I liked seeing Tony in TiH but I wish they had waiting until the end credits because it softened the impact of that last scene where Norton is grinning and about to Hulk out.
"Batman 3" and "Superman" both in 2012 -- and in IMAX?
- Thread starter JacksonArcher
- Start date
Or they could have done that. 
That's... kinda sad.
I thought Iron Man was interesting because they hired an extremely charismatic actor to fill a role that wasn't always the most well-written ("What do you mean, there's a black market for weapons???") but was a lot of fun.
I thought The Incredible Hulk was... well, I kinda just wondered what drew Edward Norton to the role, honestly. I guess the original cut was a lot better or something.
So, yeah, with The Incredible Hulk, I guess you're right. People applauded when Tony Stark showed up because that was all that made that film interesting: the promise that they'd maybe hopefully make a better film next time. (With Joss Whedon writing and directing The Avengers, I'm not sure they can deliver on that promise.)
Char Aznable
Lieutenant Commander
^ I love how you ignored the rest of my post, which was my main point.
If everybody around here took everything that everybody else said in context what would we have to get upset about? Getting upset and overreacting is the entire point of the internet!
That cuts both ways, though. For one thing, for some people, five years is an eternity. The bad taste of Spidey 3 will long have been washed away. Also, the fact that it's a reboot may placate those who hated it. New cast, new creative team - less likely to be the same as its predecessor. Think Batman Begins following Batman & Robin. That was only an 8 year gap, but even still, a lot of people thought it was too early to reboot. But now, with Hulk and Punisher having started all over again within a much shorter period of time, I don't think there'll be any great objection to a Spider-man restart. Besides, you can be sure that a great portion of the casual audience will have no clue that this is unconnected to the last 3, much like many people thought that Batman Begins was a prequel to the Burton/ Schumacher movies.
I'm a little sceptical about these rumours. If they cast Robert Pattinson as Peter and Kristen Stewart as MJ, that'll be one thing. But a lot of fans just automatically screamed 'Twilight, Twilight!' in panic when they heard that Peter was to go back to school. I mean, have they forgotten that in the original comics, he was a high school student? And the recent animated Spectacular Spider-man show showed how entertaining his adventures can be in that setting.
As for the budget, I'd heard that Webb met with James Cameron to see about shooting the whole thing in 3D. If they were going to do it on the cheap, surely they'd have added the 3D in post-production, a la Clash of the Titans. Of course, if the budget is $80m, then that would be a cause for concern.
It might not. But then again ... it might. I have higher hopes where someone like Webb is concerned than if this were to be Brett Ratner, Paul Anderson or Joel Schumacher's Spider-man. At least with someone like him, they're aiming for an offbeat indie sensibility, such as Raimi, Singer, Nolan or the likes had before they ventured into superhero land.
Yeah, I do think that ST II (or XII) will do better than its predecessor, a bit like TDK or X2 did. But like I say, the Trek movies have never done as well as the Spider-man movies. I also hope and think that Batman 3 (or 7!) will do well but then again, it could suffer from a backlash, it could have the curse of the threequel, audiences might not be interested in a movie without Heath Ledger, the 4 year gap between it and TDK might prove too much for the casual audience ... Who knows?
That's a fair point. But I think the best truism about Hollywood is William Goldman's comment 'Nobody knows anything' [or words to that effect]. I think you almost have to double that when it comes to superhero movies. Who would have thought that they wouldn't get Batman right until the 5th big budget movie? Or that the grim, adult Dark Knight would end up being one of the biggest box office hits ever? That Bryan Singer's Superman Returns would prove so divisive? That an indie horror director like Raimi would make such an accessible mainstream Spider-man movie or that Jon Favreau would knock Iron Man out of the park? That an auteur like Ang Lee would make such a dud with his Hulk movie? Etc etc.
For all of those reasons, I'm happy to give the next Spider-man movie a fair crack of the whip. Or the web.
I've heard it's debatable that doing 3D in post is really all that cheap. Letterier, who was not happy they made Clash Of The Titans 3D in post, said it's still far more expensive than most people think. I've heard the number $30 million bandied about for Clash's post-3D processing.
If you do a film in 3D from scratch, with proper planning and with equipment you're renting and from help with someone like Cameron, who has an invested interest in doing all this right, I can see the 3D budget being roughly equal. But the quality in doing it from scratch is infinitely superiour.
I'm curious as to what the production budget of Tron Legacy is. A risky venture, an unproven property, done with Cameron's already developed 3D system, so there's very little R&D to be done. I can't see Disney willing to make a sequel to an unprofitable film from 25 years ago, albeit with a built in cult fan base, with a budget of more than $120 million. So if I'm correct in that assumption, an action light Spider-Man 3D film for $80 million is not out of the question. I just wonder, if it really is action light, why bother with 3D at all?
I thought I addressed it, sorry.
