, click here. Having written about many Batman movies—including The Dark Knight—mere months ago, I’ll try to be succinct here. For my more in-depth thoughts about Christopher Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins, click that link above. Simply put, The Dark Knight can easily be described as a “perfect” film. Not literally, of course, as no such thing exists. However, it is by no means controversial for me to contend that the movie exemplifies some of the best modern filmmaking sensibilities in comic book cinema of the past twenty years. From its edge-of-your-seat pacing that never lets the audience lose where the story’s going to the expertly-crafted editing that heightens the suspense and emotional intensity when needed, Nolan’s direction comes together in every way possible to explore some heavy, relevant, and powerful ideas about order, chaos, and corruption. While not my personal favorite superhero flick, I don’t have a particularly strong argument for those who believe that The Dark Knight remains the most well-made movie of the genre. Without a doubt, I concur that it remains in the conversation of the pinnacle of what this genre can be. I know this was brief, so please refer to the above links for my more in-depth thoughts about The Dark Knight. I cannot stress enough just how important this movie is to the comic book movie genre, and I anticipate it will remain so for decades to come. Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊 祖 武 ) from Pixabay X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) As early as 2006, X-Men film producer Lauren Shuler Donner (Pretty in Pink, You’ve Got Mail) expressed interest in adapting the “Days of Future Past” storyline from two 1981 issues of Marvel Comics’ The Uncanny X-Men. After production completed on Matthew Vaughn’s prequel, X-Men: First Class, in 2011, Donner pitched this idea to Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns), who directed the first two X-Men films, and by March of 2011 the treatment, which had been positive receive by 20th Century Fox, was in active development. Writer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sherlock Holmes) approached the screenplay for this project as laying the groundwork for the future of the X-Men franchise. Not only was this due to utilizing actors from the original trilogy and from First Class, but Singer also felt the use of time travel in this story to bridge the two casts was essential. To prepare, he studied time travels films (i.e. The Terminator, Back to the Future) in order to create a set of rules and make his script as plausible as possible. In adapting the “Days of Future Past” storyline for the big screen, Kinberg felt that it made more sense for Wolverine to travel in time (rather than Kitty Pryde, as the original comic had done) because of his healing abilities and the massive audience appeal of the character. Thematically, Kinberg also treated the villain characters as people who “may have been right with their fears” about mutants while also putting the heroes in a place where “they’re all lost and they’re trying to keep it together.” Originally attached to direct the sequel, Matthew Vaughn departed the project in October of 2012 in order to work on his adaptation of Mark Millar’s “Kingsman” comic book series for the big screen. Instead, Singer was brought back to the franchise to help the film after previously directing X-Men and X2: X-Men United. Before shooting began, Singer spoke with James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic) about time travel and the multiverse to prepare for the movie. By March of 2013, the main First Class cast (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult) and many of the original trilogy cast (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Elliot Page) were confirmed to be reprising their respective roles (it was not until December of that year that Singer confirmed Hugh Jackman’s involvement as Wolverine). In February, Peter Dinklage was announced as the film’s main villain and in May, Evan Peters was confirmed to be playing Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver. Principal photography lasted from April to August 2013, with much of the location shooting occurring in Montreal, Canada. In designing the costumes for the film’s 1973 sequences, production designer John Myhre (Elizabeth, Chicago, Dreamgirls) embraced the 1970s look in the way that First Class did with the 1960s. Specifically, the costumes for the First Class characters and Wolverine in 1973 were inspired by 1970s clothing (in stark contrast with the tactile battle fatigues of the original trilogy characters in the 2023 sequences). Released on May 23, 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past grossed 746 million dollars at the box office on a 200+ million-dollar budget (making more money than both The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but falling about 27 million dollars short of Guardians of the Galaxy). To date, it is the third highest-grossing film of the X-Men franchise (only