Hero Worship

There’s a new axis of evil threatening the world’s security — Dr. Octopus, Magneto, the Kingpin of Crime, and the Green Goblin (among others). Fortunately, the forces of light are mobilizing too — Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the X-Men. Battles between good and evil are poised to commence in cinemas around the world, starting soon.

Once again Hollywood has turned to comic books for plot, character and box office power. Despite the initial success of Warner Bros.’ Batman franchise (the first installment in 1989 grossed $413 million on a budget of $35 million, but by 1997’s Batman & Robin that had dwindled to $130 million on a $110 million budget), successful comic-book adaptations were few and far between. Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone, in 1995 was the low point, losing around $40 million. Now though, the cinematic landscape has changed. The vampire-hunting Blade grossed over $112 million in 1998, while 1997’s Men in Black (both were based on comic books) became the 13th-highest grosser ever, with $589 million. After 2000’s The X-Men took $294.3 million, the pitches came thick and fast.

Blade 2 — one of the first of the new adaptations — shot straight to the top of the British box-office chart, clocking up more than $3.5 million in its opening Easter weekend. The next two years will see the release of Spider-Man, Men In Black 2, The Hulk, Daredevil and X-Men 2. There are ongoing negotiations for plenty more, including Ghost Rider, reportedly with Nicolas Cage, The Punisher and a Batman relaunch. The comics2film website lists over 200 projects currently ready — or rumored to be ready — for film adaptation. The war of the screen superheroes, with superbucks the prize, is well under way.

Aficionados of the art form understand Hollywood’s fascination with comic books. As Stan Lee, creator of such famous characters as Spider-Man and the Hulk, points out: “These stories are a chance to relive the feeling you had when you were young and dazzled by fairy tales filled with giants and monsters. And now we finally have the cinematic technology to do them justice.” Lee’s innovation was the creation of (his words) “superheroes with superproblems.” Marvel Comics’ film division CEO Avi Arad — one of the key players in the movie adaptations market — believes their humanity gives supermen and -women contemporary appeal. “The characters are pained,” he says, pointing to The X-Men‘s antiracism overtones. “Through them we deal with the real world and real emotions in a fun way.”

Hollywood, though, is a dollars-and-cents neighborhood, and Tom Rothman, chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment (producer of The X-Men), believes comics are low risk. “Comics and screen are both visually-driven media,” he says. “If you can create indelible characters in one, the chances are that they will work in the other. And characters like the X-Men have been proved to work in comics for 20 years.” The $75 million X-Men movie, he insists, was the film that opened the floodgates: “X-Men kicked ass. People thought it was unfilmable because there was no one obvious lead character. We brought in director Bryan Singer, whose The Usual Suspects had shown talent for an ensemble piece, and it worked. It gave the industry heart that some of the tougher properties could make great films.”

According to Arad, the maturation of “comic-book geeks” into powerful artists like Singer, Ang Lee (who will direct The Hulk) and Tim Burton (who directed the first two Batmans and is penciled in for Superman) has coincided with the technological developments. “The last four years’ advances have made all the difference,” he says. The Britain-based special-effects house Framestore, which worked on Blade 2, says that the film required 600 effects shots, against the movie average of around 50. Tom Roston, senior editor for film magazine Premiere, believes that comics give studios “intelligent” blockbusters: “Studios want to use their new digital effects, and a lot of the true-life extravaganzas created for that purpose are vapid, like Pearl Harbor. There is often a sense of exploitation of history. Ironically, these comic-book movies with their strong characters and moral themes are deeper, while still entertaining.”

As Hollywood is profiting from the comic book industry — the forthcoming $139 million Spider-Man is expected to vie with Star Wars 2 as the summer hit — the comics business sorely needs the movies. Marvel, owners of famous properties including Spider-Man and The X-Men, even filed for bankruptcy (it has since recovered) in 1996. Before The X-Men movie, says Marvel’s editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, the entire industry was in freefall, losing 7% to 10% of its readers every month.

“In 2000,” says Quesada, “Spider-Man was all but dead. Recently Spidey has been the cover-boy of the industry revival, with 60% sales growth in the last year. We now have five Marvel titles healthily selling over 100,000 a month from specialist shops across America.” The trend is set to continue; Marvel’s sales figures for February 2002 were 40% up from the year before.

As well as the publicity and merchandising benefits, Quesada insists that the comics market learned a lesson from The X-Men film: “We missed the boat editorially. The movie was streamlined, whereas the comics were incredibly convoluted, with spin-off titles that splintered the characters. That was alienating and put us in a bad position to capitalize on the movie.” Marvel has since relaunched both The X-Men and Spider-Man, bringing the stories in line with the films’ simplified structure. Quesada has also hired Hollywood talent: for example, Kevin Smith, screenwriter of the 1994 cult hit comedy Clerks, was recruited to bring the blind vigilante Daredevil back from cancellation. It is now a top-five-selling title and positioned to benefit even more from the 2003 Ben Affleck movie version. DC Comics, Marvel’s rival, also has plenty of projects slated for the big screen. Wonder-Woman, Superman, Batman: Year One, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (to star Sean Connery) are all in the pipeline.

And even if comics geeks will always find room to complain — about the introduction of an American character, Tom Sawyer, into the mainly British League comic community, or the new black leather X-Men costumes — all fans of this genre should be thrilled. Thanks to Hollywood, their favorite heroes will not only be saving the world on screen, but will be rescuing the comic-book industry as well.