I just don't think the "shared universe" conceit strengthens the storytelling, either in the films or in the comics. If anything, it's dragged it down over the last few decades, as any time a writer starts to build up a little momentum, they're cut off by some massive company-wide crossover. We see it time and time again in the comics, and it's effecting the films as well now. Favreau has already said he's not even going to bother developing any kind of story progression between his films because he has no idea how The Avengers is going to mess up any plans he might lay out.
Are you sure? I know Spider-Man 3 wasn't as bad as Batman & Robin, a movie that put the Batman franchise on life support for almost a decade, but that certainly impacted the box office success of Batman Begins (admittedly, to a point). I think if anything, if the new film is successful, it should have legs, but I think opening weekend will be radically reduced in comparison to the huge opening weekends of the past three films. In fact, I suspect a $50 million opening weekend for the reboot.
Which is why I'm afraid because only two weeks later comes Batman 3, which might destroy any legs that the film could obtain from strong word-of-mouth. The film will have to be frontloaded and open huge, because when the next Batman film opens, and a week prior to its release, regardless of the quality of the Spider-Man film, it's going to be trampled by the third Batman. I guarantee it.
Like I said, B&R did have some major residual effects on Batman Begins. Fortunately that film didn't have much major competition since it came out in the middle of June, and was able to coast on the wave of strong word-of-mouth. The Incredible Hulk is a bad example since it made just about as much as the last Hulk film did, if somewhat less, and was received by critics just about the same, even if the fans did warm up to it a bit more. The Punisher: War Zone film is yet another bad example as that movie made even less than the first film, which was considered a flop.
You're missing my point. Sony and the producers want to make Spider-Man in the likeness of those Twilight movies, and it has been made clear by early reports that Sony wanted to reboot the series even while Sam Raimi was developing his Spider-Man 4, and a big part of the reason why Sony canceled that film is because all along they wanted a Twilight-style reboot, hence hiring James Vanderbilt to pen a reboot script as insurance even while Raimi was developing his own Spider-Man film.
What I'm worried about, and what others are worried about, is how they plan to handle that film and the subject material. There's no doubt that a Spider-Man film set in that high school setting can still be fun and adventurous, but I don't think "fun" and "adventurous" is what Sony is going for: I think, based on what I have read so far, is that they want to drench the film in the high teenage angst and drama that has been such a "successful" formula for the Twilight films. That's why it keeps on getting compared to that, not because of the high school setting, but because of the central focus on the angst and the petulant drama.
Basically, from what I've heard, is taking the worst elements of Spider-Man 3 (the ridiculous, over-the-top "emo" Peter Parker) and making them the centerpiece for this new film.
From what I've read, thanks to Devin Faraci of CHUD, the $80 million budget is exactly the case.
I have a ton of faith in Marc Webb. (500) Days of Summer was a very fun little movie that showed originality and inventiveness. However, a lot of what I am hearing sounds cool, and would have been fun... had this been the first Spider-Man movie, but as the fourth, and so soon after the last series, I remain highly skeptical. Remember, with Batman Begins, we had never seen Batman's origins before, so there was a certain appeal to that, and plus, it wasn't retreading old ground. With this particular reboot, we already have seen the origin story before, so by essentially re-telling it you open up the possibility to alienate a lot of viewers who simply put have seen this movie before, back when it was called Spider-Man in the summer of 2002.
Star Trek did very well, and sequels like the ones you mention (i.e. X2 and The Dark Knight) prove that first sequels tend to be very successful, and much more successful than the first installment in a series. I very much see Star Trek 2 making $300 million domestically, if not much more, thus causing a real threat to the Spider-Man reboot. You also have to remember that while Batman Begins opened reasonably strong, it had huge legs, propelling it to earn four times its opening weekend, which was unheard of then and is unheard of now. Plus, taking into account the huge success of The Dark Knight and the massive amount of hype and anticipation over a third installment (and whether or not it can be either as good or better than TDK) I think there's a lot more in the favor of Trek 2 and Batman 3 being guaranteed hits than the Spider-Man reboot, which is a much more unproven commodity.
I don't know about that. Tim Burton's first Batman, while imperfect, does get a lot of what makes Batman tick, and is very much a homage to the early 1940's comics, and same as Batman Returns, where in those early comics you had Batman throwing people off rooftops without much cause for concern and you had him even using guns in the first few years of issues.
Hell, even Batman Forever and yes, Batman & Robin stay accurate to a certain era of Batman comics, verses paying homage to the darker Batman, they paid homage to the campy Batman of the 60's. Were they good movies? I like Burton's two films, and Forever has some moments, and Nolan's films are certainly much more even and compelling, but all six Batman films that have been released thus far have been accurate to the invariable way Batman has been portrayed in the comics from the very beginning. Nolan's Batman films pay homage to the late 1980's Frank Miller/Jeph Loeb comics, a little tip of the hat to Denny O'Neil, and so forth. Dark Batman just happens to be in vogue right now, but back when Batman came out it was a huge hit, and back when Batman Forever came out it was a huge hit. That's a part of the appeal of Batman is that he can be interpreted in various different and equally compelling ways.
