Month: July 2016

I’ve spoken at great length about sequels and reboots; about the kinds of reboots and why they exist.  I’ve also talked about marketing and about the timing of marketing.  What I want to go over for this post, is the timing of sequels, reboots and remakes.  Now, if a movie is well-received and makes enough money, a movie studio may try to get a follow-up film made.  For movies that are one-and-done, we usually don’t see sequels.  Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule; Independence Day Resurgence is a prime example.  I’ll talk about that movie later.  When there is a possibility of a sequel, there’s a window of opportunity that can be taken advantage of to make that sequel and have it out to audiences in a relatively timely manner.  Now, what is the length of time between a movie and it’s follow-up/s?  Depending on the technology available, the window could be anywhere from 2 years up to a decade.  Making a movie is a lengthy process and it takes up to a year and a half, usually, to produce and put out the film.

The best opportunity for a sequel is generally about 3-5 years after the release of the original picture, if the technology permits it, of course.  Let’s take Terminator 2, for example:  When the original movie was released back in 1984, people loved the hell out of it.  The ending of the film left it open for the possibility of a sequel.  But the tech at the time really couldn’t allow for something on T2‘s scale to be made.  James Cameron has always been one to really push for the advancement of technology, so in 1991, we got Terminator 2.  That was about 7 years after the original film was released.  Now, you would think that people would have moved on from The Terminator, but when the sequel was released, people ate it up, and it was the biggest movie of the year.  So, people got a sequel that they didn’t know they wanted.  But again, it was still less than a decade from the original film, so interest in the franchise wasn’t all dried up yet.

Let’s take a look at a more recent example: Independence Day Resurgence.  Now, here is a sequel that nobody asked for.  The rumors had been out there for years of a possible follow-up to the 1996 smash hit, but nothing had materialized until a few years ago.  Here’s the problem:  This is a movie that was about a decade too late.  The actual problem is that the original Independence Day was self-contained.  It had a beginning, middle, and end.  The ending seemed pretty final to me, at the time.  A lot of people agreed.  So, the idea of a sequel was pretty much left to fan-fiction and the imaginations of the people who loved the movie.  Had Resurgence been released about 10-12 years ago, it might have made more sense, and they would have been able to get Will Smith to come back.  This is an example of a sequel that was made outside the window of opportunity.  It also would have been better received than it was.  Star Wars had about 3 years between films for each trilogy, so Star Wars gets a bit of a pass from me on this one.  Now, certain movies like Lord of the Rings Trilogy are unique, because they were all filmed at the same time.  It took about a year and half to film the trilogy, but they split up the movies and released them one a year.  That’s a special case, because of the story that Peter Jackson wanted to bring to the screen.  It made perfect sense to release the movies that way.  It gave people enough time to process the movie by the time the follow-up came out, but it wasn’t a very long turnaround for each film.  Now the timing for sequels depends generally on the kind of movie that they want to make a sequel to.  Some movies warrant a sequel, but others don’t.

Reboots and remakes are a whole different beast.  A remake is generally made for an audience that may be unfamiliar with the source film.  The time between a film and its re-make or reboot can be anywhere from 7 years to 50 years.  The reason I bring this one up is because we are getting a couple of high-profile re-makes this year.  The first one I bring up is Ben-Hur.  The original film starred Charlton Heston in the title role and was one of the greatest Biblical epics to be filmed.  This year, we’re getting a re-make starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman.  The original film was released in 1959.  I have an issue with this one, because it seems like a shot-for-shot re-make.  So, why now?  I guess the film-makers assume that audiences want it, but I’m guessing it’s more for the money.  I realize that a re-make of Ben-Hur wouldn’t have made sense thirty or so years ago, but it still seems odd that they would make a new movie nearly 60 years after the original film.  The other one, I want to mention is the new The Magnificent Seven film starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt.  I’m a fan of the original film with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, but it looks really good.  This is about 56 years since the original film was released, so it seems natural that the film-makers want to make a new movie for a new audience.  They did the same with 3:10 To Yuma.  That turned out to be phenomenal.

You generally want to give a movie time before you reboot it, but there have been cases recently where a movie franchise has been rebooted not even a decade after the last film.  Spider-Man is a perfect example.  It took Sony only 5 years to reboot the franchise and they’re doing it again with Spider-Man: Homecoming.  The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield wasn’t well-received.  Most people really didn’t need another origin story for Spider-Man so soon.  It was about 6 years between Star Trek: Nemesis and the Star Trek reboot.  But that one was an exception because Nemesis wasn’t particularly liked by critics or audiences and the box-office returns reflected that.  The new Ghostbusters film is another example of bad timing.  That movie was released about 20 years too late.

Timing is very important.  Like I said before, there is a window of opportunity to take advantage of an audience’s need for more.  When you miss that window, people are not likely going to favor a follow-up film.  That window of time changes for each movie and it’s franchise, so it’s never the same kind of window.  Re-makes and reboots can have a larger window of opportunity.  It’s usually about decades-long, but even then, if you take to long to re-make a movie, audiences aren’t going to reciprocate.  Film-makers can sometimes under-estimate or over-estimate an audience’s patience.  That’s something that film-makers need to take into consideration.

