The Death of Guaranteed Comicbook Film Success
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Some of the biggest box office successes, both recently and of all time, have been from movies that adapt comicbooks or graphic novels, such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, resulting in movie studios making the general assumption that the transition from shiny page to silver screen was inherently profitable. The problem is that this is no longer true – if it even had been before.
Watchmen, The Incredible Hulk / The Hulk, and Fantastic Four all hinted at what is now apparent, breaking through to the general public’s sensibilities with Kick-Ass: devoted comicbook fans can only produce a certain level of financial success on their own. The smash hits that were the two recent Batman movies, and the likely box office greatness that will be the Last Airbender, have the added, but important, quality of actually being good movies that appeal to an audience not exclusively consisting of nerds.
If the definition of comicbook movies is expanded slightly, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra could be considered the shot across the bow, although it’s apparent that studio executives didn’t understand its implications. While the devotion of fans may be strong, no matter how bad the reviews, movie critics are still a necessary piece of a box office success, and a key, common element with failed comicbook adaptations is their overall panning by the likes of Roger Ebert – the exorbitant price of a movie ticket has had the interesting side effect of moviegoers doing more research before paying for their night’s entertainment.
In the case of Kick-Ass, a movie about normal people who decide to become superheroes (note: no special powers or ethical obligations), Roger Ebert, among others, found it “morally reprehensible” and without a point, and many seemed to agree, since it produced less than $20m in its opening weekend – The Dark Knight, by way of comparison, made almost that amount on its opening night. Although excuses are being made, the simple fact is that not only did it fail to live up to expectations, it also failed to produce as promised.
This is not to say that there will be no more movies based on comicbooks or graphic novels, especially with various sequels and highly expected first-runs coming soon, but simply that they can no longer be assumed to generate massive income for the studios that produce them. Movie success is, and has always been, always been an odd combination of marketing/promotion and quality – the latter half is finally catching up with Hollywood’s golden goose of the past decade.
Pending a breakthrough adaptive hit, it’s now highly unlikely films will be produced from relatively unknown, or even well known, original series, as they simply aren’t a sure bet to counterbalance the amount of money often needed to bring them to fruition. Sad, perhaps, for fans of some esoteric print productions, but both the industry and moviegoers end up coming out on top, since the name and aura of a project is once again less important than the project itself.
Kick-Ass deserves credit where it’s due.
Kyle can be found on his blog, on Facebook, via email, or on Twitter.
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“Pending a breakthrough adaptive hit, it’s now highly unlikely films will be produced from relatively unknown, or even well known, original series, as they simply aren’t a sure bet to counterbalance the amount of money often needed to bring them to fruition.”
That’s just silly. While bad movies like the Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider (which made money, amazingly) were likely greenlit on the assumption that their built-in comics fanbase would prop up box office returns, Kick-Ass was in production before the comic even came out. It was independently financed and will probably make a profit in DVD sales, like a Kevin Smith movie. It’s hardly the latest test case for big Hollywood expecting outsized returns from a comic book property that’s been around for decades.
I think the real reason Hollywood has been turning to comics for source material is that there’s are so many original stories in comics which have yet to hit the big screen.
The only thing the modest returns of Kick-Ass tell you is that there aren’t a lot of people who want to see a 10 year-old girl curse like a Sopranos character.
Jack,
No, it’s not silly – comicbook-based movies have been in decline for the last few years, if you disregard the default hits like The Dark Night, and Kick-Ass is just the latest in the series. It was heavily promoted and lauded by fans, but failed to do as well as the studios likely hoped.
Hollywood is turning to comicbooks and graphic novels because they are having a hard time coming up with original ideas – the very same reason they’re doing so many remakes and sequels.
What Kick-Ass probably tells us is that the masses don’t buy into the marketing crap for these kinds of movies anymore.
–Kyle
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m not sure why you think studios believe comic-books are can’t miss. The idea that they were guaranteed hits died in the mid-2000’s when League of Extraordinary Gentleman, V for Vendetta, Punisher, Elektra, and Constantine failed to catch on. Lesser graphic novels and comic books have routinely brought in around 20 million on opening weekend, including Blade and Hellboy, both of which spawned sequels.
So not only does that argument seem to hold little water, but it’s not even really relevant here because Kick-Ass wasn’t a Hollywood studio film – it was produced and financed outside of the system. Not surprisingly, the reason that they couldn’t initially make a deal with a studio was because of marketing concerns. One studio wanted to tone down the violence (hoping to get the teen-centric film to the PG-13 crowd) and another wanted to make the leads older (seeing that an R-rated film with teenage leads isn’t a money-making combination.) The filmmakers stayed true to their vision which, as Hollywood told them, limited their potential audience, no matter how much marketing was thrown out there.