I so called that.
Well, I remember following some fan message boards all the way up until the release (like SuperHeroHype!), and most of the fan buzz was pretty negative. They didn't like Singer's adherence to Donner or the "vague history" tidbits from the onset. The first trailer received very lukewarm buzz, and so on and so forth. It might have been more openly regarded on other such outlets like here, but I was not surprised at the divisive nature of Superman Returns. I was surprised it did so poorly and that we didn't see a sequel, but I had a feeling Singer's unique take wouldn't gel with people, especially the erudite Superman fan base that ended up outright condemning the film.
I'll give you Raimi, but I think Favreau just got lucky with the first Iron Man. I think once people see the sequel and (hopefully) come around, they'll notice Favreau's gimmick and realize he failed to capture lighting in a bottle twice.
Are you kidding me? Did you see Sense & Sensibility??
Oh, absolutely. Like I said, I have a ton of faith in Webb and James Vanderbilt (Fincher or not, Zodiac was fantastic). However, I also realize that being sandwiched between two huge blockbusters is definitely a risk, even for a venerable franchise such as the Spider-Man series. If I were Sony, I'd be somewhat worried.
J
Jetfire
Guest
They are taking their sweet time with these movies. 2005, 2008 & 2012?...4 years is too long.
We had Batman Begins, The Dark Knight...what is next???
We had Batman Begins, The Dark Knight...what is next???
It's much better for the studio to allow a four-year gap and keep a great director on board than insist on a fast sequel and lose him.
J
Jetfire
Guest
Maybe. I think if the studio knows it wants a trilogy...they may have not known this with Batman Begins...but I think 3 movies or at least 2 & 3 should be shot together...and release a few years apart. JMHO.
Saw made seven movies in seven years. Police Academy made six movies in six years. Is that the quick turnaround quality you're looking for?
J
Jetfire
Guest
^
2 Years...Not 3 or 4.
2 Years...Not 3 or 4.
Unequivocally agreed. We don't want another situation akin to X-Men: The Last Stand, where 20th Century Fox dicked around Bryan Singer (bad choice of words, but you get my drift) because they wanted the film for summer 2006, and in their stubbornness they lost Singer and as an end result gave us a really mediocre and ultimately disappointing third installment.
I have no problem waiting the extra time for Batman 3, and clearly neither does Warner Bros., and I think that's a very wise decision. Plus, I think Inception looks fantastic, so I see this as a win-win.
J
Jetfire
Guest
I don't agree...but whatever. If I was Nolan...Batman would be my priority until the 3rd movie is finished. This is just me though...so don't crucify me. I feel Batman & Superman are important properties and require total focus on the part of writers, producers & director. This is just how I feel as an artist and I am a fan of the genre so...take it for what you will.
I think it's better for the director creatively and emotionally to put some space between projects of a franchise. I believe it was bad for Sam Raimi to be stuck to the Spider-Man franchise for 5 years of his career (longer if you include production time), and him being burned out from doing nothing but those movies for so long is probably part of why the third one was so poor.
Nolan, on the other hand, is able to explore new cinematic worlds, stories, and characters and work with more actors and genres between Batman movies. I think those opportunities make him sharper. Doing "The Prestige" between the first and second Batman films likely allowed him to make sure he was creatively recharged rather than burned out on Batman when starting the sequel and doing "Inception" between his second and third Batman movies should have the same effect.
Nolan, on the other hand, is able to explore new cinematic worlds, stories, and characters and work with more actors and genres between Batman movies. I think those opportunities make him sharper. Doing "The Prestige" between the first and second Batman films likely allowed him to make sure he was creatively recharged rather than burned out on Batman when starting the sequel and doing "Inception" between his second and third Batman movies should have the same effect.
I see what you mean, but I also think taking some time away is beneficial. Remember, when you make one movie, you devote something like 2 years of your life to that particular movie, and it can become time-consuming. Like you said, Nolan and WB didn't really know that they were going to do a trilogy with these films -- even though Nolan & Goyer mapped it out from the beginning, as an insurance plan in case they did -- and Nolan's approach is very much "one film at a time", which I think is a really sage mentality.
It's not like the Lord of the Rings films where they had the flexibility to do all three films all at once. So I understand Nolan's mentality of wanting to grow as a filmmaker and do other stories in-between. I mean, Nolan is only committed to one project at a time -- he isn't even officially signed to do Batman 3 yet -- so it would be illogical for him to just do all three films consecutively since he is only contracted for each film as they happen.
Also, Sam Raimi did that approach -- he worked on all three Spider-Man films consecutively without a break in-between -- and I feel like the quality of the series suffered with Spider-Man 3. I think that if we have to wait the extra time for a really fantastic and satisfying third installment, I think that would be worth it, verses getting a film in half the time but without the quality. That's just me, though.
