The Power and the Glitter!

[jerseyrules]

Originally Posted by Brady Kj

This the following quote, from June 7.

Give it two weeks.

Alright thanks

[turkishproverb]

Have you considered the impact this might have on the Japanese cinema and TV scene? I know Godzilla was mentioned, and I doubt the Gamara films of the 90's would change a whole lot (They fit in pretty well with this "darker" theme). The two mothra films would have an even more obvious environmental bent, if I'm right. However, japan had it's own superheroes whom IOT moved the opposite way that TTL has American superheroes moving.

In the 1990's mostly lighter and softer superheroes were getting the most attention OTL, but there were spots of the more gritty. The international success of superheroes in the darker context would probably shake things up quite a bit.


While I doubt the major property of the time would be changed much, targeted as it was towards ten year olds and under, with this rush of popular in america darker heroes, we might see an earlier proper revival of Masked Rider or even a remake of Gekko Kamen.

Heck, I could see the japanese (or an American licensee), in light of the move in America towards "social commentary" in their superhero films, making an adaptation of the darker-than-live-action Mask Rider Manga from the seventies, which ended with the discovery that the secret neo-nazi organization SHOCKER was really a part of the Japanese government, and defeating it next to impossible.

Also, Given the two American "Guyver" movies, we might even see american remakes of various "darker" Japanese heroes like the Skull Man, Kikaider, or the aforementioned franchises. For that matter, in light of "darker" films doing better, Guyver 2/Guyver Dark Hero might get a theatrical release ITTL as opposed to direct to video.

Given when these happen, the american bastardization of "Masked Rider Black RX" is likely to be more faithful to the dark tone of the prequel series "Black", actually. A superhero TV show targeted towards teens a decade early?

Shotaro ishinomori was still alive at this point, and would certainly use such a trend to push for revivals of his properties.

It might lead to figures like Shin'ya Tsukamoto doing moderately mainstream work after the early body-horror film Testuo-The iron man.

Just thoughts. Liking the TL.

[vultan]

Very interesting stuff, turkishproverb! Welcome aboard!

To be honest, I had not really thought if non-American media when developing this timeline, though I will say on the surface your assumptions seem reasonable. I'd have to do more research before I make a definitive statement, but I'm definitely open to suggestions from you (and anyone else) where it regards this.

[turkishproverb]

Glad to be of service. If you've got any questions, I'm happy to help. Offhand, I'm not sure where to tell you to BEGIN reasearch, it's a wide feild. I just happen to have a thing for superheroes, and for film; and so I know a fair bit about the Japanese side of both. If you're asking for further suggestions on directors/cast/etc that might be invovled in these things, I'd be happy to lend a few names.

Steve Wang is the most obvious on the American side, having worked heavily on Guyver and being pretty much the driving force for Guver 2/Guyver Dark Hero, though if the American adaptation of Masked rider Black RX goes darker/for an older demographic, you'd most likely need to involve Haim Saban, since I think he'd already licensed it in 1994.

On the Japanese side, I'd need more time to get spellings halfway reasonable.

[phx1138]

While no expert in manga or anime (nor indeed even a fan), I do find myself wondering if more successful superhero films won't lead studios to look further afield before creating their own characters. Does this, then, mean film versions of Lone Wolf & Cub & Akira? (They're among the best-known manga AFAIK; certainly the only two I can name.)

If that does happen, does it also influence the likes of the Turtles? Is that filmed earlier than OTL? Received better?

[ANARCHY_4_ALL]

I would like to see a live-action Ghost In the Shell ITTL that would be awesome.

[jack_donaghy_is_the_shado]

I'd like to thank Turkishproverb for bringing up the subject of foreign movies.

At this time, Asia was having great success with their film industries; the new Godzilla and Gamera movies from Japan as well as Chine hitting another martial arts boom with Jackie Chan movies making their way to the West.

The site Toho Kingdom has a wealth of knowledge (Toho is one of the biggest, if not biggest film studio in Japan and owns a great deal of the theaters there as well.) Tsuburaya and Toei created most of the superheroes in Japan, and there is the anime craze as well.

