HANG on to your bulletproof codpieces. The summer of the superhero is about to blast its way into multiplexes. And no, there’s not an echo in here.
The superhero summer is so culturally entrenched at this point, it’s almost a bank holiday. Last year was particularly spandex-heavy, with “Spider-Man 3” and “Fantastic Four 2,” as was summer 2006 with “Superman Returns” and “X-Men: The Last Stand.” As it has been nearly every summer since the first “X-Men” hit in 2000.
The only thing more popular in Hollywood than comic-book movies is Barack Obama. And announcing that you drive a Prius. But superheroes are definitely a close third.
If you have any doubt about how big they are, just look at the talent involved in some of the upcoming releases. The first big salvo of the season, May 2’s “Iron Man,” boasts three Oscar nominees (Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges) and one Oscar winner (Gwyneth Paltrow). This is a group you’d expect to see assembled for a weepy, three-hour Holocaust drama, not a popcorn flick about a cocky weapons designer who builds a hi-tech suit of armor to battle evil.
Then there’s June 13’s “The Incredible Hulk,” a do-over of the green goliath franchise starring two-time Oscar nominee Ed Norton. And in July comes “The Dark Knight,” the second installment of director Christopher Nolan’s well-executed Batman series, featuring Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger (another Academy nominee).
Plus, July 2’s offbeat “Hancock” stars Will Smith (double Oscar nominee). And July 11’s “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” is directed by Guillermo del Toro, the visionary behind the multiple Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth.” May 9’s “Speed Racer” features rising talent Emile Hirsch.
“Celebrity Apprentice” contestants, these ain’t. So how have these movies become so popular that they’re able to enlist such A-list talent?
“Iron Man” director Jon Favreau says it may have something to do with the clear-cut nature of the genre. Post 9/11, audiences are yearning for black-and-white morality tales in which an upstanding hero vanquishes evil.
Wonder if Iron Man can do anything about the Knicks?
Another big reason for the genre’s rising popularity is that superhero movies are rife with the visual elements audiences seem to pack theaters to see, namely slick CG effects and widescreen action.
“You couldn’t do the story of Iron Man five or 10 years ago,” Favreau says. “You look at [1991’s] ‘The Rocketeer,’ and that was all stop-motion. You were very limited with what you could do. Now, movies like ‘Transformers’ have totally opened up what you can do visually. We were able to show Iron Man doing all the things he’s been doing in the comics for 40 years.”
But there could be a simpler explanation altogether: that comic-book movies have gotten pretty good in the last few years. And the quality has a lot to do with the people making them.
There’s no way to put this delicately – they’re nerds. Not nerds of the I-took-my-cousin-to-the-prom variety, but nerds whose reading lists all include comics. They’re intimately familiar with the source material and seem to try much harder to honor it on-screen than someone who wouldn’t know The Joker from Don Rickles.
“The comic-book movie has evolved fantastically well,” says Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel comics. “These [filmmakers] grew up with and understand these characters [as] absolutely modern-day legends.”
Talent can sign up trusting they’ll be made to look a helluva lot cooler wearing a cape than Adam West did back in the ’60s. Not to mention George Clooney (and those astonishing bat-nipples) in the ’90s.
“Nolan had a background in independent film. Here’s a guy who had a lot of credibility as a filmmaker and he chose to do the Batman movies,” Favreau says. “It was never implied that he was slumming.
“My generation of filmmakers may have started in independent film because that was our only way in, but we loved the big movies and know there’s a way to do them well,” Favreau adds. “That’s the pinnacle for Peter Jackson and Bryan Singer and Chris Nolan – people who want to do things in an interesting way and like the opportunity to work in the Hollywood system that doesn’t force you to make movies in a dumb-downed way.”
“I definitely think it’s good that these filmmakers have a real appreciation for the characters, rather than just seeing it as a job and, ‘Oh, my God, I have to make this Batman character serious. What am I going to do?’ ” says Rob Worley, editor of Comics2Film, a comprehensive news site. “The fact that Guillermo knows exactly who Hellboy is because he loves the comic, it helps him find the sweet spot for making a Hellboy movie that appeals to his sensibilities as a filmmaker, but also his sensibilities as a fan.”
“The closer you stick to the source material, the more successful the movies have turned out,” Quesada says. “There was a time when Hollywood would take a comic-book idea and twist it around, making it a bit too much their own.
“[‘Spider-Man’ director] Sam Raimi looks at the source material and says, ‘There’s a reason Spider-Man has been around for 40 years. There’s nothing broken here. Let’s take it, do the best we can to adapt it to the screen,'” Quesada adds. “That had fantastic success, as opposed to ‘Catwoman,’ which was nothing like the character.”
You can also add to the scrap heap of superhero misfires Shaquille O’Neal’s “Steel,” a horrifically bad 1994 Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four movie, and 2003’s idiotic “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”
Today’s directors seem intent on avoiding bombs by mining whatever made the characters great on the page.
“To me, that’s what comic books are – it sparks your imagination with words, pictures, colors, light and shape,” Nolan told Box Office Mojo. “Just as when you adapt a novel, you do not consider the superficial form of the novel, you push to imagine the cinematic equivalent. Why should comic books be any different?”
These people are nerds, all right. “Hulk” star and script doctor Ed Norton subscribed to Marvel comics as a kid. Co-star William Hurt told MTV, “I’m a Hulk fan, and he was always my favorite. I read the comic books.” Nolan gave his brother a copy of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” for his 14th birthday. The Wachowski Brothers, who wrote and directed “Speed Racer,” started their own comic-book company and are clearly fans of Japanese anime. As is star Emile Hirsch, who told Reelz Channel, “I used to watch ‘Speed Racer’ as a kid.”
“I’m on the cover of Geek magazine, and the geeks are the tastemakers,” Favreau says. “The headlines on ‘Iron Man’ used to be, ‘Will Marvel succeed with its B heroes?’ After Comicon and the geeks saw it, it became, ‘Will this be the big hit of the summer?’ So the geeks have inherited the Earth.”
Guess you can cancel prom.