The character of Superman has been embedded in the American consciousness since the early 1930’s when Kal-El made his first appearance.  He first appeared as the cover feature of Action Comics #1 which was published on April 18, 1938.  The reception of the character was a resounding and immediate success.  In 1939, DC Comics(then Detective Comics)began a sister series specifically for Superman.  So, why is he so popular?  There are multiple reasons.  Obviously, because he’s a superhero, but that’s kind of missing the point.  Superman resonates with people because he represents what is supposed to be the best of humanity, event though he’s an alien.  Many of us aspire to be something greater than ourselves, and that’s what Superman represents.  He’s the one character that many people have looked up to for decades.  Even in today’s world, Superman represents the one thing that a lot of people don’t seem to have a lot of anymore:  Hope.  His desire to do what’s right for mankind is extraordinarily inspiring.

There have been MANY interpretations of the character since his debut in 1938.  Some of the more recent incarnations with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman have courted some controversies among fans, but I’ll get to those later.  While actor Kirk Alyn would be the first actor to portray the superhero on screen, it was George Reeves who really made the character more popular with a series that started in 1951.  The actor boldly wore the iconic red, blue and yellow outfit with the signature S on the chest.  The character would also be featured in an animated series during the 60s.  In 1978, the first real serious live-action film of Superman: The Movie took the world by storm.

Superman: The Movie was essentially the first real comic-book movie to be taken seriously.  And how.  It featured an all-star cast with Gene Hackman, Marlon Brandon, Ned Beatty, Terence Stamp, Margot Kidder, and Jackie Cooper.  However, it was the performance of Christopher Reeve that turned people’s heads.  With that one iconic performance, Christopher Reeve shot to nearly instant stardom.  Superman: The Movie is by far one of my favorite movies of all time, because it embodies all the elements of the character so well, and Mr. Reeve really brought that out in the character.  The film would see a decent follow-up and two horrendous ones during the 80’s.  We would not see another live-action Superman movie until 2006, when director Bryan Singer would give the character another shot.  Since Christopher Reeve had since passed away, it fell on the shoulders of newcomer Brandon Routh to don the red cape.  The movie was decent enough, but it was too similar to the original film, and not everybody really bought Brandon Routh as Superman.  As a result, it would be another 7 years until we got a new movie.

In 2013, Zack Snyder’s re-imagining of the character, Man of Steel would be released to mixed but mostly positive reactions world-wide.  It took a darker and grittier look at the character and how he fits in with today’s world.  Henry Cavill would be the first non-American to play the character, but you would never know that unless you already knew that he was British.  It was certainly a different take on Superman, and while many people complained about the character’s departure from the big blue boy-scout of yore, I feel that this interpretation of Superman is far more relevant to today’s world.  With the recent release of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, we see Superman still struggling to adapt in a world that is connected  and very skeptical about him.

Now that I’ve gone over a little bit of history with Superman, I’m going to tell you why I really like the character.  It goes back to my first paragraph about what the character represents:  Hope.  In Man of Steel, that’s what the S on Kal-El’s means.  As Jor-El puts it, it represents the fundamental belief that there is potential in everybody to be a force for good.  THAT is the essence of Superman.  Yes, I like the fact that Superman flies and has super-strength and can see through everything(except lead), but there’s this absolute desire from the character to do the right thing, even if it isn’t the most politically correct.  While previous films have portrayed the character as absolutely sure of himself and as a boy scout as Lex Luthor puts it, Henry Cavill’s character is not as certain.  He even admits to a priest in Zack Snyder’s movies that while General Zod can’t be trusted, he’s not sure the human race can be trusted either, because of what he’s seen.  This is actually why I like the newer version of the character so much, because he has doubts.  Not just about people, but himself as well.  He’s not perfect and he makes mistakes.  I find that approach to be rather refreshing.  While a lot of people would accuse the new Superman movies of feeling to much like Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, I feel that in today’s world, a movie with the tone and color of Superman: The Movie would feel somewhat out-of-place.

As I said before, Superman: The Movie is one of my favorite movies of all time, so don’t think that I’m ragging on it, because I’m not.  It’s just that a movie like that really can’t be made today without coming across as cheesy or cynical.  Comic book movies, like the comics themselves, are often a reflection of the decade in which they are released.  The looks of the characters and movies tend to change over the years.  I can certainly understand why people don’t particularly care for the new movies, but I love them.  The actions that Superman takes in the new movies have severe consequences as exhibited in the Battle of Metropolis at the end of Man of Steel.  The consequences of that battle would become the focal point for Batman V. Superman.  People are afraid of Superman and they feel that he has too much leeway in doing things.  There is a political aspect of the new film that addresses those questions.  I really do like that about the new movies.  There are consequences and Kal-El himself has doubts about how he fits into that world.  I think that makes the character even more compelling.  He’s not perfect and he knows that his actions have hurt people.

Is the character of Superman still relevant?  Absolutely.  Truth be told, Superman is needed now more than ever, considering the current political atmosphere.  Yes, he’s a fictional character, but what he stands for is as important today as it was nearly 80 years ago.  No matter your age, your creed or your ethnicity, Superman still remains one of the most inspirational and amazing superheroes ever, and he is willing to help everyone, regardless of where they are from.  Call me naive, but I believe we, as a species, can aspire to be something more; to be something greater.  This is why I love Superman.