However, the stigma of poor dubbing and small budgets harmed the exports, as well as political issues (Japan's economic status, The PRC's civil rights issues, and perceived Anti-Americanism). These could be remedied with "professional" actors doing the dubs and cooperation with foreign companies. Also, just my opinion, the stifling of ideas in favor of profit could be remedied by replacements of producers (Shogo Tomiyama MUST NOT be Toho's executive producer)

In the west, Bond and the Doctor could use some re imagining, but there is also the glorious feast that is the BBC. Spaced, an absolutely glorious show that launched the career of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, makes its appearance in the late 90's.

Perhaps there could be something from eastern europe now that the wall has fallen?

On the domestic side, how about an uprising against the MPAA?

I always prefer more nudity and less killing

[turkishproverb]

After some thought, I'd say that given the increased revenue of Batman Returns, Guyver Dark Hero would probably get a modest theatrical release, not a flop, probably slightly higher box office and critical reception than the first film (having trouble finding the BO for the first one, so can't give you dollars).

This would in turn, especially combined with the reaction to darker superheroes, lead to the lisencing of certain other Japanese heroes for film, thought I'm not sure which project to start with. Maybe Masked rider if they're looking for a "Mature" series that was a huge success over there. If the project is more director driven, the Kikaider (whose series HAD aired in hawaii in the 1970's and was watched by adults as well as children) or Skull man (A revenge driven superhero goes further and further in pursuit of those who wronged him, very "crow" in a way, though half the idea is that hte "hero" has most definitelly crossed the line at some point in the middle of the narrative.) are very likely prospects from among the ishinomori properties. I can't see Cyborg 009 getting adapted in a mature style by Americans, mostly because so many of the concepts in it would seem "wacky" to an American audience. Inazuman was largely forgotten even by the japanese at the time, so I'm quite sure he'd have been forgotten

If they tried to adapt Kikaider, I imagine someone would try to attach Brent spiner, since the series is about an android learning what it means to be human (while fighting one of his creators and other robots) but I doubt he'd accept. Fear of typecasting, even if Jiro is not allegedly emotionless like Data or Manhattan, would lend itself to saying no. Heck, one might get Brandon Lee to accept a role (likely as kikaider since he has the most "face" time out of the age appropriate characters), and with the right director (ridley scott? This seems like his kinda project, though he is hit or miss. What was he doing at the time?) and team the whole thing could easily be an artful film. Additional important casting would be the love interst (origionally Mitsuko Komyoji) her father, one of the scientists who created Kikaider, Professor Gill, the evil scientist who interfered in it, and Hakaider, the most famous baddie of the series.

All this talk of kikaider reminds me that Casshern/Casshan might get an earlier revival, even a live action japanese film a decade early.

Gekko Kamen would likely get a revival in japan, being a very basic style of superhero, but I don't think he'd be flashy enough to get much american attention.

Also, it occurs to me there's going to be a backlash by minorities against The Dark Knight, between the whitewashing of the fallen hero Harvey Dent/Face, and the blackening of the gang leader.

[vultan]

When the board is back up, there shall be an update.

[vultan]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the comic book industry…

Jerry Bruckheimer liked what he saw. A lot, in fact.

His industry connections had told him Watchmen was good, but now that he was seeing it… this was a game changer. What James Cameron had done, he’d done well, and Bruckheimer knew the movie was going to be successful. And you don’t become a hotshot producer in Hollywood without quickly figuring out that when a movie is going to be very successful, the other studios are going to try to replicate that success. Like sharks attracted to the scent of blood in the water. Soon, the film rights to comic book were going to be an extremely hot commodity.

Bruckheimer had to work fast. He was able to see a rough cut of Watchmen a couple weeks early, but it took a long time for these kinds of negotiations to work in Tinseltown. Fortunately, the producer knew exactly what he wanted, and where to find the tools to make it happen. He was beginning a stint producing movies for Disney (mostly through subsidiaries like Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures- his kinds of productions rarely lent themselves to a Disney brand logo). Their assets were rather wanting when it came to superheroes, however. No matter- they’d be inundated with Caped Crusaders by the time he was through.

The goal was to acquire the rights to as many recognizable comic book characters in as short a time span as possible. Bruckheimer knew he could forget about trying for the DC Comics heroes, as Warner Bros. jealously guarded those assets (and besides, he knew they were making another Batman movie at that time, and was also hearing isolated rumors of something big involving Superman over the horizon). No, Bruckheimer was crossing into virgin territory here. He was planning on bringing the Marvel Comics universe to life on the screen. It seemed like a natural choice-the Hulk and Spider-Man and all the rest of the gang were beloved icons of American pop culture, yet no one had really tried to bring them alive on the screen.

