If the Batman TV series taught us anything, adapting a comic book in a humorous way is a dicey prospect. Comic book fans still wince whenever that series is mentioned because it dared to make a joke out of Batman in particular and comic books in general. We comic book aficionados are pretty sensitive when it comes to people not taking the medium we consider sacrosanct seriously.  We don’t want Jack Black playing Green Lantern. We don’t want Bat Credit Cards. And while we don’t mind humor where humor is appropriate (see The Avengers), we don’t want Hollywood to create a comedy out of something that was never intended to be funny.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t a lot of tropes and trademarks in comic books that lend themselves to comedy or parody. That’s where original heroes come in. When filmmakers use original concepts to point out the humor inherent in comic book conventions, not many comic fans get up in arms. If the film is good or bad, a hit or a flop, it doesn’t mean one of their beloved comic book properties is affected in any way.  And the hit to flop ratio typically favors the flop side of the equation with a lot of these comedies.

1994’s Blankman was a parody that took skewered look at the science-based superhero origin. Like Batman, Blankman lost a loved one to violent crime (his grandmother). He, like Batman and also Iron Man, is a technical genius with a skill for building gadgets and gizmos. However, unlike those heroes, he is not a suave millionaire who lives in a mansion, but rather a socially inept appliance repairman who lives in a crime-riddled inner city neighborhood. He doesn’t have hi-tech Batarangs, he has a boot on a stick attached to some rope. He doesn’t have a computerized suit of armor, he has a robot sidekick named J-5 he jury-rigged out of an old washing machine.

While there is humor in the concept and one part of the ads did make me chuckle (the part where Blankman telling his brother/sidekick that he is certain J-5 will come rescue them, then quickly cuts to the awkward robot unsuccessfully negotiating a flight of stairs, sure to be reduced to a pile of gears at the landing below), I have to admit that I never saw this film. Damon Wayans, who co-wrote the movie with J. F. Lawton, plays Blankman in the manner of a more ribald Jerry Lewis. Blankman was more supergeek than superhero, and in the most annoying way possible.

The horrible ex-boy/girlfriend is a film staple, in both comedies and dramas. There is a lot of humor to be mined from a relationship gone wrong, a reminder of a mistake that you made or a messy break up that you repeatedly have to pay for.  But what if your ex was a superhero? What if the aftermath of your break up comes with collateral damage and if your jilted ex-girlfriend says she will kill you, it’s well within her power to do so.

That’s the concept behind 2006’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Luke Wilson plays Matt, a man who enters a relationship with a woman named Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) after rescuing her purse from a purse-snatcher.  It doesn’t take long before Matt realizes that dating the possessive, clingy and passive aggressive Jenny was a mistake, and he breaks up with her. Big mistake, as Jenny is a crimefighter named G-Girl who has Superman-esque powers, a quick temper, and little or no impulse control. Jenny soon decides to devote every second she is not saving the world to making Matt’s life a living hell.

Your enjoyment of this film would probably depend on how willing you were to overlook the fact that Thurman’s character is composed of the worst qualities of every bad girlfriend stereotype there is. Thurman does do her best to try to make a real human being out of the bundle of neuroses, insecurities, and rage, but even at 95 minutes it gets to be too much. Jenny is less a woman scorned and more a shrewish harridan, and the film would have been much better if she was the former.

Not that it mattered. The film doubled its budget in worldwide grosses, so it might have not been that big of a flop in the long run. Its mixed reaction from the critics didn’t keep people away, although it didn’t do quite as well as our next film, which overcame mixed reviews two years later to earn over $624 million dollars worldwide at the box office.

Hancock was once a dark and gritty look at a Superman-like hero who balances his obligation to protect humanity with giving in to his basest instincts—watching porn, alcohol, the whole nine yards. That was when it was called Tonight, He Comes and before it went through the development hell that left us with the neutered result that made it to theaters. In Vincent Ngo’s original script, Hancock was a character that made Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Bad Santa look like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.  The original Hancock was a cop-killer and an attempted rapist, not the kind of character you’d expect Will Smith to play. As a matter of fact, it took even more creative editing to keep the watered down version from getting an R rating.

A miniscule amount of Ngo’s Hancock remains. The character is now a self-loathing, amnesiatic alcoholic whose superheroic deeds often come with multi-million dollar property damage. He is pretty much hated by the whole city of Los Angeles, and the city wants a word with him about all the damage he causes. A chance to improve his image comes when he saves the life of Ray (Jason Bateman), a public relations guru who offers work to improve his negative standing in the community as a sign of gratitude.

