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NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > WITH NO ONE WATCHING THE WATCHMEN HOLLYWOOD GIVING UP ON SUPERHEROES, AGAIN
WITH NO ONE WATCHING THE WATCHMEN HOLLYWOOD GIVING UP ON SUPERHEROES, AGAIN
March 23 2009
Hollywood, CA – “The World will look up and shout save us, and I’ll whisper no”. Those words spoken by the inkblotted superhero Rorschach were intended as a post-modern commentary on comic book superheroes as well as an indictment on the unbridled faith in Reagannomics and the fight against communism. In today’s world though the comment has less political relevance than when the comic first appeared and has come to personify Hollywood’s faith in comic book adaptations.
Just last year Hollywood scored two superhero level hits with ‘Iron Man’ and the billion dollar ‘The Dark Knight’ but as has long been the lesson in the two of hits and misses, superheroes haven’t done much lately. The relative box office failure of the ‘Watchmen’ film has inspired an Adrian Veidt style rebellion against superheroes and their movies.
“The history of superheroes in movies has been mixed at best. The triumph of the early ‘Superman’ movies led to the embarrassment that was the ‘Captain America’ movie, which led to the first ‘Batman’ movie which eventually led to ‘X-Men’. As each generation goes
superheroes become darker and more profitable,” said Scrape TV Entertainment
analyst Tracey Temple. “Apparently now Warner Brothers is giving up on dark superhero movies because ‘Watchmen’ didn’t make a billion dollars. The movie will make money but not billions. It’s going to be a hard go for the future of the genre if every movie that doesn’t hit 9 digits is considered a failure.”
‘The Dark Knight’ is one of only four films to ever break the billion dollar barrier but is the only one that belongs to a major genre. Though many companies still have major comic book properties in development, many studios have lost faith in the genre entirely as a result of the lack of a billion dollar gross from ‘Watchmen’.
“DC Comics is owned by Warner Brothers and so they have exclusive rights over every property in the publishers stable so they pretty much have the say when it comes to superhero
movies in general. With this failure it’s clear they are going to have to reassess their plans. While it’s true that not every movie needs to make a billion dollars it’s also true that companies don’t need to make every movie,” continued Temple. “Warner has set a standard for the superhero movie and every picture that comes after is going to have to live in that shadow. How many Pirate movies have you seen recently? Hobbit movies?
Movies about ships running into icebergs? Companies wisely stayed away from those genres knowing they would never be able to live up to a billion dollars and now superheroes are learning the same thing.”
Many though point to the relative failure of the film is the fact that the original comic is more of a cult favourite rather than a mainstream property but Hollywood studios are traditionally less interested in logic and reason than they are in money. Now, with a real life ‘Keene Act’ being enacted against superhero movies, it appears the real life dystopian future presented in ‘Watchmen’ is coming to life.
“It’s obviously a little different than it was in the book; I mean for one Richard Nixon is dead. One would hope too that New York won’t be destroyed by a lunatic genius but we will see. With the
rising tension between Russia and the United States though, you never know what might happen,” continued Temple. “Hopefully this doesn’t mean that all of Alan Moore’s writings will come true. That last thing we need is a totalitarian regime in England or a giant swamp man roaming around Louisiana.”
Contrary to rumours, Alan Moore is apparently not the smartest man in the world and his involvement in transportation and bio-engineering has been limited. We attempted to contact him in his secret English hideaway but our calls were not returned.
Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent
NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > WITH NO ONE WATCHING THE WATCHMEN HOLLYWOOD GIVING UP ON SUPERHEROES, AGAIN
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