Neil Gaiman's Law of Superhero Movies

[suarezguy]

Eh, fidelity to the source material is just one factor. Prior to Marvel adaptations and Batman Begins, a lot of the films were just based on or using characters (or the ideas behind the characters), filmmakers putting their own spin on the characters not the actual comic book. The first 3 Batman films did well despite pretty much being their own thing, Daredevil was made by a huge fan, replicating some material, but didn't do fantastically, and its debatable how close the X-Men movies were-arguably a source of their strength was that it made the characters and look accessible and realistic rather than too complex or fantastic.

I wonder, though, can you be faithful to the source material but suck as a film, and still be successful?

I'd say that the Potter movies, aside from the third, were faithful, in fact too overloaded, and they were still successful.

 

[Harvey]

The Harry Potter films were based on novels, though. The subject here seems to be pretty focused on comic books, no?

 

[Gojirob]

Was that 30 Days of Night movie that was released a year or two back very faithful to the original comics? I don't recall it doing that well at the box office.

I can't speak to its faithfulness but I'll take JacksonArchers word for it that is strayed. I saw the movie and as a creepy vamp movie thought it was decent. It didn't bomb, flop or tank however. Modest success.

I found League of Extrodinary Gentlemen and Constantine to both be entertaining films. I even own LXG. Neither set the box office on fire but like 30DoN didn't outright tank. Not sure if its due to how they are as films or if like VforVendetta they were boycotted for lack of strict adherence. V I loved by the way and only read after the movie.

The one and only thing that I found hard to take in V the film was his forgiving of the British people, because of the kind of leaders they were saddled with. In the novel, he basically told them they got what they had chosen and deserved. The other stuff-well, even Moore said that his initial WW3 scenario had bigger and bigger holes as time went on. I will say that when I loaned out the novel to some younger friends, they were at a loss as to why 'all this wasn't in the movie'.

We certainly hope for good movie adaptations, and as we've seen, the closer they hew to what makes the comics work, the better. But maybe there's a good even in the bad. The late 50's and early 60's had the 'white covers', songs sung by African-American artists made 'palatable' with white artists. If an Elvis or Bill Haley sang it, good. If a Pat Boone, not so much. Then you have Americanized anime. In both cases, a cutting-edge product is diluted and only some good things from the original make it through, again, better in some cases than others. But the chief effect to my mind is this : People ditched Boone and bought Little Richard; People ditched the dubs and wanted the subs (or even sub-less). Even a huge steaming stinker of a pile can draw interest to the original comic or graphic novel, thus expanding the base of fans who will say, circa 2011-2013 -

"Why is Luke Cage a college professor, while Danny Rand is a greaser punk with an interest in ballet?"