behind the two Deadpool movies). Critics were largely positive, particularly praising the story, action sequences, performances, direction, and themes. Fans also warmly received the film, with many of them feeling that it corrected the poor story decisions in prior films of the franchise (notably X-Men: The Last Stand). Receiving an Academy Award nod for Best Visual Effects, it became the first X-Men film to be Oscar nominated. In my first blog, I gave my thoughts on all thirteen films of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise. And while many of these movies (in my humble opinion) range from lukewarm to awful, Days of Future Past undoubtedly stands out as one of the better examples from Fox’s series that kicked off the modern era of comic book flicks with 2000’s X-Men. Looking back on Days of Future Past, I think that its biggest strength remains how well it acts as a celebration of the X-Men characters that spanned six films before. From the “original trilogy” characters like Anna Paquin’s Rogue and Halle Berry’s Storm to the First Class characters like Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique to the “crossover” characters like Professor X (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy), Magneto (Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender), and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the film’s use of a time-travel plot to bridge those two worlds makes for some fun adventures and satisfying character-driven moments. Is it zany, and at times a bit ridiculous? Absolutely, but I think that Days of Future Past—better than most films of the series—pulls off an effective balance between meaningful storytelling and self-parody. Rather, the film has an energetic spirit that convinces you to, at the very least, enjoy yourself while watching the movie despite some questionable plot elements. While the story is fun, my personal favorite aspect of Days of Future Past is how it showcases some incredibly enjoyable character dynamics involving actors with great chemistry. Not only do we get some more solid, tense stuff between McAvoy’s Professor X and Fassbender’s Magneto, but by throwing Wolverine into the mix with the First Class cast the film builds on what came before from both generations of the franchise to create something new. It could have easily fell flat, but instead it excels (and is only made better by the inclusion of Evan Peters’s Quicksilver!). So, what is the legacy of Days of Future Past? Unquestionably, the film will be fondly remembered by comic book movie fans for doing the best it could to reconcile the criticisms original X-Men trilogy (particularly The Last Stand) in order to lay a new foundation for a hopeful future of the franchise. Did it ultimately pay off with Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix? Not in the slightest. But, that’s not this movie’s fault and therefore still deserves the credit for trying its hardest to make the best of a less-than-ideal creative situation. At the end of the day, will Days of Future Past be talked about in the same league as The Dark Knight or The Avengers? Probably not, but it certainly deserves some credit for pulling off a rather difficult narrative with genuinely warm character moments that offered a sliver of hope for what Marvel Studios can do with the X-Men characters. Hopefully, one day… Deadpool (2016) As early as May 2000, Deadpool was a character being considered for a big-screen adaptation working alongside Marvel Entertainment. By 2004, Ryan Reynolds (Blade: Trinity, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Green Lantern 😊) was developing a movie centered on the “Merc with a Mouth” alongside writer and director David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) at New Line Cinema. However, despite support from studio executive Jeff Katz, the issues over rights to the character involving 20th Century Fox stalled the project indefinitely. It did not take long, however, for Fox to express interest in Reynolds making a cameo appearance as Deadpool in one of their X-Men films. This ended up being the infamous, poorly-received use of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Thus, in starting development on a solo Deadpool film after the opening weekend of Origins, Reynolds and producer Lauren Shuler Donner aimed to ignore that version of the character in favor of his more slapstick, metareferential roots. By early 2010, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Life) were hired to pen the screenplay for the film because Reynolds felt that they understood the tone for a Deadpool movie. After considering a few potential directors (notably Robert Rodriguez), Tim Miller (Terminator: Dark Fate) was hired to direct the movie in April of 2011 after his visual effects work on some of the X-Men films. By this point, Reynolds had also secured a deal to produce the film. In writing several drafts of the screenplay (one every year until it was finished), Reese and Wernick worked closely with Reynolds who was able to “catch” anything in the