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Rewriting Hollywood: The Comics Renaissance
BY PETER CLINES
The past decade has been a
time of great change for
movies based on comic
books. In the ’70s and ’80s, DC
Comics had seen some success
with turning icons such as Superman
and Batman into film stars,
but both of those franchises degenerated
in their later years and
fell victim to self-parody. Publisher
Marvel was bought out of bankruptcy
and inched toward better
health during the 1990s despite
the complete failures of The Punisher
in 1989 and Captain America
a year later; granted both bore little
resemblance to their comic
book namesakes. These days,
though, superheroes have gone
from being the long-time jokes of
Hollywood lineups to being —
ironically enough — the saviors of
the industry. At this point, every
major studio has released a comic
book movie in the past nine years
and some have staked their entire
schedules on them.
So what’s the secret reason behind
this relatively sudden turnaround
after decades of failures?
Many would point to the 2000 film X-Men as
the turning point, but its screenwriter, David
Hayter (Watchmen) gives the credit to a source-loyal
script penned by David Goyer (Batman
Begins) two years earlier. “It was really [Goyer’s] Blade that broke it,” Hayter says. “Blade came
out [in 1998] and made $90 million, which
surprised everyone. And that allowed [producer]
Avi Arad, who was revitalizing Marvel at
the time, to say, ‘There’s a serious market for
these stories that’s untapped. They’ve never
been done in a serious way.’”
Like
what you just read? Read Peter Clines'
entire essay in the latest
issue of Creative Screenwriting!
Niche Markets for Screenwriters
BY JOHN FOLSOM
Every summer, the major studios
release a slate of “tent-pole” movies.
The studios then spend hundreds of
millions of dollars promoting these titles.
All hope to reach a mass audience and the
largest, most profitable demographics. The
axiom is that the broader appeal a film has,
the greater chance it has of becoming a
blockbuster. However, this is not always the
case. Last summer saw The Hangover, a
bachelor party-themed movie that cost
only $35 million to make, yet out-earned
the much-hyped Land of the Lost, which
cost $100 million to make, yet only managed
to gross $62 million worldwide.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) cost $8 million
to make, but grossed $60 million domestically.
In 2002, My Big Fat Greek Wedding held
its own against The Lord of the Rings: The
Two Towers and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack
of the Clones.
A low-budget horror movie about missing
film students became the most talked-about
hit of 1999. The Blair Witch Project
cost a mere $60,000 to make, but raked in
$140 million at the box office.
Check
out the rest of John Folsom's article in the latest
issue of Creative Screenwriting! |