Also, I think you’re mistaking marketing with online hype. If anything, I think what Kick-Ass (and non-comic book Hot Tub Time Machine) reminded us is that internet and Comic-Con hype is wholly unreliable in terms of gauging the box office prospects of a film.
Finally, I don’t really follow the logic of your bit about the need for critics. Kick-Ass supposedly shows us that critics are needed but one of the examples of successful comic-book films is last year’s Transformers film and that was ravaged by critics. Roger Ebert and his fellow critics didn’t care for 300 (it got worse reviews than Kick-Ass) but that became a surprise hit.
Kick-Ass is more of a niche film but the fans of said niche make up the vocal minority on the internet, which made some people to expect too much from the film’s opening.
Kevin,
I wasn’t suggesting this was a new idea, but rather the last nail in the coffin for “comicbook movies, yeah!” attitudes in Hollywood. And the term “Hollywood” is often used to refer to the movie industry in general, not a specific locale, by the way.
In your examples of habits that go against critics, I would pose two arguments:
1) last year’s “Transformers” was a sequel, and therefore a very different kind of movie – at least in terms of marketing, hype, and need for quality [see "Spider-Man 3" for a similar situation]
2)”300″ appealed wholeheartedly to males, and was pretty heavily marketed to hook us in – think of it as the male version of “The Notebook”, so it’s also exempt from critics’ “thumbs down” critiques
I think critics are important for new movies, movies with murky details (aka bad trailers), and for movies that don’t have a built-in audience (like sequels or gender-hooks). “Kick-Ass” would fall into this category where people like Roger Ebert are important.
–Kyle
In response to another comment. See in context »And my point is that the idea that there was still this “comicbook movies, yeah!” attitude in Hollywood is just plain false. Case in point, Kick-Ass wasn’t made by “Hollywood” (which is usually used to refer to the studio system, not the locale.)
Look at the upcoming “The Losers”. When Tim Story was attached, it was going to be released under Warner Bros. When Story dropped out, WB demoted it to the niche Dark Castle. It’s not like the suits at Warner Bros was sitting around saying, “But it’s based on a comic book, it’s gotta do well.”
Kick-Ass was made outside of the Hollywood system and will have little impact on how studios looks at their own projects. If Scott Pilgrim comes out and does well, Kick-Ass will be another forgotten disappointment (even though it should still show a profit) alongside Whiteout, 30 Days of Night, etc.
Kick-Ass was a movie that got hyped by the internet. Instead of realizing that the film was overvalued in terms of box office, people are now overstating the impact of the film.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t think that there was ever such a thing as “guaranteed success” when it came to comic book movies in general. Some of the biggest franchises the comic book industry has to offer, like Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four and Daredevil, have already came and met with mixed results. But, I’m willing to bet that Iron Man 2, Captain America, and Green Lantern will all be big hits. If this does anything, this will make it much harder for the 300’s and Losers of the comic book industry to see the light of day.
And it’s somewhat fitting that it’s this film, because it’s a comic that is so all over itself with self-indulgence and grandstanding, from a writer who is known for the same, that I’m somewhat unsurprised at the reaction it met with the box office crowd. But, the thing is, it’s not like anyone other than comic book readers knew this was a comic book going into it. Just like no one knew anything about Sin City, or 300, or knows anything about The Losers or Scott Pilgrim outside the fanbase. To the audience at large, these are movies, and need to be made and marketed as such, while trying to be honest to the source material so you don’t piss off your built-in fans. I think this is more a setback than anything, but we’ll see how The Losers and Scott Pilgrim does, and see if this is the beginning of the end of the “niche” properties getting made, even though I don’t think these things are related.
A good comic is a good comic. A good movie is a good movie. Just because one is good in its own medium does not mean it will translate to the other, and just because it may be a good movie and a comic both does not mean its something the masses will go and see. But since this is not a rationale that Hollywood understands as they only see numbers, we’ll see how this plays out. It’s a shame though because there are so many creator-based properties that would translate to the big screen still completely untouched.
These are close to my thoughts. There have been lots of comic-film failures already, and I fail to see why Kick-Ass in particular is some sort of death knell.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] True/Slant calls Kick-Ass “The Death of Guaranteed Comicbook Film Success.” [...]
[...] True/Slant calls Kick-Ass “The Death of Guaranteed Comicbook Film Success.” [...]
Dahlink, do I look like a nerd? Don’t answer that!
This does not make me in the least bit sad. Frankly, the best comics are, well, comics.