Genre: Forum

I think it had more to do with $$$ than any commitment or ability issues. Didn't both Marvel and Norton come out and say it wasn't about cash? I vaguely remember reading it was some crap about creativity and blending all the actors. I think they were negotiating and Marvel suddenly pulled out. Could be wrong though. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." The way the Avengers origin is, you could have Banner as the Hulk throughout the entire film, so don't really see Norton being too big a loss. Not been reading much at the moment, but stumbled upon "Invincible" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_\\... )) a while back and would say it's one of the best ongoing series I've ever read.  Also managed to get my hands on the Dreamwave Transformers series, which are incredible. Just need Runaways to come back from hiatus and I'd have something to properly look forward to. I've read the first 10 Invincible and enjoyed it, maybe I'll get my hands on the rest. I like Image stuff. Didn't both Marvel and Norton come out and say it wasn't about cash? I vaguely remember reading it was some crap about creativity and blending all the actors. I think they were negotiating and Marvel suddenly pulled out. Could be wrong though. I didn't know about Norton interfering with the creative process so I guess the money angle is wrong. Mark Ruffalo could be good, still got a bit of romcom about him though. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." What's really turning me off the Thor movie though is that people in Hollywood have somehow magically come up with this. = Not being racist like, but that's hardly the image you instantly get when you think Norwegian. Still the movie has Anthony Hopkins and Ray Stevensson so I'll no doubt see it. It's hardly an attempt to be a historically accurate documentary of the Viking people, is it? It's a big, loud, comic book movie. Heimdall is a god, he's been a seal and a bird and a mysterious walking stranger, and he can look like Idris Elba if he wants to. Has anyone been paying attention to X-Men: First Class? It was mentioned a bit above that director Matthew Vaughn (of recent Kick Ass fame) had gotten his friend Jane Goldman to write screenplay (also of Kick Ass fame), so that's two brits signed to the project. Filming begins next month and here's the cast so far: X-Men's not my favourite title at the best of times, and if I'm being honest the cast looks like absolute shite. But it figures, since they want to appeal to the non comic-reader crowd. Will be the first comic book movie that I'll give a miss. I've seen lots of people saying it's not right having Idris Elba playing a character from norse mythology, who are all completely missing the fact that it's a comic adaptation, and Idris Elba is one bad mofo. If you want to get upset how about the historical detail then have a read of the comic. Thor (the other made up one) is red headed and has a beard... The characters from the Thor film are actually going to be from an alternate universe rather than any supernatural origin like in the comics. So they don't look as daft in the universe created in Iron Man/Cap America. Also, lulz at the guy complaining about the lack of historical accuracy in the Comics "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." You have posted literally nothing of substance to flame about.  Your "points", and I dread to call them that, were superficial and completely arbitrary.  Nothing you said could be argued against because nothing you said elaborated a position of any kind. At ComicCon this weeked, they also announced Joss Whedon is defo directing which I'm not so sure about...although he does have a lot of experience with ensembles. I think it's going to be a massive challenge to get all of these characters on screen together without fucking it up, but I can't wait. I'm still quite amazed that Marvel are actually making five movies all leading up to a massive crossover film. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." You have posted literally nothing of substance to flame about.  Your "points", and I dread to call them that, were superficial and completely arbitrary.  Nothing you said could be argued against because nothing you said elaborated a position of any kind. The clock is ticking on the superhero craze in Hollywood, according to Matthew Vaughn, the director now filming "X-Men: First Class" for Fox in London. "It's been mined to death and in some cases the quality control is not what it's supposed to be," Vaughn said. "People are just going to get bored of it." Vaughn, who produced, directed and co-wrote "Kick-Ass," says he pounced on the chance to make a film about the uncanny mutants from Marvel Comics because he expects the current boom in superhero cinema to fizzle out in the near future. "I've always wanted to do a big-budget superhero film and I think we've kind of crossed the Rubicon with superhero films," Vaughn said. "I think [the opportunity to do one], it's only going to be there two or three more times." "Then," he added, "the genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummelled too much." Next summer, "X-Men: First Class" will join "Captain America: The First Avenger," "Thor" and "Green Lantern" in a parade of costumed heroes in big-budget films at the cineplex. Vaughn said audience fatigue is already starting to set in. The subject material can't sustain the Hollywood trample, he said, and the inevitable box-office duds and derivative projects will mark the end of the gold rush by