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Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh #45: Your Sobering Comics and Movie Biz Reality Check

Published Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:00:35 -0500

Looking at all the column inches Rich and other geek websites devoted the last few weeks to the box office fortunes of the likes of KICK-ASS and THE LOSERS, you'd think movies made from comics were on the way out.

That's not true.

Here's a bit of perspective.

KICK-ASS: Matthew Vaughan produced and directed the movie by raising the $30 million budget himself. He sold it to Lionsgate for more than that, which means he made his and his investors' money back for the production. Lionsgate then spent all the Prints & Advertising money to hype it up, everything from Comicon appearances to saturating the TV, internet and billboards with images and trailers, let's say they spent anywhere from $10 to 20 million on top of what they paid for the movie. This means the box office takings are a disappointment. They need to make at least $80 million in domestic earnings to break even. The movie may be doing nicely overseas in places like the UK, but foreign distribution rights are sold to companies in those territories, which means Lionsgate is not going to see that much of the international box office for their own coffers. It's Lionsgate that has to eat the money they spent buying the movie off Vaughan. And given that they spent less than $100 million on it, they will make their money back eventually, with broadcast and DVD sales, though the lower-than-hoped theatrical box office means it'll take longer than they wanted to do so, and they're currently facing a takeover bid, so they're not exactly sitting pretty. Meanwhile, Vaughan and Mark Millar aren't going anywhere. There will be more projects and deals for them. Millar's agent was smart enough to do what good agents do when their client has a movie coming out, which is to sell their other properties before the movie is released, when there's still some buzz and everyone in town knows about the movie. Other studios and producers will want a look at their other projects for fear of missing out on another potential money-maker. Sorry, Millar-haters, Mark's going to be around for as long as he can continue to make a living out of comics and selling them to the movies. That's just how it works.

This week, THE LOSERS' opening weekend take can be said to be a bomb since it barely even broke $10 million. With virtually every movie, you can pretty much cut its second weekend takings in half and so on. While I feel bad for Andy Diggle and Jock, it's not much of a surprise in the scheme of things: the movie was marketed half-heartedly. There were no stars that the public really know or want to see, Chris Evans and Zoe Saldana have not been pushed as the Next Big Stars and so were relegated to the status of character actors with the rest of the cast, and all the trailers just showed a movie that Just Wasn't Good Enough to make people want to see it. It presented a movie that looked too jokey and half-baked, with too much stuff you might already see on cable TV, and people are just not going to spend money on a movie they're not sure about. That and it looks too similar to the A-TEAM remake that's opening in a few weeks, only that's a remake of a TV show with characters that people remember and might still care about, and some stars people have heard of and are interested in seeing. If you compare the trailers to THE LOSERS and THE A-TEAM side-by-side, you catch the vibe that THE A-TEAM might be the movie with not only a larger budget, but also one that makes more of an effort with being creative.

So in light of all this, Sony is unhappy with test-screening results of Michel Gondry's movie of THE GREEN HORNET. According to IESB.com's report, the audience found Seth Rogan unconvincing and the movie too campy. I would say that the project was in trouble the moment it was greenlit, no matter who was going to be in it or who directed it, for one simple reason.

Honestly, who gives a shit about THE GREEN HORNET?

The Green Hornet has not been in the public consciousness for decades. Non-comics fans under 50 haven't heard of him. The character was a Batman rip-off when it first came along decades ago, and the Sixties TV show was itself a rip-off of the Adam West Batman TV show, only without the jokes. Kids today don't really know or care, and it wasn't going to matter who was going to star in it or direct it. The property was doomed from the start unless they got a James Cameron or Michael Bay to direct it and got a Robert Downey Jr. or Megan Fox to star in it, and I'm assuming they were far too sensible to get involved with this turkey. Creatively, there may not be anywhere else to go with it but Michel Gondry's campy, faux-naif postmodern take, but who really wants to see that? Who needs to see that? Art students can just go create their own post-modern post-naif takes on old pulp fiction. The rest of us have better things to do with our time.

Bottom line: comic book movies are not in trouble. BAD comic book movies are in trouble. They're always been in trouble and always will be in trouble, and there will always be some company or studio that will make them the same way you throw any old shit at the wall in the hopes that some of it might stick. Movies from comics are hits if they're marketed well – it helps if it's based on comic characters that are popular – have stars people want to see, and decent enough surprises and set-pieces.

Here's the other reason that producers, production companies and studios aren't going to stop wanting comics and graphic novels to option for movies: they have pictures. They don't have to work hard to read them. The images are pre-set, pre-fabbed, and they can easily grasp the main images and ideas of the stories. They don't have to read reams and reams of prose as in novels or even chunks of print as in screenplays. That's why actors are getting together with comics publishers to create ideas that can be pitched to comics, why creators are making comics as not-even-disguised pitches for movies. That's why comics have become a cheap Research & Development division for movies now. Hell, I've had one producer tell me you don't even need to have Diamond pick up and distribute your printed comic or put it in the shops, just send copies of it to producers, agents and studios and see if someone bites.

But only if it's any good and not the same old crap that everyone else is doing. Leave that to the movies.

Staying home to fuck up the box office at lookitmoves@gmail.com

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