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Some final thoughts on X-Men before we move on to bigger (and brighter?) things. I don't know if these types of posts will follow every Franchise Face-Off from this point on, but these Comic Book movies have definitely sparked my interest as of late. Perhaps this is because both comic books and the cinema are purely a visual medium: It's the images that catch your eye, after all, and if the story connecting them together happens to keep your attention, then so be it. That's just gravy for all those concerned. The best CBMs understand this and deliver on it, twofold.
The X-Men movies, like Batman and Superman before them, have gone through many different permutations over the years, each time trying desperately to please fans of the comic and kowtow to the demands of the cinema. Below, and during the next two X- centric posts, we cover a few examples of how the filmmakers attempted to do both:
If Batman & Robin
signaled the death of the Comic Book Movie, then X-Men (2000) is undoubtedly its rebirth
- a reverent, star-studded extravaganza that rang the box office bell in ways
very few people expected. Sure, there were attempts to revive the genre in
between - Blade (1998) springs to
mind, starring Wesley Snipes, or Mystery
Men (1999), with Ben Stiller and William H. Macy. But those were low-key
adaptations of lesser-known characters, not the big-budget, big-name properties
fans took to heart.
Consider, too, how the biggest Comic Book films up to that point,
Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie
(1978) and Tim Burton's Batman
(1989), seemed to spawn only Batman and Superman sequels. X-Men opened the floodgates for future box office spectaculars
including Spider-Man (2002), Daredevil (2003), Hulk (2003), Fantastic Four
(2005), reboots of the Batman and Superman franchises, plus Marvel Comics'
Cinematic Universe, culminating in The
Avengers (2012) - currently the third highest-grossing film of all time. Superman '78 may have set the template
for comic book verisimilitude (Richard Donner was an executive producer on X-Men), but it was X-Men that permanently whet the public's appetite for cinematic
superheroics.
If you've never been acquainted with the Mondo Gallery in Austin, TX, then you'd do well to acquaint yourself. An offshoot of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain (est. 1997), the Gallery enlists world-class artists to re-create posters for movies old and new - and then sells them (if you can nab 'em) online, at $35 to $100 a pop. (Posters are created as one-offs and sell out fast, via Facebook and Twitter feeds; buyers often re- sell their purchases on eBay, but at three times the original cost.)
Styles range from comic book designs to collages. And each and every one is a knockout - clever re- imaginings of popular (and not-so popular) films, unburdened by studio mandates or movie star egos. For brevity's sake, I've decided to share some of my favorites below, but really, if you consider yourself a serious film buff, or at least have a moment to spare, then it's worth perusing their extensive back catalogue at www.mondoarchive.com. Click on each poster below to make bigger:
There's been a strange confluence of movie trailer releases over the past week, as if studios are already vying to one-up each other for Most Anticipated Film of 2013. I honestly can't remember the last time so many big-budget previews came out around the same time; has it now become like the Oscars, where you're forced to submit your entries before the new year rolls around in order to qualify? (FYI, you can expect most of these to debut in theaters along with The Hobbit today.)
That's not to say the movies themselves look like a waste; if anything, they're equally enticing in their own way, depending on your preference for genres. Thanks to The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises last summer, audiences are primed, I think, to accept nothing less than perfection from their next potential Hollywood blockbuster. And these latest don't look to disappoint.
Part Four of our Burton/Schumacher retrospective, in
which we take a visual tour of the 1989-97 series' special (and
not-so-special) pleasures.
One truism about comic books - or any serialized form of
entertainment - is that they're always in flux.
Readership dwindles, tastes splinter off and mature, and publishing houses find
themselves in a constant struggle to stay one step ahead of the public - to
remain pertinent, say, or keep current with the ever-changing media climate.
It's why we have so many iterations, spin-offs and incarnations of the same old
titles: to please any number of fans at any given moment.