studios. "It is a crowded room," Vaughn said "It's too crowded." The 39-year-old filmmaker (who is married to German model Claudia Schiffer) is known for a candor that is rare in Hollywood circles. He had been in talks to direct the third "X-Men" film but that didn't work out (he instead went off to make the underrated "Stardust") and the superhero project went to Brett Ratner ("Rush Hour"), who delivered "X-Men: The Last Stand," the 2006 film that became the biggest money-maker in the franchise despite far more sour reviews than the two previous films. Vaughn didn't shy away from slagging on Ratner's film: "As it happens, I could have made something a hundred times better than the film that was eventually made," Vaughn told the Daily Telegraph. "It sounds arrogant, but I could have done something with far more emotion and heart." Vaughn made his mark in movies as the producer of three Guy Ritchie films -- "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Snatch" and "Swept Away." He made his directorial debut with "Layer Cake" in 2004. "X-Men: First Class," starring James McAvoy as Charles Xavier (aka Professor X) and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr (aka, Magneto) is due in theaters in June 2011. I thought this was an interesting read. There's a lot riding on the Avenger movies, the Green Lantern one (and they've already hired Michael Goldenberg to write the script for the sequel), the third Batman film, and the Xmen/Spiderman reboots. Looking at box office sales the superhero genre is as popular as ever but I guess the fad will lessen eventually. I thought this was an interesting read. There's a lot riding on the Avenger movies, the Green Lantern one (and they've already hired Michael Goldenberg to write the script for the sequel), the third Batman film, and the Xmen/Spiderman reboots. Looking at box office sales the superhero genre is as popular as ever but I guess the fad will lessen eventually. I thought this was a good retort to Vaughn. Quote WHY MATTHEW VAUGHN IS WRONG ABOUT SUPERHERO MOVIES Matthew Vaughn has sounded the death knell for superhero movies, and a couple of months ago I might have been inclined to agree with him. We've gone past the most exciting and popular heroes, and we seem to have gotten past that brief phase where truly astonishing directors were being attached to superhero films. What's more, the filmic genre itself has begun to feel more than a little long in the tooth, with every movie being essentially an origin tale and with the action often feeling constrained locally, with the stakes being more personal than epic. I recently had dinner with Green Lantern writer and DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, and he brought up a point that stopped me in my tracks: Why don't movie superheroes save the world?  Looking at the modern superhero movie they're all-too often just standard action (or cop) movies in funny outfits. In fact one of the few modern films we could think of where the heroes saved the world was Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. (A friend later pointed out that technically Watchmen fits this category as well) 'I think we've kind of crossed the Rubicon with superhero films,' Vaughn told the LA Times. 'The genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummeled too much.' On one level he's right. There have been an awful lot of superhero films, and almost all of them have been in the same mold - the mold established by Spider-Man back in 2002. You can see that basic structure echo in most superhero movies since then, and as in Spider-Man most of the threats have felt small, localized, and in almost every single film have been so completely connected to the hero that the villain feels more like an extension of the hero than a threat on his own. That's been great, and it's created some truly wonderful superhero movies, but it's also begun to run its course. Vaughn declared superheroes dead while working on X-Men: First Class, a movie likely to continue that style - a threat whose menace is small (probably just impacting the mutants) and that grows directly from the heroes (if Magneto isn't the bad guy at the start, he certainly will be by the end).* But on another level he's wrong. The superhero movies that we've had have only scratched the surface of what is possible with a superhero story. And I think that could be about to change. I was hoping that Thor would be the first to break the mold; the original script that Marvel Studios had was nothing short of a Lord of the Rings style epic, with Thor only coming to Earth in the final minutes of the film. That would have been a major kick in the pants for the superhero movie concept - the genre is not what you think it is, and to actually classify it as one genre is misleading. It's a way to tell stories within many genres. Sadly the Thor that we're getting is going to be much closer to the standard blueprint, with a smaller, localized threat that is very personal for the hero. Captain America: The First Avenger is another story, though. While I doubt the movie will be a war film per se - this won't be Saving Bucky Barnes - it'll be a movie where the stakes aren't about Captain America himself, his girlfriend or even his hometown. It's going to be the fate of the free world as Captain America tries to stop the Red Skull from winning World War II for the Nazis. That's the kind of selfless heroism that hasn't been en vogue in superhero movies for a while. I'm excited for a hero to be a hero not because he accidentally created the villain