Shazam! project to be retooled: Enter The Black Adam

[ClayinCA]

Indeed. Following this line of thought, it can't be long before WB does a Sugar & Spice movie in which the adorable tots become child prostitutes.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They're not making "Captain Marvel" darker.

They're just not making it.

They may change their collective minds. Considering the other things they have the opportunity to spend their millions on, that's not terribly likely.

 

[Norrin Radd]

To be fair to WB, I think Cap is a difficult project to put onscreen. It's basically Harry Potter meets Superman, with the "magical" meeting the "superheroic". Then you add elements of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Judeo-Christian aspects with a touch of "Sword in the Stone" thrown in. It's all a rather unique and potentially unwieldy combination.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

So if we would have made Returns popular, then every Warner's super-hero movie could have had dead-beat dads, too little action, cannibalistic dogs and stupid real estate schemes? I truly am chagrined.

No, you wouldn't be seeing every Warner's superhero being dark as a result of The Dark Knight's popularity, but have them be what they really actually are. And you'd have Superman plots that have the action, drama, plot, & characters in an equal balance, not out of balance with a shitload of mindless Michael Bay/Schwarzenegger/Stallone-esque action and smashing about-which is what we'll likely get with the new production/direction regime in the next movie. What you, a couple of the others on this and similar boards and the new regime want will make the next Superman movie a big success at the box office, but it will be another 'popular failure' on the level of the Transformers movie, X3: X-Men United, and Spider-Man III-all big money makers, but nobody really liked them (okay, well I did like them, but still....) All this because you thought that Brandon Routh's portrayal was 'gay' as was his costume (and that one I really didn't get) and because his Superman was a kind and sensitive, caring Superman, and because the plot deviated away fron Superman lore by having him have a kid (as if Supes's marriage, death, cloning, resurrection, death of his dad, destruction of half of Kansas in the Imperiex war, death of Katherine Grant's son at the hands of the Toyman, arrival of Supergirl/Kara, death of Superboy/Conner/Kon-El, and a whole other host of changes that have mostly permanently changed Superman in the comic books weren't change enough). All you all want is just WWE with superheroes, but not everybody wants to see just that, as Heroes has shown, they want more.

John Kenneth Muir summed it up just right:

As for Brandon Routh...I liked him. This young, mostly unknown talent did one hell of a job of re-casting Superman in his own image. I thought he was very good, very powerful in the role. Routh evidences that sense of innocence that we desire from Superman; that notion of aloneness, of standing-off and being different from those around him.
However, there may be a sex role thingie at play here in regards to the success of this particular Superman variation. I went to see the film with my wife and parents, and both Kathryn and my mother emerged from Superman Returns practically drooling over Routh; raving about his sensitivity, about his penetrating eyes, about his gentle, quiet strength and physical presence. They even (heretically!) said he was probably better than Christopher Reeve in the role. Clearly, the female contingent of our group had been taken with him...up, up and away. That's clever casting indeed.

Now, I won't go so far as Kathryn. For me, Reeve perfectly balanced vulnerability with strength. Routh looks like he was hatched from a Christopher Reeve clone farm (Clonus, perhaps?), and certainly boasts the physical grace and sincerity to be this generation's Superman. However, I did miss Reeve's sense of humor in the role; which was never overpowering, just always percolating under the surface. Reeve was an underrated and accomplished physical comedian (especially in his scenes as Clark Kent), and Routh seemed more mopey and lugubrious in those parts of Superman Returns. Maybe it was the script...or again, merely what we demand of our superheroes today.