Bruckheimer sat down with both Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Marvel Entertainment Group owner Ronald Perelman and explained his vision. He saw Disney producing a “mega-franchise” of superhero movies featuring the characters in Marvel Comics (released through the Touchstone banner, of course- the failure of The Rocketeer was too recent a memory to do otherwise), at first functioning mostly independent of one another (with cameos and such to make it obvious that the movies are set in the same canon as one another), and slowly becoming more and more interconnected. His reasoning was that this would make fans more emotionally invested in the movies, as they particularly enjoyed stories featuring more than one of their favorite heroes (though they couldn’t, in his opinion, release something like “Spider-Man Meets Wolverine” in the beginning- to Bruckheimer, “that would be like eating your dessert before your appetizer”). He pointed out The Dark Knights Returns as an example of this (“Batman Meets Superman”), and noted that the next Batman movie would be based on that graphic novel.

Both Eisner and Perelman were skeptical, the latter particularly so. He was concerned that it would be unwise to keep “all of Marvel’s eggs in one basket” regarding the film rights. Still, he did notice that Bruckheimer actually seemed very eager about getting these superhero movies on the screen, and noted that no one else currently holding the rights to any major Marvel property seemed to be getting anywhere in regards to getting a film on screen. Perelman eventually gave his blessing to go ahead with the project. Upon hearing about this, Eisner agreed to bankroll Bruckheimer’s projects.

The first order of business was getting a hold of the rights to producer all of these movies. The following superheroes were among the ones Disney was able to acquire in 1994…

Spider-Man: Carolco Pictures owned the rights to this character, but currently there were no real efforts to produce a film based on the character [1]. Seeing Spidey as a low-priority asset, it didn’t take much prodding (or a particularly high dollar amount) to sell this one to Disney.

The Hulk: Then owned by Marvel Studios, though Universal was deep in negotiations to produce a film based on the character. It took Perelman’s lobbying to derail these negotiations and allow Disney to step in, filling the void (these would create bad blood between Bruckheimer and Universal, which would later come back to haunt the producer).

The X-Men: Marvel had recently tried developing a movie based on this superhero team with Carolco Pictures and Columbia, to no avail with either. Apparently, 20th Century Fox was interested in the rights at the time, impressed by the animated X-Men television series, but again Bruckheimer seemed to have the upper hand in these negotiations.

Iron Man: Owned by Universal Pictures at the time. Unlike the last two, this acquisition a relatively clean affair, as no one else was interested in the property at the time. [2]

Thor: Another simple affair. The rights belonged to Marvel Studios at the time, and Disney (ie, Bruckheimer) was the only one interested. (Interestingly enough, The Dark Knight director Sam Raimi had pitched the concept of a Thor movie to 20th Century Fox in 1990, but they “didn’t get it.”)

Unfortunately for Bruckheimer, not all of the main characters were available at the moment. Attempts to purchase Captain America brought a lawsuit from comic book legend Joe Simon regarding who actually owned the copyrights, which would not be settled until 1998 [3]. The story surrounding The Fantastic Four was an even more sordid affair. Constantin Film was in danger of losing the film rights to the characters in 1992, so they produced an ultra-low budget movie not intended for release in order to hold the rights (allowing the cast and crew to believe that it was a legitimate project). Marvel began a lawsuit against Constantin, alleging the deal was for the option was only good if the film was released in theaters in some aspect, and that since that had not intended to do that with the production, the rights should legally revert to Marvel Studios. This legal battle would prevent a big-budget Fantastic Four picture from being produced for some time.

Still, Bruckheimer was mostly successful in obtaining the rights to the various characters of the Marvel universe. With Disney’s arsenal behind him, he would now attempt one of the most ambitious projects in film history…

...

[1] A divergence from our timeline. There actually was a movie in development at Carolco at this time. The script was written by none other than James Cameron, who also intended to direct the project. Here, James Cameron was too immersed in another comic book movie to really work on Spider-Man.

[2] In our timeline, Universal unceremoniously sold off the character to 20th Century Fox in 1996 anyway.

[3] The same thing happened in our timeline in the early 2000’s.

---

A special thanks to Brainbin for his help in developing this update. He's always supported me in this project, but his feedback in writing this was particularly important.

