I am so tired of super hero movies, but they keep drawing me back in. I’m not going to be tempted until 2026 by Spider-Noir, at least.
This is apparently a limited television series, not a movie, built on the limited bits and pieces of Sony’s IP investment in Spider-Man.
I don’t understand these weird IP rules at all. Why not just start from scratch with a stylish movie about a completely independent spider-associated person? No one owns the rights to spiders, I hope.
What we really need is a Spider-Pig movie.
https://youtu.be/BARjPuUN36Y?si=BeoCz8VvE2asbdIm
No one owns the rights to spiders, or even spiders in movies. And no one owns the rights to stylish movies. But, a stylish movie about a spider-associated person, particularly if that association gives the person unusual abilities, might invite lawsuits. Win or lose it could tie up your production business for years and cost a fortune. So you could try it but be prepared to spend time with lawyers
Spiders swarming Sony HQ:
“Nothing about us without us!”
@ 2 robro
Meh. DC has Aquaman, Marvel has Submariner.
DC has the Flash, Marvel has Quicksilver.
DC has Swamp Thing, Marvel has Man Thing (a swamp creature).
etc.
By the way, Thunderbolts is really good. It’s about dealing with depression, anxiety, lack of self-esteem and alcoholism.
It’s message is that you can’t deal with these things alone, you need a support network.
It’s fine to not like superhero movies, but anyone who thinks superhero movies are automatically trash is an idiot.
Franchises are a much easier sell. It’s as simple as that.
I read an article years ago that revealed how the creator of Syfy’s TV series Caprica had been trying to sell them on an original AI-related sci-fi TV show, but got absolutely nowhere until someone suggested he team up with Ronald D Moore and turn it into a prequel for Battlestar Galactica.
Hence the Marvelization of entertainment — Star Trek, Star Wars, The Walking Dead, DC Comics, Middle Earth, Alien, and even the Potterverse, Lord help us.
There’s no reason why Andor, excellent though it is, needs to be in the Star Wars universe, but which studio head would take chance on a brand new IP that nobody has heard of?
Because it would…
• Require a decent script,
• Which has to be paid for,
• By someone incapable of assisting in the film’s marketing (how many people even know who the writers are?),
• That — speaking of “marketing” — doesn’t start out with any real recognition/fanbase if it’s original, and probably doesn’t start out with any originality if it’s not.
tacitus, that is quite plausible and just… fits.
Obviously there are the cynical capitalist reasons. I think we all know that by now.
But, I would venture that one could also choose to use existing characters and stories for legitimate artistic reasons. Particularly if one is trying to say something with intertextual references. After all, many of the greatest works of literature have used traditional characters that were originally known from something else. Nobody castigated Vergil for using the plot and characters of the Iliad and Odyssey as the backdrop to his Aeneid, for instance, because he was doing interesting things with them – most prominently setting the individualistic, glory-seeking heroism of the Homeric millieu against a more civic-minded, duty-driven concept of heroism in a Roman mould. Also he added new characters with new things to say and mean, like The Platonic Ideal of the Overly Emotional Woman (Dido) and Pushy Underworld Karen (the Cumaean Sibyl Deiphobe).
There might be key connotations and associations that the existing Spiderman has for a modern audience that Totally Original Spider Person would not. It was one of Euripides’ main stock-in-trade techniques to take well-known characters and present them in jarring, unusual and contradictory ways (for instance, a fat, middle-aged Jason more interested in respectability and commercial success than in adventure and justice, or a sympathetic Phaedra trying desperately not to act on her desire for her stepson Hippolytus, himself changed from a naive innocent victim to an aloof, aristocratic arsehole who thinks his purity puts him above others).
Meh. Marvel killed the superhero genre for me. And that was before they had the body exhumed and scull-fucked repeatedly.
Besides, it’s starring Nicolas Cage. That guy is hammier than Calculons worst William Shatner impression.
The big problem is that they are spending too much money to make movies, and so they are terrified of taking risks on something new. Here’s a list of the biggest “box office bombs” of the past year:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-biggest-box-office-bombs-of-2024/
Note that all but one of them actually earned over $100 million dollars (and even “Megalopolis” still earned $71 million). The only reason they are considered “bombs” is because they cost even more than that to make. If they had spent, say, under $20 million to make each of them, they would have been considered raging successes.
Personally, I think that at least some of the studios should go with Roger Corman’s approach: keep the cost so low that they almost can’t help turning a profit. He made over 500 movies, and while the majority of them would not be considered “good” by any absolute standard, a lot of them were fun. And I understand that all but one of them made money.
While I agree with the general sentiment, the Spiderverse movies were genuinely excellent, and SpiderMan-Noir was a standout character in the large arachnoid cast. I had to order some things from Amazon recently, so my Prime membership has been reactivated. I’ll be catching this before I suspend the account again.
PZ wrote: Why not just start from scratch with a stylish movie?
I reply: because they don’t want to spend the time and money to hire truly creative people. That would reduce their profits. And, we all know money is the only important consideration for the creative arts. (sarcasimus maximus)
PZ, as I’ve requested before, please complete the project of creating an army of monster mutant spiders that are trained to kill all the magats,
Thanks,
All the commenters
@12 Artor wrote: my Prime membership has been reactivated
I think this is appropriate for most of those who have AMAZ0N accounts:
https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/872d3a1001db013e9c5a005056a9545d?optimizer=image&width=992&quality=85
PZ: You may have seen all of these, but I hope there are some you will enjoy:
https://www.ranker.com/list/spider-horror-movies/harper-brooks
Erlend Meyer
So, films such as Electra, Catwoman, and Green Lantern didn’t kill it for you but Marvel did?
I guess we all have our opinions.
Electra was a Marvel movie.
Huntsman Spider Australia
.https://youtube.com/shorts/mOphw5NxUW0?si=J23e8BYGV3ofPdKJ