writing that he felt “doesn’t feel like Deadpool.” Despite their desire to not do an origin story, Reynolds felt that it was important to do one albeit differently than other films of the genre. Specifically, he wanted to frame the character’s origins by starting the film in medias res (“into the middle of things”) that uses the opening fight sequence as the catalyst for Deadpool narrating his own origin before using a “fast-forward button” to return the audience to where the film started: in the middle of the plot. When it came to the film’s wider place in the X-Men franchise, the film was intended to “stand independently” while also sharing continuity with the rest of the movies. Furthermore, Reese and Wernick thought it would do well to include a “straight man” X-Men character to act as a foil to Deadpool, deeming Colossus (who had received little focus in prior films) a good fit for this purpose. Other characters, notably Cable, were considered as villains for the movie but were either consolidated into pre-existing characters or reserved for a potential sequel. While the script was in its early rewrites, due to the critical and commercial failure of the superhero film Green Lantern in 2011 (in which Reynolds starred) the project was jeopardized due to the studio’s hesitancy to put a big-budget comic book adaptation with an R rating out of fear that it wouldn’t make back its money. But Fox also recognized (after several meetings) that altering the film to a PG-13 rating simply would not work for this specific character. Thus, they provided a “six-figure budget” to Miller to make some test footage. The footage was CGI animation with Reynolds voicing Deadpool, but ended up not swaying the studio to fund the project. After the release of Marvel Studios’ The Avengers in 2012, Fox considered incorporating Deadpool into a team-up movie due to their trepidations (which now included apprehensions over Reese and Wernick’s screenplay). Several big names in Hollywood, from James Cameron to David Fincher, expressed to Fox their support in the pitch and script but Fox remained hesitant to move forward. Thus, by July of 2014, the film had spent over ten years in “development hell” and its chances of being made became slimmer every day. That all changed when the test footage produced by Miller’s animation studio was leaked online. Due to the overwhelming enthusiastic fan response, Fox greenlit the film and gave it a 2016 release date by September that year. To this day, Reynolds and other involved with the project are unsure of who exactly leaked the footage yet many of them credit it with getting the movie made. However, Fox allowed Reynolds and his team creative control over the project in exchange for a much smaller budget than most other comic book movies were being dealt at the time. This budget cut from the studio required Reese and Wernick to edit out about nine pages from their most recent draft. Specifically, a motorcycle chase scene was cut and they added in the fact that Deadpool forgets his bag of guns leading up to the third-act fight in order to avoid requiring Miller to shoot an expensive shootout. Ultimately, however, the writers resolved that all of the cuts to the screenplay for the sake of budget ended up helping the film’s pace a lot. During pre-production, Miller focused much of team’s efforts on designing the Deadpool suit. Specifically, he and Reynolds aimed to make “the most faithful comic book to movie adaptation fans have ever seen” and deemed getting the suit right an essential part of this. However, in contrast with the unrealistically muscular look of Deadpool in the comics, Reynolds did not wear a muscle suit under the costume which Miller deemed was the character’s “quintessential” aesthetic. The costume was also designed with practicality in mind, such as the masks’ eyes being removable to make doing stunts in the suit more efficient. Principal photography commenced in Vancouver, British Columbia in March of 2015 and lasted until the end of May. By adding film grain to the digital footage in post-production, Miller and cinematographer Ken Seng aimed to give the film a “grittier” look than other superhero flicks. When it came to the dialogue, the actors (particularly Reynolds) improvised up to fifteen alternate jokes not in the screenplay. Notably, Reynolds’ improvisation about the studio being unable to afford another X-Man for the movie became Fox chairman Jim Gianopulos’ favorite line. Six disparate studios, from Digital Domain to Weta Digital, produced the film’s visual effects. Miller had these in mind, however, be making decisions on set with the amount of visual effects to be added in post-production a constant burden on his shoulders. While they often worked independently, all six studios collaborated on the third-act battle sequence in the wrecked helicarrier which Miller wanted to be the setting for the scene to expand the scope of the third act but had to ensure it looked “as different as possible from the one in The Avengers” to avoid legal issues with Marvel Studios. Made on a