And I'm back! Sorry the update took a little longer than I said it would- internet troubles.

And for some anxious to know what's happening regarding The Dark Knight, don't worry, the next update will address that (and it won't take well over a month to come out).

Thoughts, comments, critiques?

[Brainbin]

Great to see this making a triumphant return!

My preliminary thoughts on some of the potential projects:

Originally Posted by vultan

Spider-Man: Carolco Pictures owned the rights to this character, but currently there were no real efforts to produce a film based on the character [1]. Seeing Spidey as a low-priority asset, it didn’t take much prodding (or a particularly high dollar amount) to sell this one to Disney.

From what I understand, Cameron's OTL draft for the film-that-never-was apparently completely missed the mark. Having enjoyed all three Raimi films (yes, even the third), I look forward to seeing what shape Spider-Man takes ITTL. The success of the recent reboot film seems to demonstrate the character's broad appeal with audiences.

Originally Posted by vultan

The Hulk: Then owned by Marvel Studios, though Universal was deep in negotiations to produce a film based on the character. It took Perelman’s lobbying to derail these negotiations and allow Disney to step in, filling the void (these would create bad blood between Bruckheimer and Universal, which would later come back to haunt the producer).

On the flip side of the coin, the two Hulk films IOTL have shown that the Hulk does not really have legs, no matter what form any film featuring the character might take (and it's hard to find two more divergent takes than the OTL versions). The very steep second-week drops those movies faced might be mitigated with something in this era, when films tended to have more staying power at the box-office; on the other hand, a steep drop would be even more noticeable...

Originally Posted by vultan

The X-Men: Marvel had recently tried developing a movie based on this superhero team with Carolco Pictures and Columbia, to no avail with either. Apparently, 20th Century Fox was interested in the rights at the time, impressed by the animated X-Men television series, but again Bruckheimer seemed to have the upper hand in these negotiations.

This one seems to be a guaranteed hit. It is the definitive 1990s comic property (well, excluding Image offerings like Youngblood or Spawn) and, of course, ushered in the superhero revival IOTL. Of all the films, I'm most interested in your eventual casting choices for this one.

Originally Posted by vultan

Iron Man: Owned by Universal Pictures at the time. Unlike the last two, this acquisition a relatively clean affair, as no one else was interested in the property at the time. [2]

This is going to be a tough property to get right. Presumably, the war in which Stark becomes involved ITTL will be the Gulf War, or perhaps one of the many human rights quagmires of this decade (Somalia? Rwanda? Bosnia?), if they aren't deemed too sensitive. We'll see how the "redemption" arc plays in these jaded times.

Originally Posted by vultan

Thor: Another simple affair. The rights belonged to Marvel Studios at the time, and Disney (ie, Bruckheimer) was the only one interested. (Interestingly enough, The Dark Knight director Sam Raimi had pitched the concept of a Thor movie to 20th Century Fox in 1990, but they “didn’t get it.”)

Obviously the least significant property of the five. Though I do feel obliged to suggest BRIAN BLESSED! for the role of Odin.

Looking back, we note that eleven superhero films were released between the years 1994-2001 that grossed over $400 million worldwide. We know the identity of two so far: Watchmen and The Crow. We can presume that The Dark Knight will be another; that leaves eight. Disney has optioned five properties; will all of them be successes?

Perhaps even more than once?

Originally Posted by vultan

A special thanks to Brainbin for his help in developing this update. He's always supported me in this project, but his feedback in writing this was particularly important.

You greatly overstate my contributions, good sir But thank you for your kind words, all the same.

[Kalvan]

Hmm...

Well, they could do worse than Bruckheimer with Spidey. But thay're still going to have to deal with the Itallian director who got the Sam Raimi film banned in Italy.

They way I would have done it:

Used the overall mood of Amazing Spider-Man, including Peter wanting to know what the heck is going on with his parents. We introduce Gwen Stacy in this film as Peter's first love intrest. We also feature cameos of Mary Jane Watson, Herry Osborne, Angelica Jones and her sister Jessica*, and Tandy Bowen, as some of Peter's other classmates (He's attending an average public high school, not a science magnet school). Because his aunt and uncle are barely getting along on social security, Uncle Ben's ventran's benefits, and his cable hook-up business, Peter's going to need a full free-ride scholarship if he wants to attend someplace better than your garden-variety diploma mill. I am of two minds about organic webshooters. On one hand, they help explain why he's never simply bottled and sold it to make millions of bucks. On the other, they make it difficult to understand the need for things like, say, the Symbiont Suit. I propose a middle ground of having the webbing be organic, but harvested from, say, the small of his back, so that he makes the webshooters themselves but has no real means to bottle and sell it.

