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Should comic book movies care about comic book readers?

The pros and cons of heeding the fanboy's cries.

After a creatively barren spell precipitated by a jaded Christopher Reeve in ‘Superman IV: Quest For Peace’ and clarified by ‘Batman And Robin’, a film even George Clooney hates, comic book movies were revitalized as a box office force starting with ‘X-Men’ in 2000. Over a decade on, they’re the cornerstone of the Hollywood film industry, with every minor character mined for dollars and the subsequent millions in box office receipts.

During this time, readership of actual comic books has stayed fairly constant, if anything dropping along with the rest of the print media. A blockbusting webslinger does not mean floods of new readers to Astonishing Spider-Man, the success of Hugh Jackman’s man chops not a particular fillip to what is a surprisingly insular industry.

In other words, people have gone to see these movies in their hordes because they are summer tentpoles – well-crafted, entertaining (for the most part) action flicks with cool characters. You don’t rake in that kind of cash by only attracting an audience who can tell you which issue The Incredible Hulk first appeared in, or whether they read Nick Fury when he was drawn white.

So when directors like Zack Snyder talk about making sure fans of the comic are satisfied with his efforts, should he bother? Does it really matter that the people who buy the funny books are pleased with Captain America’s costume or approve of the story arc chosen for adaptation?

[Kick-Ass 2 creator: Jim Carrey boycott 'worth $30 million']



Yes. Because...
They run the blogosphere. Apparently. With so many movies jostling for attention, any way studios can raise a film’s profile is a good thing. By making sure you reveal something which strongly resonates with the crowd who flock to Comic-Con every year, you’ve potentially got a one-up on all the other blockbusters desperate to make the end-of-year biggest earners’ list. That information will be disseminated on social media and the Web, building buzz and generating hype.

Meanwhile, ‘300’ and ‘Sin City’ did big business and the filmmakers were so in thrall to the source material that they ostensibly translated it directly on the big screen. Audiences responded to the deliberate comic book look and realised how cinematic comics could actually be.

One might also say that comic book readers know a good movie idea when they read it. ‘Kick-Ass’ by Mark Millar stormed the comics world and was turned into a brilliantly-skewed action-comedy three years ago. The sequel (which it seems neither comic book nerds nor regular folk are particularly fond of) has just been released. Millar’s assassin tale ‘Wanted’ also started life on the page, whilst the Blade series was a comparatively little-known anti-hero who successfully made the jump to the cinema.

[Mark Wahlberg: I want to be next Iron Man]



No. Because...
A good film is a good film, right? Comic booksters cried foul when they saw yellow spandex substituted for sexy leather in the original X-Men movie, but that didn’t seem to halt its march to success. ‘300’ wasn’t a smash hit because it recreated panels from the graphic novel, it was because Snyder discovered a new take on the Greek epic, there was lots of blood and boobs and Gerard Butler shouted a lot.

The mediocre response to ‘Watchmen’ solidifies that theory. A brilliant, groundbreaking comic book by Alan Moore, it was notoriously difficult to bring to the big screen (Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass were just two of the myriad directors who tried through the years) because of its politics, its effects, its timeline and its labyrinthine plot. Zack Snyder decided to basically do what he did with ‘300’ and put the book on-screen. The result was an occasionally effective, overlong drama sort-of loved by comic book fans and ignored by everyone else.

This summer’s ‘The Wolverine’ uses a beloved narrative from the 1980s by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller in which Logan travels to Japan. But has the movie made money because audiences knew Claremont come up with the idea? No. Sure, they dig the Far Eastern locations, but it’s Jackman’s charisma and the cool fight scenes which really sate a crowd.

Similarly, when Christopher Nolan revitalised the Batman franchise, he used Batman: Year One by Frank Miller as inspiration. For ‘The Dark Knight’, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sales’ Long Halloween was a definite influence. But he wasn’t a slave to it. Elements of the comic books infiltrated the scenes, but ultimately the films were their own beast. And all the better for it.