Being a comedy up to this point, logic dictates that the story should follow Hancock’s path to redemption.  Maybe a couple of positive PR opportunities Hancock screws up either through fate or his own arrogance. Perhaps a few dark secrets from Hancock’s past that Ray would have to deal with. But it would all lead to Hancock facing off against a threat that is a danger to his city and/or world, a threat he has no chance in overcoming, but he faces it anyway to save lives of the people that hate him. He is eventually victorious—at a cost—but ends up winning over the people who once hated him.

Predicatable, yes, and I am anything but a professional Hollywood screenwriter, but that would be better than what we actually received—a turgid 90 degree turn into melodrama.

Ray introduces Hancock to his wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), who, surprise, also has superpowers! Not only that, but comes from the same race of immortals that Hancock does! But wait, it gets better! It turns out that Mary is actually Hancock’s “wife.” Yes, she and Hancock are star-crossed lovers who must remain separate in order to save their lives. Because whenever they get near each other, they lose their invulnerability! That’s why Hancock has amnesia, because he was jumped by a racist in 1928 for daring to be seen in public by his white wife Mary (She left him so his powers would come back and he could heal. Although it seems he didn’t heal completely)!  Now, both of their lives are in danger!

I have no idea why Vince Gilligan, John August and whoever else reworked Ngo’s script tacked on this ending. Maybe they thought it would help humanize Hancock as a character. Or add a bit of social commentary into the mix. Or maybe they sincerely thought the new ending was great. They were wrong on all aspects. No plot points in the second half of the film are properly developed (especially the “becoming vulnerable while being close together” plot point. Don’t get me started on that one).  The second half has a tenuous connection to the first half of the film. So much so, that it’s like Hancock is two separate films awkwardly stitched together, with a garish piece of duct tape put over the seam to keep it together. Hancock could have been a better film, even if they didn’t follow Ngo’s original script to the letter. But as it stands, it is a disappointment. Well to me at least, it has done well enough to earn a sequel, that has been in the works for years.

Speaking of films that are stitched together from other films, let’s talk about Superhero Movie, a 2008 film that parodied the superhero genre.

The film uses Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man as the framework to hang their parody on. It focuses on Rick Riker (Drake Bell) who gains superpowers after being bitten by a genetically altered Dragonfly. He soon comes into conflict with Hourglass (Christopher McDonald), an industrialist who can siphon the life force from other humans to use to make himself stronger.

The film is a step above the typical modern-day parodies such as Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie (not that it’s a high bar to leap over) due to the involvement of Airplane’s David Zucker as a producer and the parody being based around an actual plot. But it pales in comparison to Zucker’s other parodies Airplane, Top Secret and Naked Gun.

If there is an “auteur” of the non-comic book superhero comedies, it is James Gunn. He has been involved in two films that employ a darkly comic look into the superhero archetype in a realistic setting, albeit in two very opposite ends of the spectrum.

In 2000, Gunn wrote The Specials, a film (directed by Superhero Movie’s Craig Mazin)which paints a more corporate world where superheroes are judged less by their abilities that their marketability.

In the film, the Specials are a lower tier super group. They get to fight the crappy villains, they get no movies made about them, and the only toy company who will make dolls of them doesn’t care enough about them to get their costumes, or even their genders, right. On the day their toy line is introduced, the team’s leader, The Strobe (Thomas Hayden Church) finds out his wife/teammate, Ms. Indestructable (Paget Brewster) is having an affair with the group’s most popular member, The Weevil (Rob Lowe). This causes the team to break up right on the cusp of their greatest (by default) achievement.

The film has a pretty good cast for its budget (@ $1 million). Gunn has a role in the film himself as The Strobe’s brother, Minute Man. The film had a brief life in the theaters before moving on to home video.

The Specials might be a cynical look at what the real world might really have to offer a superhero, but it was a cheery Saturday morning cartoon compared to Gunn’s 2010 film, Super, which Gunn wrote and directed.

Super is by far much darker than The Specials, as the black comedy is filled with a world people caught up in the spiral of drug addiction, female on male rape, and where deaths happen in a quick and gruesome fashion. If Gunn has one skill, it would be his ability to get great actors to work with him—at scale no less. This film features Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion in its cast. That’s a line up any director would love to have, and the cast raises Gunn’s film to a higher level.