Since the NWA is officially dead from 1996 to 2004, both the WWF and WCW are unreceptive to new talent, and ECW is stuck in Philadelphia, we have Pete storming off from Uncle Ben's lecture (Martin Sheen's one) to drop into a street, vert, or flatland skateboard and/or inline competition hosted by Bam Marguera and meet Dwayne Taylor. After a rockin' performance that has all the other competitors pounding their decks on the concrete in salute, Peter is disqualified on a technicality that causes Bam to give the only use of the F-word allowable in a PG-13 movie. When the armored car carrying the prize money is hijacked by robbers, Peter just can't get himself to care.

Promoter: I saw you land a 1080 Madonna (or Liu Kang if he's an inline skater) into a switch handplant, then go into a triple (Flying Squirrel) backflip on the next kicker (or quarterpipe). You even nosebluntsild up that rail. Stopping them should have been child's play.

Peter: And I saw you give disqualify me for that first part and award that grand prize to a guy who bails more often than Pee Wee Herman. Judging that contest should have been child's play.

Unfortunately, the armored car hijackers gets into a high speed chase with the police, goes over the median, and crashes head-on with Uncle Ben's 1962 Dodge Magnum Hemi (He was out looking for Peter), causing it to go up in a fireball. The robbers bail on foot. The only thing truly distinctive about them is that one of them has a star tatoo on his left arm, and the otherone wears a Charlie Brown-style orange-and-black style shirt, and brown corderoy pants.

Peter spends the rest of the movie searching for (and not finding) the armored car robbers, sewing up the Spider-Man costume to give him some anomnymnity, wooing Gwen, revealing his alter-ego to her, and trying to contain the falllout when an accidental explosion at Oscorp Labs where he and Gwen are interning at causes several transgenic experiments in the basement (including scorpion, rhino, rat, and vulture chimeras) to escape into the sewers) and their lab supervisor Curt Connors to become infected with a chimera virus and become The Lizard.

Otto Octavius: (On the phone) What's going on down there? This is some very sensitive work I'm doing and any more bangs like that and all of Manhattan could go sky high!

Peter: (On the phone) Sorry. Just a minor accident. Don't worry, it's all under control.

Otto Octavius: Well, when I get done here, I'm going to give Curt a piece of my mind!

In the end, Spidey rounds everyone up, neatly packeaged by the police, earning Capt. George Stacy his grudging respect, though a thoughtful J. Jonah Jamison still thinks of him as dangerous vigilante. Meanwile, the founder and president of Oscorp, Norman Osborne, has looked over Peter Parker's notes. He tells his son Harry that he's awarding Peter a full ride endowment scholarship to wherever he wants to go in greater New York area, but Harry has to come along too and be his roomate. Oh, and he's also dying of non-Hodgekins lymphoma.

The stinger has Norman in the elevator after that sequence, muttering aloud that Curt had better not have spilled to "that boy" about what had happened to his parents.

Questions? Comments? Flames?

*Yes, I know that She wouldn't have been created OTL until 1999, but I love that character anyway.

[vultan]

Originally Posted by Brainbin

Great to see this making a triumphant return!

Thank you very much!

My preliminary thoughts on some of the potential projects:

Your thoughts are always welcome, Brainbin.

From what I understand, Cameron's OTL draft for the film-that-never-was apparently completely missed the mark. Having enjoyed all three Raimi films (yes, even the third), I look forward to seeing what shape Spider-Man takes ITTL. The success of the recent reboot film seems to demonstrate the character's broad appeal with audiences.

Yes, but I believe at the very least James Cameron's Spider-Man would have been interesting (not least because it definitely would have garnered a hard R rating if it was shot as scripted). And I agree that, although it wasn't the strongest installment of the trilogy, Spider-Man 3 gets a lot of unfair hate.