or because the villain's plans are all an effort to get revenge, but simply because it's the right thing to do. Then there's Green Lantern; if Captain America is the superhero movie filtered through pulp adventure, Green Lantern will be the superhero movie filtered through pulp science fiction. With a scope that spans the stars and a villain who threatens all life in the universe, Green Lantern will feature a hero who does battle not just to save those close to him but to do right by everybody. And this time I mean everybody. And then we have The Avengers. I am crossing my fingers that Marvel Studios and Joss Whedon have this one figured out and that they realize that you can't get together Earth's Mightiest Heroes for anything less than a global threat of staggering proportions. It can't simply be a revenge plot by Loki or some other villain established in a previous film - it must be something that threatens every living being in the world. Scope. This is the missing element in the modern superhero movie. The stakes have to be huge. The stakes have to be planetary. Failure by the hero can't result just in his own death, or the death of his girlfriend or the destruction of his hometown - it has to result in the deaths of millions, if not billions. It's time to stop looking at Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicles as the models for superhero films and turn to the world-spanning madness of Roland Emmerich. There will always be room for the more personal stories of Spider-Man and Daredevil, but as the focus of Hollywood moves on to characters like Green Lantern and Dr. Strange and Wonder Woman, it's time to stretch out and think big. Maybe Vaughn's right. Maybe the only type of superhero movie that really works is the smaller, personal, and vigilante-based type. If that's the case, yeah, we're at the end of the ride. But if the magical and the fantastical and the cosmic and science fiction heroes can get a toehold, the superhero cycle will renew itself and it'll be something very different. It'll be something grander, more exciting and wilder. Let's get senses-shattering. Let's get reality-rending. Let's make it so that heroes live, heroes die and nothing is ever again the same. It's time to put the super back in superhero movies. * For the record you could say that the modern superhero movie actually gets its blueprint from the original X-Men, but I argue that it was Spider-Man that refined and perfected it. He's got a point about Vaughn making this statement while he currently filming his second comic book film in a row but as he said, the next batch of films are really upping the scope and stakes. I really want to see more superheros saving the planet rather than their girlfriend. I'm really looking forward to Cap America, the first (decent) period set Superhero film. The past ten years worth of superhero films have been a bit hamstrung by being limited to origin stories, which are obviously going to get tiring when there is one every year, but with these nearly out of the way they can really open up. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." As they said in the second piece, I think the Avengers series could be the key, if the people involved can pull characters and stories from what should really be several different genres (Iron Man: Action, Thor: Fantasy, Cap: War?) into one single, genre defying megahit then it could really open the door for things to be done differently. I agree that current superhero films are almost by the numbers formulaic and by their nature struggle with pacing unless handled incredibly well but Holywood hasn't helped either.  You want no origin? There were rumours of a Green Arrow prison film circulating a few years ago that would have been a breath of fresh air.  Want planetary endangerment? Invincible was picked up by a studio back in 2006, had a script written, and was then dropped. There are signs that this is going to change, with Kick Ass, Scott Pilgrim and Jonah Hex getting the go ahead, but the flipside is the decision to continue (and high schoolize) the Spiderman and X-men franchises, which worryingly look to be continuing the trend (one of which, hypocritically, is being directed by Vaughn). Logged "Baby take off your beret, everyone's a critic and most people are DJs" I think we've hardly seen any world saving antics in the current run of films because most of them need smaller, personal stories when presenting an origin story. This obviously makes for a better narrative and more engaging characters when the good guy and bad guy are Intimately entwined, like the Spider-man and X Men films. I imagine the cost of presently a worldwide threat is a problem too, now that comic book films are established and successful most of the time lots more cash can be pumped into them. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." I agree with Vaughn. There have been loads of superhero films and if it wasn't for Nolan's efforts, Kick Ass in particular and hopefully Scott Pilgrim, my reaction of upcoming comic book films would be negative. It seems that all the big movies in any year tend to be comic book adaptations. You have Marvel making 5 films and then a 6th that brings all them together, with some questionable directors in there. Then you have X-men, which I had no idea that it was being made. You have that one with Ryan Reynolds, some more Superman films and, lest we forget, Batman. We even have Spider-man being made again if I am correct? Its just too many films and with the majority being shite, we are likely to be served more shite. I am not a follower of comics and it can be hard to stomach so many films. He's got a point about Vaughn making this statement while he currently filming his second comic book film in a row but as he said, the next batch of films are really upping the scope and stakes. I really want to see more superheros saving the planet rather than their girlfriend. I'm really looking forward to Cap America, the first (decent) period set Superhero film. The past ten years worth of superhero films have been a bit hamstrung by being limited to origin stories, which are obviously going to get tiring when there is one every year, but with these nearly out of the way they can really open up. That's a good article from Devin. I hope they don't start to die out because as hit and miss as some of them may be, I really enjoy them. Even the shitty ones like Daredevil, and there are some really good stories out there to be told that don't have to be origin stories or involving saving the entire world. It's all about them finding the balance without chasing the box office sales but also maintaining the human element to it all. It's possible for them to go too big, too epic. Fingers crossed they get it right. I'm looking forward to Captain America and Green Lantern especially, I think Ryan Reynolds would make a good Hal Jordan. Wonder if they've changed the Lanterns rather laughable weakness, anything the colour yellow! Always thought that was hilarious. Superhero/Comic book movies aren't going anywhere for a while. Just like with novels, books etc they are too easy turn into cash for that to happen. Most people didn't read or even know Kick-Ass was a comic book I'll bet, same with Scott Pilgrim, same with that Aliens vs. Cowboys etc. It won't matter though, they'll all do well and make a tonne of money. Have to say though I'm not all that interested in this Avengers stuff, all the films just look a bit samey to me, all style, no substance. The acting talent too, all just really uninteresting to me. You do know that between them, the directors of Captain America and Green Lantern are responsible for the masterpieces that are The Edge of Darkness, Legend of Zorro, Wolfman and Jurassic Park 3. At least Campbell directed Casino Royale. To be fair, Joe Johnston came on board Wolfman very late and had to pick up where everyone else had shat all over it. So you can't really blame him for that one. They will be filming Captain America here in Liverpool. They called the Philharmonic too, as they were looking for an Art Deco building (I know this because I know people ) I think I agree slightly with Bob about the Avengers, but I do think it's admirable that they are trying basically to tie 5 big seperate entity comic-book movies together, Iron Man 1&2, Hulk, Capt America and Thor. It's never been done in this way before, and it's a very ambitious thing to do. They did fail in that regard with Iron Man 2 though, Samuel L Jacksons character showing up with little regard to anyone who DIDN'T stay until after the credits of Iron Man, with little or no introduction. I think they forgot that not every member of the public would A. know who he was and B. bothered to wait around to SEE who he was. That said, I like the way they've tied them together so far - Interesting, if a little too samey as Bob said. Still lapping it up me though. I'm definitely curious about how they'll bring them all together, and of all the directors tied to this stuff, Whedon i think has the best chance of making the actual Avengers movie a fun one at least. I just don't think the movies leading up to it will be that good. The two Iron Man's, The Hulk were only decent. Quote That said, I like the way they've tied them together so far - I'd say all of that stuff has been prop easter eggs and little else to be honest. I have to say I have very low expectations for this Avengers movie. I haven't particularly enjoyed any of the X-Men movies and I suspect the net effect of this Avengers movie will feel something similar to those. Daniel LuVisi's "LMS" comic has just had the rights bought by Paramount to make a big multi-platform franchise thing about it. The guy's artwork is amazing, here's the plot & list of characters involved: Last Man Standing, or "LMS", "takes place 600 years in the future, in an alternate universe and is about Gabriel, this invincible soldier, who's been created to help win a war Earth got itself too deep into with Mars. After Gabe wins the war, he comes back down to Earth and is celebrated as this incredible hero. From there, he becomes somewhat of a celebrity, a Superman of this story, but then it all takes a quick turn. Gabriel is framed for an atrocious crime, by a terrorist organization known as Pandemonium and their leader, Dante. He is then sent to Level-9 Facility, where he'll spend the next nine years in the worst prison of all time. Once Gabriel breaks out, only then does his true story begin, and the lies and twists unravel. Dante too was put into the prison and escaped at Level 7, here's what he looks like when he gets out Amazing artwork! Needs to be like a trilogy with that many characters, but it's got high potential and big demand. "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." I'd say all of that stuff has been prop easter eggs and little else to be honest. Yeah, see what you mean. I suppose tying the threads of the films together would be difficult, and alienate the general public as an audience. But yeah, they are simply just prop easter eggs and little references. Nice to spot though!