shoestring budget of 58 million dollars, Deadpool was released on February 12, 2016. The film became the highest-grossing film in the X-Men franchise and the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, earning over 782 million dollars at the box office (in both cases, it was surpassed by its sequel two years later). Critics were generally positive, with much of their praise directed at Reynolds’s performance and Miller’s direction (specifically the action sequences). However, some deemed the plot overly simplistic and some of the adult humor excessive. Despite being considered a serious contender for the Academy Awards, Deadpool received no Oscar nominations (possibly due to the lack of a campaign from Fox, a bias among Academy voters against comic book movies, and the strength of other more conventional contenders). However, the film cemented a legacy as the progenitor for other studios to consider the possibility that R-rated superhero flicks could have critical and commercial success. Today, fans of the genre credit the movie for laying the groundwork for other unconventional approaches to superhero movies in the future (notably Fox’s own Logan). Of the four stages that a film genre can evolve through, Deadpool is obviously the first great example of the third stage: parody. By embodying a hyper-meta-approach to its storytelling, director Tim Miller and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick pull off a very effective satire of blockbuster moviemaking, comic book flicks, franchises, and Hollywood in general. Without question, this remains the movie’s most significant quality when it comes to contextualizing it within the broader comic book movie genre. What is perhaps more impressive about Deadpool, however, is that it includes an actually heartfelt, well-intentioned story with a strongly genuine romance at its core. While the gratuitous humor and cartoonish violence ups the entertainment factor, the sweet and sexy romance between Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) elevates the movie to something more than just a raunchy, bloody superhero parody and instead it becomes relatable in spite of its extraordinary premise and narrative methods. To be honest, that’s really all I have to say about Deadpool. The film is a great example of how filmmakers with a coherent creative vision can make fun of the genre they’re playing in while also making a more-than-serviceable movie of that great. Furthermore, it’s an inspiring success story of a low-budget, R-rated comic book movie that undeniably made greater films like Logan and Joker possible. For that, Deadpool earns its legacy as a superhero flick that adults can enjoy. Image by Abderrahman Hadd from Pixabay Wonder Woman (2017)
More than twenty years before it finally came to fruition, development on a live-action film about Wonder Woman began with Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters) attached to produce and possibly direct. By 1999, novelist Jon Cohen (Minority Report) was attached to the project and Sandra Bullock (Speed, The Blind Side, Gravity) possibly starring in the title role. Over the next four years, screenwriters Todd Alcott (Antz) and Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island, Alita: Battle Angel) contributed to various drafts of the screenplay and other actresses, such as Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago, The Terminal), were considered for the lead. Starting in 2005, Joss Whedon (Toy Story, The Avengers) was hired by Warner Brothers to write and direct the film. However, after two years without finishing a screenplay, he left the project. Around the time of Whedon’s departure, the studio purchased a script that set the story in World War II. However, this was done primarily to retain their rights to the character as they did not want the film to be a period piece. By 2008, the studio was developing a Justice League project directed by George Miller (Happy Feet, Mad Max: Fury Road) and starring model Megan Gale (Mad Max: Fury Road). However, the project stalled rather quickly due to production delays and budgetary issues. It was not until 2010 that Warner Brothers kickstarted their efforts to bring Wonder Woman to the silver screen. After many years hearing pitches and considering a variety of female directors, Warner Brothers hired Patty Jenkins (Monster) to direct the film based on a story that included the involvement of Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, Man of Steel) and Jenkins taking inspiration from the original Wonder Woman comics by creator William Moulton Marston, the 1980s modernization of the character from comic book writer George Perez, and Richard Donner’s Superman film from 1978. However, the character first appeared on the big screen in Snyder’s 2016 crossover film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice for which he cast Gal Gadot (Fast Five, Death on the Nile). Initially hesitant about inheriting an actress for the part in her film, Jenkins admitted to being very impressed with Gadot’s performance in