On the flip side of the coin, the two Hulk films IOTL have shown that the Hulk does not really have legs, no matter what form any film featuring the character might take (and it's hard to find two more divergent takes than the OTL versions). The very steep second-week drops those movies faced might be mitigated with something in this era, when films tended to have more staying power at the box-office; on the other hand, a steep drop would be even more noticeable...

The Avengers got the Hulk down pretty well. The problem is, he's not a very interesting character, and probably would work best in an ensemble production like the Joss Whedon film. Still, he's popular enough that someone's going to give him a try. Whether it will hit the mark, I will not say...

This one seems to be a guaranteed hit. It is the definitive 1990s comic property (well, excluding Image offerings like Youngblood or Spawn) and, of course, ushered in the superhero revival IOTL. Of all the films, I'm most interested in your eventual casting choices for this one.

Done right, it could be the Pulp Fiction of superhero movies (and I'd imagine that in the environment of the alternate 1990's, intentionally going for that comparison would be a tempting prospect). Wolverine is the superhero of the 90's, so I'd imagine they'd try to milk the character for all he's worth.

This is going to be a tough property to get right. Presumably, the war in which Stark becomes involved ITTL will be the Gulf War, or perhaps one of the many human rights quagmires of this decade (Somalia? Rwanda? Bosnia?), if they aren't deemed too sensitive. We'll see how the "redemption" arc plays in these jaded times.

Of course, because of Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance, everyone retroactively remembers Tony Stark as the mildly eccentric playboy and party animal from the movies, when actually there are many different ways the character could have been portrayed, depending on the actor. Worst-case scenario, the character could become a shallow parody of big business and conservative Republicans.

Obviously the least significant property of the five. Though I do feel obliged to suggest BRIAN BLESSED! for the role of Odin.

Well, notice I said that these were five were among the characters acquired by Disney. Plenty more minor characters, such as Luke Cage and Ant-Man, were gotten a hold of (ie, ones who might go into an ensemble feature, but who probably wouldn't get their own film, at least initially). I'd say that Thor is definitely the least significant property worth mentioning in his own right.

Looking back, we note that eleven superhero films were released between the years 1994-2001 that grossed over $400 million worldwide. We know the identity of two so far: Watchmen and The Crow. We can presume that The Dark Knight will be another; that leaves eight. Disney has optioned five properties; will all of them be successes?

Perhaps even more than once?

Two down, nine to go.

You greatly overstate my contributions, good sir But thank you for your kind words, all the same.

You are very welcome!

Originally Posted by Kalvan

Hmm...

Well, they could do worse than Bruckheimer with Spidey. But thay're still going to have to deal with the Itallian director who got the Sam Raimi film banned in Italy.

They way I would have done it:

...

Interesting thoughts, Kalvan! I could certainly use someone with knowledge of Spider-Man to run my ideas for it by. We'll see how your outline meshes with what I had planned...

[phx1138]

Originally Posted by vultan

Interesting thoughts, Kalvan! I could certainly use someone with knowledge of Spider-Man to run my ideas for it by.

I find myself not believing Pete would tell Gwen. Also, you do have the option of ignoring elements of the book & not giving Spidey webshooters at all. (I know, I know... I can't help think of the What If? stories.)

Originally Posted by vultan

X-Men

Added to the success of Watchmen, this will be coming out at the height of X-Men popularity. You're looking at blockbuster territory, here.

Originally Posted by vultan

Done right, it could be the Pulp Fiction of superhero movies (and I'd imagine that in the environment of the alternate 1990's, intentionally going for that comparison would be a tempting prospect). Wolverine is the superhero of the 90's, so I'd imagine they'd try to milk the character for all he's worth.

You could turn it into "Wolverine & the other guys" if you're not careful. That will depend on the writer liking him, or not liking somebody else better. It also depends on if the film is an origin story (per the OTL one) or not, & on if you're allowing the director/screenwriter to pick & choose which X-Men to focus on (again, per OTL).

If it was up to me, I'd use the "Days of Future Past" story as a jumping-off point & retcon the fate of Phoenix. You'd have to wait & establish the characters, tho, & probably wait to do many of your other MU films, first, because I'd want to involve lots of them (not least Danny, Luke, Col, & Misty {yes, I'm very Claremontesque}; Tony & the Avengers {Hank & Jan, Hawk, Cap, not Bruce or Thor}; Warren, Bobby, & Natasha; Carol & Mike {very Claremontesque}, &, of course, all the Hellfire Club, plus probably a Sentinel or 2, plus, of course, Lilandra somewhere along the way...). About the only MU player not to appear'd be Spidey.