A sidenote regarding Routh and Superman. Have you noticed all the buzz recently about "is Superman gay?" This idea really irks me. Not because a superhero couldn't be or shouldn't be gay, but because Superman is being labeled "gay" for all these crazy sociological reasons, and make no mistake, it's meant in a negative, derogatory fashion. Our society has unfortunately come to associate contemporary manhood with swagger and arrogance; with violence and hatred and revenge meted out as "justice." But Superman is not born from such pettiness. He is not born of vengeance or swagger or arrogance. He is a man of decency, objectivity, sensitivity...and true justice. This is how Brandon Routh (accurately) plays the character in Superman Returns, but our society has grown so homophobic that any man who dares to openly express qualities of gentleness or kindness or even brotherhood towards another man is instantly deemed gay. Imagine the headlines when the new Star Trek movie premieres. "Is Mr. Spock gay?" they will shout. Why...he's a...pacifist, after all! He won't fire the phasers and wage war until he's tried to resolve a problem peacefully!!!! What a wimp...must be gay!!!!

It's really sad that our media and politicians are demanding that manliness be judged by the barrel of the gun and by cowboyish military adventures overseas rather than innate qualities of fairness and honesty, dependability and kindness. Must all our heroes be bad boys, I wonder, filled with darkness, angst and the big brood? If so, then that's a shame. Superman has always been my favorite superhero because -- although he carries difficult baggage with him -- he hasn't succumbed to the baser instincts. Truth, justice...well, you know the rest. And, I also admire Superman because throughout the wide pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the one forever in love with a dark-haired beauty of whip-smart intelligence and sharp edges. I'm in love with a woman like that; so I identify with his yearning for Lois Lane.

Superman Returns review

Thanks to your 'he's too gay' assessment of Superman, Captain Marvel will be dark, as will Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, The Metal Men, and many other characters who will be brought to the screen. Take a bow, guys.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

To be fair to WB, I think Cap is a difficult project to put onscreen. It's basically Harry Potter meets Superman, with the "magical" meeting the "superheroic". Then you add elements of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Judeo-Christian aspects with a touch of "Sword in the Stone" thrown in. It's all a rather unique and potentially unwieldy combination.

Bullshit.

The story that can be adapted for the screen that best shows how Captain Marvel came to be is Superman/Shazam: First Thunder, the best retelling of a superhero origin ever published, IMHO. Here's the story plot:

Set at the beginning of what the Wizard Shazam calls "the second age of the great heroes", after the debut of the Man of Steel, Batman, and Captain Marvel, but before the coming of Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern, the story begins with Superman traveling to Fawcett City in pursuit of a group of criminals who have just robbed a museum from Metropolis and used magic against him. Upon arriving in Fawcett, he finds Captain Marvel fighting the same group of thieves. Together, Superman and Marvel dispatch a pair of monsters in a battle where Superman is impressed at how this new hero is able to ward off magic attacks that he himself is defenseless against. Afterward, they take a break from crime fighting to chat at Mt. Everest, where they discuss their powers and professional lives as superheroes. Superman breaks off the more personal aspects of the conversation, remarking that he prefers to keep his two lives entirely separate. Captain Marvel says he understands, but that he thinks "it kind of stinks". Afterwards, they continue working together to thwart the villains Lord Sabbac (who the museum-robbing gang had been attempting to summon all along) and Eclipso. At the end, Superman notes he is glad to have an ally in the Captain who is better suited to battling the supernatural than he would ever be.

Superman/Shazam: First Thunder


Now, you tell me that this character can't be brought to life as is.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

They should do a Captain Marvel cartoon and it should look like this.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

They should do a Captain Marvel cartoon and it should look like this.

Hey, it's that comic book from DC Kids. Good.

 

[CaptainCanada]

They should do a Captain Marvel cartoon and it should look like this.

Timm pitched one in the late 90s, but the proposal was rejected.

 

[shivkala]

The story that can be adapted for the screen that best shows how Captain Marvel came to be is Superman/Shazam: First Thunder, the best retelling of a superhero origin ever published, IMHO. :

I respectfully disagree. Jerry Ordway wrote a great origin for Cap in The Power of Shazam which is not overly cheesy, but at the same time, opened itself up for the reintroduction of some of the cheesier aspects of the original, though with a more modern spin.

Here's a quick synopsis:

C.C. Batson and his wife are uncovering a hidden tomb with Theo Adam. Theo, is overcome by the tomb and kills the Batsons. Their kids, Mary and Billy are split up, and Billy goes to live with his Uncle Sivana, who robs him of his money and Billy ends up living by himself.

