How Comic Book Movies Changed

Comic Book movies have
become more than hollow
action films

As many of you know, the godfather of all comic book movies was 1978's Superman: The Movie before the next big success was another DC adaptation 1989's Batman. Both were smash hits at the box office and both took vastly different approaches. In 1998, Blade was Marvel's first successful film after a slew of mediocre made-for-TV films (mostly sequels to The Incredible Hulk series) and Dolph Lundgren's Punisher before 2000's X-Men started the momentum that made Marvel Studios. At first comic book movies were cheesy, then slightly cheesy, then dark until taking themselves seriously. They've attracted big name producers, directors and actors to a lot of success. Heath Ledger broke through to win an Oscar for his performance of the Joker in 2008. Comic Book movies are changing "making it less comic-y" but let's take a look at the evolution in Comic Book movies.

"Comic Book Movies should not be origin stories because it's rare when someone picks up issue #1." -Joe Williams, author of the indy comic Kyaku

First, the Superman vs. Batman styles:

Superman: The Movie deal with a being
of unlimited power finding his limits. 

1978's Superman took the approach of the linear origin story. It starts with the demise of Krypton and the proceeding through the importance of Superman's childhood with the Kents. The death of Jonathan Kent is the most important part of his character development. When director Richard Donner told the story in this fashion, it worked and in spades. 1989's Batman ISN'T an origin story. Director Tim Burton does have a variation of the Joker's beginnings and a mere flashback to Bruce Wayne's parents death. Now, BOTH styles were perfect for their genre's. One story NEEDED to go into detail of the main character and the other could rely on simply telling the back story in seconds. (This style will be further explored in a moment.)

Marvel Employs the Same Tactics:

Did we need to see Blade grow up?
Nope. A simple monologue was
Blade'sorigin story.

Marvel had the same ideas employed by the DC movies in THREE of their films. First was Blade, that used his backstory with a perfect monologue by Kris Kristofferson. Second was a full backstory by Sam Rami in Spider-Man as audiences were shown Peter Parker's growth into his powers, trying to cash in and the MURDER of Uncle Ben. The third was used by Bryan Singer in X2 when he took less than 30 seconds to show Wolverine's Weapon X Experiment- still the most bone-chilling origin in comic films. Each film employed the origin the films needed and not more or less.

Sequels:

Spider-Man 2 is the perfect
character study of the hero

DC's Batman Returns and Superman II stand alone as really their only quality sequels (add Superman III if you're a fan), but Marvel's sequels have excelled greatly. Spider-Man 2 and X2 are among this blogs three best comic films and in spite of a weak Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers were great. The main story line of each other the sequels remain the same: Is Being the Hero Easy? Some heroes go about their business (Batman Returns), some yearn to find answers (Wolverine), peace of mind (Tony Stark) while others question if they should be the hero (Spider-Man and Superman). At the time, villains ran the gauntlet. Start with the big villain and then go to the secondary villain, (Batman's Joker and Batman Returns' Catwoman and Penguin. Spider-Man's Green Goblin followed by Doctor Octopus) and all villains died until Batman Forever and X-Men. 

"There's three excuses to comic book movies: 
1) Because they're ninjas and ninjas are awesome 
2) Because it's comics so accept it 
3) Because it's Christopher Nolan and fanboys think he can't do wrong" - Scarlett

Christopher Nolan Enters:

Untold before, Batman Begins showed how the
Dark Knight came to be.

In, 2005, Memento director Christopher Nolan entered the fray. Armed with screenwriter David S. Goyer, they set out to reboot the comic movie franchise and likely didn't realize that they'd change comic films forever after that; focusing on making the story more character driven like the Marvel series. In Batman Begins, audiences were told about the origin of Batman and how he came to be the Dark Knight. Taken in by Ra's Al Ghul (pronounced differently from his appearance in the animated series and Arkham City video game) to be an assassin to take down Gotham, Bruce refused and left to become a symbol to unify Gotham. Focusing mainly on Batman and spending a little bit of time on secondary villains (Ghul and the Scarecrow), Nolan spent more time developing Bruce Wayne into Batman. In the process, he made the first film of the series without even a mention of the Joker until the film's closing seconds. Nolan also made the first successful "Dual Villain Film", which never worked out well in their history.

Batman's arch-nemesis wasn't even mentioned
until the closing seconds of Batman Begins 

In 2008, Nolan released The Dark Knight (the first of the series to not use the Batman name) and achieved critical success as well as box office records. As mentioned, Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor, but The Dark Knight was nominated for 8 Academy Awards. It prominently featured Batman's biggest villain (The Joker) and developed a second villain in the film (Two-Face). In 2012, Nolan finished his trilogy with the plot hole filled The Dark Knight Rises. Even though Batman is in the middle of nowhere with no money and no contact, he gets back to a quarantined Gotham with stealthful ease. Why? See rule #3. The third part to a comic series still has unperformed with Iron Man 3 (very) arguably being the best one and there's plenty of debate. Still what Nolan did was create a blueprint for the way comic book movies would be made. If you don't believe me...