Drawback is, doing it my way, either you get a 2h-2.5h movie with no setup & no establishing of the players at all, or you get a 5h movie. (Ideally, it'd be a 12 ish mini. Which is about 216min screen time, plus titles & crawl--& that's with no setup.) On the plus side, every single X-Men fan will see it, & (almost) all of them will cheer at the end...tho there will be a few (& I'd be one of them) who wonder if it hasn't cheapened what Jean did in the book.

[Glen]

Regarding viability of Hulk movies I think you are being too pessimistic. The success of the 1970s Hulk series tells you done right a Hulk movie could be quite popular. The Ang Lee movie was a disaster. I liked the second one quite a bit but it suffered from not having first a set up that really made people care about the characters. Pull a Bixby and the movie will work.

[John Fredrick Parker]

Once the Captain America suit gets settled, you could have a Disney Avengers movie potentially including Spiderman and Wolverine.

I've actually got two ideas for how a Spiderman trilogy could be structured.

Idea 1: Gwen death-Symbiote
1st: Origin Story*; HS romance w Gwen
2nd: Green Goblin and Dr Octopus; kill(s) Gwen Stacey; (Goblin dies)
3rd: Symbiote-Venom arc; fights Doc Ock in black suit, fed by darkness of gf's death; (may also include Col Jupiter); MJ Parker tries to comfort Peter

Idea 2: Sinister Six Leadup
1st: Origin, w Electro and Vulture
2nd: Crime Lord hires Dr Octavious to build supervillains to distract Spiderman (inc Kraven, Sandman, and Rhino)
3rd: Dr Octopus reveals himself to world, leading his creations

*not sure who villain would be, but connected to Osborne Industries

[Brainbin]

Originally Posted by Glen

Regarding viability of Hulk movies I think you are being too pessimistic. The success of the 1970s Hulk series tells you done right a Hulk movie could be quite popular. The Ang Lee movie was a disaster. I liked the second one quite a bit but it suffered from not having first a set up that really made people care about the characters. Pull a Bixby and the movie will work.

The 1970s Hulk series was just that - a TV series. The parameters for success in film and in television are completely different, and so are expectations on all sides (audiences, critics, producers, executives, etc). Even some of the biggest properties can succeed in one medium only to fail in the other. Since you got the ball rolling with a 1970s live-action superhero series, I'll counter with two others: Wonder Woman, who still has yet to appear on the big screen; and the Spider-Man series, which was a massive flop.

(Whose bright idea was it to cast Doug Simpson, Big Man on Campus, as Peter Parker anyway? Great theme song though )

[unclepatrick]

Originally Posted by Brainbin

The 1970s Hulk series was just that - a TV series. The parameters for success in film and in television are completely different, and so are expectations on all sides (audiences, critics, producers, executives, etc). Even some of the biggest properties can succeed in one medium only to fail in the other. Since you got the ball rolling with a 1970s live-action superhero series, I'll counter with two others: Wonder Woman, who still has yet to appear on the big screen; and the Spider-Man series, which was a massive flop.

(Whose bright idea was it to cast Doug Simpson, Big Man on Campus, as Peter Parker anyway? Great theme song though )

I remember the 1970 amazing Spiderman series but it was not the Flop that everyone think it was. It had good ratings, it was the 19 most popular show on in it first season. But it was expensive to make and CBS was not happy with being seen as the Superhero Network. It had Wonder Women, Hulk and Spiderman. All three were doing well in the ratings. But they cancel to the two most expensive ones Wonder Women and Spiderman and Cut the budget for the Hulk Show.

[Kalvan]

For me, the biggest problem I had with the series is that Peter has no real reason to don the suit.

Even Superman and Captain Marvel needed some sort of reason to go out and fight crime.

[Andrew T]

Originally Posted by Brainbin

Since you got the ball rolling with a 1970s live-action superhero series, I'll counter with two others: Wonder Woman, who still has yet to appear on the big screen

Oooh, consider this another vote for bringing Wonder Woman back to the big screen. (I've heard that WW isn't even planned for the forthcoming JLA movie; how can that be???

In 1996, Angelina Jolie would be 21 and with minimal big screen experience. Lucy Lawless would be 28....