Epic Default Productions

So there has been a lot of nerdy movie news lately, particularly with Comic Con just finished. Some of it has really pissed me the hell off and some of it has made me wonder what the end result will be on the silver screen. With all that’s occurring though I’m starting to wonder if it might be a while before we see another good, classic superhero movie and I’m also starting to question the approach that Hollywood is taking for this genre altogether now.

Confused?

(Random Interruption) Also, FRACK YOU MGM!!!!

It really sucks that three possible movies that I’ve been really hoping to see made into feature lengths are in limbo at the moment because of MGM’s stupidity in money handling: Guillermo Del Toro’s The Hobbit, the next James Bond movie, and Darren Aronofsky’s remake of Robocop. I absolutely love Guillermo Del Toro. He is the biggest reason why the Hellboy movies kick as much butt as they do and I haven’t met a single person that couldn’t appreciate the beauty of Pan’s Labyrinth… mostly because I don’t regard anybody that thought it was a bad movie as human. Regardless, with him at the helm of The Hobbit, I could imagine a fantastic and beautiful film that might even show Peter Jackson a thing or two. I also absolutely loved the two Daniel Craig Bond movies. I don’t think I’ve ranted about it on here but those who know me know that I love the realistic feel of these movies and I think that Craig takes a fantastic approach that really sets him apart from other Bonds while still bringing in the finesse and sly nature that made Connery the greatest in so many people’s eyes. As for Robocop… It’s fantastic movie with great one-liners and fun as hell. What else needs to be said? And seeing how far out of his usual game he went with The Wrestler and still did a fan-frickin-tastic job, I think Aronofsky could do an amazing job with this. I’m super excited about all three of these and I hope to God or Buddha or Krishna or whoever can influence the minds of those crazy studio exec bastards that some other studio will pick these movies up and my little wet nerdy dreams will come true.

Also, I guess some people have been excited about the Red Dawn remake but I guess I can’t get too excited about a movie about Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen fighting the Russians. I guess I like representatives of American culture to be more of a bloody, bald, badass mother!@#%# (see: Bruce Willis).

Booyeah!

Okay though, enough on that.

I’ll get back to the subject at hand: Superhero movies. Now in my very rational and extremely substantiated opinion, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve seen a great upswing in superhero movies and in particular, superhero movies of really good quality. I think that when people watched the first Iron Man and The Dark Knight and saw what good writing and good actors can do for what might seem like a silly premise, it really shook some people up and made them open their eyes to the great possibilities that could lay ahead.

When you have fantastic films like these, you are bound to push the next movies to these standards and further. So far though, as we saw in Iron Man 2, there has been an obvious decline in quality, and I’m pretty sure that this is just a sign of what’s to come. I know there are a number of people that are super excited about the Thor and Captain America movies that are coming out soon, and I’m sure they will certainly look very pretty and may be fun to watch, but are they going to be truly wonderful? Also, why in God’s green earth are they ditching Edward Norton as the Hulk?! That is completely ridiculous. I have been ranting for a year or so now that I cannot wait until the Avengers movie comes out because I really wanted to see what would definitely be some truly spectacular play between Norton and Downey Jr. throughout the movie. I mean hell, you could have had Gene Simmons as Thor, Dick Cheney as Hawkeye, Mo Rocca as Captain America and a cardboard cutout of Angelina Jolie from Gia as the Black Widow and the movie still would be watchable with the play between those two. It’s preposterous to be tossing that aside. That being said though, I have to say that I think that Mark Ruffalo could still do a pretty decent job, but I really don’t see it being the same. So what do I think is going to happen to these movies? They aren’t going to be god awful… well at least not all of them. They’re just going to be… meh and to be honest, I don’t really want to spend $12 a pop on meh.

The one possible exception I’m going to throw out there though is Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern. I pretty much have held Ryan Reynolds to the same standard that I held Heath Ledger to a couple years ago. I thought they were both actors that did good in the Rom Coms being set as Hollywood lover boys, but that I could see the possibility of some acting talent in that mix and if they were given a good movie with a good script they could really kick some ass. I was able to dish out a million “I told you so’s” for Dark Knight and I don’t know yet if I’ll get the chance to do it again but I have to admit that I’m throwing down the gauntlet now and saying that Reynolds is going to kick some ass as the Green Lantern. I mean hell, he was asked by a little boy at Comic Con about how it felt reciting the Green Lantern Oath and this is how he responded! You’ve got to love an actor like that.

Grrrrrrr!!!

So what can we hope for in these dark times to come? Well, if someone was keeping tabs, I think one might notice that the super hero bashing was really just bashing a lot on Marvel (who happens to be the one with by far the biggest share of the movie market) so I guess we can see if DC can step up to the plate and show Marvel a thing or two while proving me wrong in the process. Maybe try to bring some Vertigo comics to the silver screen. They have quite a few fantastic ones. Hell, why don’t they finally green light American Gods or Sandman for the big screen? I think that could be absolutely amazing. There are also always the smaller sci-fi flicks that can kick some ass while flying under the radar until almost the day of release. I know I’m super excited about Tron, I’ve heard some good buzz about Sucker Punch, I really want to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World and I think most people will agree that Inception was a fantastic sci-fi thriller, so who knows what will come out of the woodwork next.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.