One night, a mysterious figure in a trenchcoat beckons Billy down a subway, where he meets the wizard, Shazam, who bequeaths his powers, making Billy into Captain Marvel.

Meanwhile, Theo Adam, who is working with Sivana, unlocks the powers hidden within an amulet, which grants him the powers of Teth Adam, who was Black Adam in ancient Egypt. Teth lost his family and was deemed unworthy of his power by Shazam, who trapped him in the amulet. Unfortunately, Theo is in control and Black Adam is now a bad guy.

Captain beats Black Adam and takes him to the wizard, who removes Theo's ability to speak, and therefore call down the power of Shazam. Billy also learns the mysterious figure was the ghost of his father, which explains why he felt it was okay to follow him.

It would set him up with a good villain, who could come back for a sequel, features Billy being innocent and child-like, but not overly cheesy.

Jeff Smith's recent The Monster Society, was good, but I didn't like his take on the Billy/Captain Marvel dynamic, as he had them as two separate beings, whereas the Ordway take made him Billy in an adult's body (who, quite fittingly, resembled C.C. Batson).

 

[Red Ranger]

Well, let me offer a different take. When we hear they want to go in a "dark" direction, does that necessarily mean Captain Marvel himself will be dark? Or are they merely talking about the villain, Black Adam, who has recently been portrayed as an antihero, almost in the mold of the Submariner, only more ruthless? I'm probably wrong, but this may be what they're driving at. Perhaps told from the perspective of the villain? It would be fascinating if the flick told the story from a couple of points of view, a la Rashomon. My old favorite villian from Captain Marvel was Ibac, who was both menacing and goofy at the same time. -- RR

 

[sojourner]

What is with the necro'ing of threads today?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Its October.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

This project's changed around so much, I'm reluctant to believe much of anything about it until shooting begins.

The idea of a "darker" Captain Marvel movie is just dopey; if anything they should consider going the opposite route and making it more kid-friendly than most recent superhero movies.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Iron Man? Also a general audience success. But largely due to Robert Downey Jr. It seems Hollywood does not know yet how it to copy that. They are attributing its fun tone to his performance alone.

I'm not sure they're wrong there. IMO, the movie itself was kind of weak. I'd put it about on the same level as Fantastic Four but for Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. He was simply the right actor in the right role at the right time to make it his own and command the entire picture.

John Kenneth Muir summed it up just right:

[...] Our society has unfortunately come to associate contemporary manhood with swagger and arrogance; with violence and hatred and revenge meted out as "justice." But Superman is not born from such pettiness. He is not born of vengeance or swagger or arrogance. He is a man of decency, objectivity, sensitivity...and true justice.

I don't want to derail this thread too far into a Superman discussion, especially since there have been many other recent threads about the Superman movies and potential directions a future film might take. But I did want to single out this quote as one of the best explanations of Superman as a character and of why Hollywood has had such a difficult time adapting him. Current Hollywood understands the violent rages of Wolverine and the immature whining of Spider-Man. They understand the tortured past of Batman. Studio executives probably even see a lot of themselves in the arrogant playboy persona of Iron Man. But a decent man like Superman is too often dismissed as "unbelievable" or "undramatic." And I think that's just sad.

Thanks to your 'he's too gay' assessment of Superman, Captain Marvel will be dark, as will Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, The Metal Men, and many other characters who will be brought to the screen.

Well, I'd like a Hawkgirl adaptation to be MORE gay, but for very straight reasons.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

This project's changed around so much, I'm reluctant to believe much of anything about it until shooting begins.

The uncertainty of the movie business, especially when it comes to DC adaptations, is so pervasive that Ryan Reynolds was even joking about it in his opening monologue when he hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend. He claimed that Green Lantern would be coming out sometime around 2050.

 

[Thrall]

Meh. Everyone likes Black Adam over Captain McCheese anyway.