Marvel Employs the Nolan Method:

Robert Downey Jr was perfect...PERIOD

Marvel released two notable Origin stories after Batman Begins. First was Iron Man, which is possibly the best origin story ever put to film, and recently was The Amazing Spider-Man. Now, the benefit of Iron Man was the lack of a central villain so every villain was secondary and the focus was solely on Tony and his changing role in the world. By the end of the movie, Robert Downey Jr's portrayal of Marvel's playboy was all people could talk about. It also employed a disconnected timeline (a la Nolan's style), but did not have a tone too dark for the very flip hero. 

Did we need to see a full origin story for Spider-Man AGAIN?

With 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel returned to tell Spider-Man's origin story that was told ten years earlier with a slight variation for the Ultimate Spider-Man series. The darker tone was good, but not quite a perfect fit for Spider-Man, but director Mark Webb used The Lizard and spoke about the Oscorp CEO Norman Osbourne without showing him. Thus the focus was mainly on Peter and developed him... slightly differently from the original series. In the next film, Chris Cooper will play Osbourne, but it is unknown if the Green Goblin will appear. Director Webb released a picture of "Locker 14" where Peter finds the alien symbiote that eventually becomes Venom- perhaps another foreshadowing of a future villain. It'll be interesting what Amazing Spider-Man 2 reveals next year.

Another staple of the "Nolan Blueprint" is rebranding the franchise. Batman became The Dark Knight, (from Frank Miller's series), but as producer his method and rebranding are now out for Man of Steel- the new Superman film. Again, focus on the hero's origin and a secondary villain as Lex Luthor did not make an appearance. You could say this same style was used in the Sherlock Holmes series that didn't introduce Professor Moriarty until the second film, but mentioned him in the first.

Marvel Creates a Universe:

A second credits scene at the end of The Avengers was
missed by most audiences that left early.

Starting in X3: The Last Stand, Marvel began using scenes after the credits. It was a simple scene that let audiences know that Professor X somehow survived his encounter with the Phoenix. In 2008, Marvel used another scene after the end of Iron Man to introduce Nick Fury and The Avengers initiative. After that, Marvel used it's films and characters to interact in their films even when the films are distributed by different studios (as seen when Paramount's Tony Stark made a cameo in Universal's The Incredible Hulk). Within the next couple years, Marvel firmly planted the idea that ALL of it's film's are connected. Now Marvel has encountered trouble blending Spider-Man into The Avengers, but Wolverine made a cameo in X-Men: First Class, Howard Stark (Tony's Dad) was a key character in Captain America: The First Avenger, Hawkeye was introduced in Thor and Black Widow was a supporting role in Iron Man 2. Even in Marvel's other film like the lucrative Spider-Man series, Eddie Brock was mentioned in the first film and Marvel used a credit-cut scene in The Amazing Spider-Man to hint at another mysterious character (Michael Massee). The point? There's more to a Comic Book Movie than just "here's a character and HIS story"; they exist in a world and occasionally those worlds can intersect with other heros. It is important to remember that the character exist FOR their own films. One complaint about Iron Man 3 is the lack of presence BY the Avengers even though the events of the film are continually referenced. If the Avengers popped up out of nowhere, Iron Man 3 would have suffered.
DC employs the Marvel Methods:

DC used a "Credits Scene" to hint at a
Green Lantern sequel.

DC did not use any cut scenes or references to Metropolis in it's Dark Knight series, but LexCorp and Wayne Enterprise made very QUICK cameos in Man of Steel. With rumors of a Justice League movie in the works, DC could have used a little momentum with a credits scene at the end. They chose not to, but DC did successfully employ the credits scene setting up a sequel... but it was in it's biggest failure- The Green Lantern. In the credits, audiences are shown the Ring of Fear and see it's stolen by Sinestro (perfectly played by Mark Strong). Say what you will about the lackluster Green Lantren, but the idea of Strong's Sinestro in a sequel is appealing. (By the way, you can't tell a guy would turn bad with a name like Sinestro!) There are perils to making a Justice League movie that will be covered soon.
The New Type of Comic Book Film:

Jackman is Wolverine again. That's good news for audiences. 

There is one more HUGE comic film on the horizon this summer- Marvel's The Wolverine. Director James Mangold has films like Girl Interrupted on his resume and Darren Aronofsky was originally slated to direct the film, but took a smaller role in production. The idea of the film is to flush out the Wolverine character. Sure it's going to have it's action, but the film is being billed as a "new type of comic book film". Time will tell in late July.

Comic Book Movies have shown they're more than just fluff when the situations have called for them. They could be tales of the "tragic hero" like a Greek Myth or simply show that there's more to a hero than wearing a stupid costume and covering his face (or not in Superman's case). They've evolved from 1978 to tell better stories that continually improve. Sure, now we're going through the reboots, but varying the adventures of these titans isn't necessarily a bad thing... if they can pull it off. Still, it's not out of the question that one of these days a Superhero film can take home a Best Picture as the quality of these franchises continues to improve.