Batman v Superman, saying: “They were looking for all the same things I would have looked for—all the values that Wonder Woman stands for exuding from someone in an honest way and boy did they find it… She shares every quality with Wonder Woman and that's no joke.” Principal photography for the film began in November of 2015 and lasted until May of 2016, with location filming occurring in England, France, and Italy. According to Jenkins, the aesthetic for the cinematography was inspired by the work of American impressionist painter John Singer Sargent and the movie was shot on film rather than digitally to capture an “epic grander escapism” for the environment and story. Due to being five months pregnant during reshoots, Gadot wore a green cloth wrapped around her stomach in order for her baby bump to be edited out during post-production. Released in May of 2017 on a budget of approximately 135 million dollars, Wonder Woman grossed over 822 million dollars at the global box office. Not only was it the tenth highest-grossing film of the year, but it was also the highest-grossing film by a solo female director until the release of Jia Ling’s Hi, Mom! in 2021 and the highest-grossing female-led comic book movie until Captain Marvel in 2019. Critics and audiences praised the film, specifically Gadot’s performance and her chemistry with Chris Pine (who played Steve Trevor), and it was generally viewed as a tonally hopeful and energetic film in stark contrast with other entries in the DC Extended Universe up to that point. Upon the film’s release, several high-profile figures both in politics and the film industry offered their take on Wonder Woman in terms of the extent to which it broke barriers for women in cinema, both in front of and behind the camera. Notably, director James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic) argued that there was nothing “groundbreaking” in the film and that Jenkins’s portrayal of the title superhero as “an objectified icon.” In response, Jenkins criticized Cameron’s characterization of her vision and the film overall, saying: “there is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman… if women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong and we aren't free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven't come very far, have we?” If you’ve read my blog about the DCEU from last year, you’ll know I am less-than-enthusiastic about Warner Brothers’s cynical and half-hearted attempt to replicate the success of Marvel Studios’s cinematic universe. But, there are some bright spots in this particular superhero franchise. And, while not my favorite comic book movie, Wonder Woman is certainly one of those bright spots. Largely thanks to the super-charismatic Gal Gadot’s lead performance and her chemistry with Chris Pine, the film is able to endear its audience to a likeable and relatable but flawed female superhero in a genre of cinema that, unfortunately, has lacked diverse representation of strong women for much of its lifespan. Thus, it succeeds in being a successful mainstream superhero movie led by a female actor. To be clear, however, I don’t fully disagree with James Cameron’s critique of the film. While I do think the movie is an important step in representation in this particular genre, it is by no means groundbreaking. Cameron is right to cite his character Sarah Connor from the first two Terminator films or his take on Ellen Ripley from Aliens in this conversation. Not only did they pull off the nuanced strong female action lead sooner than Wonder Woman, but (in my humble opinion) they did it better. That being said, I don’t want to take away from the importance of Wonder Woman. Clearly, it resonated with audiences in a way that Black Panther and Shang-Chi did by showing that any kid—no matter their skin color or gender—can see themselves in superheroes on the big screen. But that alone doesn’t make it a great movie. Important? Sure, but not great. In a way, I compare its significance to that of the first Blade film for being a much-needed step forward for representation in comic book movies at the time but has since been surpassed by films that pull off his feat better while also being more entertaining movies. These are just some of the better examples of how comic book movies began to change in the years following Marvel Studios coming onto the scene. Of course, there are others that may also predict where this cinematic genre is heading. Tune in soon to see what more recent superhero flicks, in my humble opinion, foreshadow the creative directions that studios and filmmakers might be taking in the next decade or two when it comes to crafting the next great comic book movie. Which of these comic book movies do you think serves as the best example of Hollywood’s response to the success of the MCU? What are some other post-2008 superhero movies that you think people should check out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst |
Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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