 

[Mr Light]

They could make a "darker" Captain Marvel movie without altering anything. Just having it starring Black Adam with Marvel as the "villain". Adam tries to redeem his murderous nature (like in 52) but in the end reverts to type and Marvel comes after him. Since Marvel is being seen from Adam's POV he's just this cheery smug prick of a kid who rubs his moral superiority in his ancient nose.

 

[Galactus]

This is why we can't get a Superman movie, or even a Captain Marvel, Shazam! (Surely now Disney and Time Warner can work on that now. Captain needs to return!)

Are you guys really this dark?

 

[StarTrek1701]

[No, you wouldn't be seeing every Warner's superhero being dark as a result of The Dark Knight's popularity, but have them be what they really actually are. And you'd have Superman plots that have the action, drama, plot, & characters in an equal balance, not out of balance with a shitload of mindless Michael Bay/Schwarzenegger/Stallone-esque action and smashing about-which is what we'll likely get with the new production/direction regime in the next movie. What you, a couple of the others on this and similar boards and the new regime want will make the next Superman movie a big success at the box office, but it will be another 'popular failure' on the level of the Transformers movie, X3: X-Men United, and Spider-Man III-all big money makers, but nobody really liked them (okay, well I did like them, but still....) All this because you thought that Brandon Routh's portrayal was 'gay' as was his costume (and that one I really didn't get) and because his Superman was a kind and sensitive, caring Superman, and because the plot deviated away fron Superman lore by having him have a kid (as if Supes's marriage, death, cloning, resurrection, death of his dad, destruction of half of Kansas in the Imperiex war, death of Katherine Grant's son at the hands of the Toyman, arrival of Supergirl/Kara, death of Superboy/Conner/Kon-El, and a whole other host of changes that have mostly permanently changed Superman in the comic books weren't change enough). All you all want is just WWE with superheroes, but not everybody wants to see just that, as Heroes has shown, they want more.

You are missing the point. Superman (or any other superhero for that matter) does not have to be mindless action to be successful, but it at least needs to be entertaining. Was Transformers 2 or Terminator 4 full of action set pieces? Yes. Were they entertaining? No. Similarly, did Watchmen have a lot of character building storylines? Yes. Was it entertaining for the general public? Nope. It was also pathetic that the screenwriter was literally begging online for audiences to go see the movie again.

Now take first Spider-Man and X-Men movies, Batman Begins, Iron Man, Star Trek, District 9.. all these movies have one thing in common - they have a perfect balance of action set pieces and an intriguing storyline to go with them. To the point that people had and have an eager anticipation for a sequel to be made. No wonder the sequels to the first three movies made a killing and people are counting the days for the next three movies' sequels to be out!

Did Superman Returns deliver on that balance? Absolutely not! People make jokes about "Superdeadbeatdad" and "whorish Luthor". Guess why? Because that's what was actually shown in the movie. People had extra-high expectations from Bryan Singer because he did deliver two very successful movies with X-Men and X2. But S:R was nothing but a boring shitfest with more focus on how to s*** Richard Donner's c*** than actually making the movie entertaining. McG apparently didn't learn from watching that disaster so he copied that formula and focus on getting 20 seconds of rehashed CGI Arnie-face than actually deliver a compelling story for Terminator 4.

I say this again and again - when people plomp down that hard earned $30 on the box office counter, they want to be entertained. They want to forget their regular lives and immerse themselves into the storyline and follow through with the characters, sometimes even at the back of the head become those characters in a semi-fantasyland. If a movie cannot attract them into the story, make the audience immerse themselves into the motions, it has failed to deliver the entertainment. Simple as that.

The morons at WB or other big name studios think "OOOOoohhhh the audience liked this movie which had this theme, therefore ALL movies of that certain genres need to have that same theme." Uh, no. This is what happens when stupid people with a hurried MBA degree gets their hands at running an entertainment company.

 

[ClayinCA]

Meh. Everyone likes Black Adam over Captain McCheese anyway.

Not everyone!