Gunn, of course, is set to direct Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. I am curious to see if Marvel lets him apply his cynical black humor to the property.

Finally, we have Defendor, a film similarly themed and similar in tone to Super.

The 2009 film is a twisted take on the Batman mythos (and also that of Rorschach of the Watchmen). When he was a kid, Arthur’s mother died after an extended period of drug abuse and prostitution. Arthur’s grandfather blamed his daughter’s death on the “captains of industry,” meaning that a society that favors the rich forced his economically poor daughter into her downward spiral. Young Arthur mistook his grandfather and thought he was saying one person, named Captain Industry, killed his mother. Arthur turned that a lifelong quest to bring his mother’s”killer” to justice through vigilantism.

Aided by a strong lead performance by Woody Harrelson, and with a underrated cast that featured Kat Dennings, Sandra Oh and Elias Koteas, the film did fairly well with critics. However, problems with U.S. distributor Sony caused the film to have only a limited theatrical release in the States.

Next, we finally get back into covering films actually adapted from comic books with a look at everyone’s favorite mutants.

I have to say that I was looking forward to this film a lot. I really like 2009′s Star Trek. I liked the way they set it so that the film was technically in the same continuity as every other Star Trek installment, yet in a separate, alternate universe. It was the filmmakers way of saying, we are going to change some major things here, but really we aren’t changing a thing. That old Star Trek world still exists for you and always will.

Of course, after reading reviews like FBOL head honcho Rich Drees’s take on the film, that enthusiasm has dampened a bit. The way Rich describes the film (and he goes into spoilerish detail, so you might want to see the film first before reading the review if you are put off by spoilers) kind of makes it seem like its going in the wrong direction.

I will of course see the film…someday…to form my own decisions on it. But I am not in as big of a hurry to do it.

It may have gotten positive reviews from the few people who actually saw it, but the 2012 Dredd, adapting the British comic book character Judge Dredd, was pretty much a box office dud, not even making back its modest $45 to $50 million budget even factoring in its overseas ticket sales as well. Based on that math a sequel doesn’t seem to be in the cards. But star Karl Urban says that might not be the case.

Speaking with Collider while doing the publicity rounds for Star Trek Into Darkness, the Dredd star stated that with the film earning a following thanks to people discovering the film on home video .

Interestingly enough, I did have breakfast with [Dredd screenwriter] Alex Garland this morning. It’s not off the agenda. Clearly everyone has woken up to the fact that an audience has found this movie and loves it. It’s entirely possible, and if people want to see another installment then they should be vocal about that, because, it can happen. The power of fandom can resurrect projects.

Its possible that a second franchise installment could be better received than a lackluster first. Ironically, there’s precedence in the original Star Trek film franchise with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan being a much bigger critical and financial hit than Star Trek: The Motion Picture was. I certainly wouldn’t count out the possibility of the various new avenues of distribution certainly allow for income streams out of the traditional theatrical ones to help make its money. But is the audience really there? As Urban states, it’s up to them to let the producers know.

For a fuller critique read on, but be warned that there are spoilers from here on out.

When Abrams successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise in 2009, he managed to do what was thought to be a near-impossible task – he not only refreshed the stale theatrical arm of the long-running science-fiction franchise but he did it in a way that allowed him to bring in a new cast to play beloved characters and in a way that not only didn’t invalidate what had come before but also freed him off the past’s shackles. And at the end of the film, Abrams and audiences were left with a new Star Trek universe into which the crew of the Enterprise could boldly go to seek out strange new worlds, etcetera, etcetera.

So when news reports about the sequel began to circulate stating the film’s villain would be Khan Noonian Singh, memorably played by Ricardo Montalban in the original Star Trek TV series episode “Space Seed” and then again in Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan, I thought that was a bad idea. With a whole new galaxy to explore, why try to go and revive one of the series’ best loved villains? It seemed like a fool’s errand. The dynamic interplay between William Shatner’s Captain Kirk and Montalban’s Khan was in no need of updating, so why try? It was a story told well the first time, so why not take advantage of the blank canvas you have and do something new?

And so when Benedict Cumberbatch’s terrorist bombing character reveals to Kirk (Chris Pine) after leading the starship captain on a chase deep into enemy Klingon space that his name is Khan, I let out an audible groan. But then something happened. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof zigged where you would have expected them to zag and set up a situation where Kirk and Khan had to form an uneasy alliance in order for both of them to survive. And it worked. I found myself actively warming to the idea.

However, just as the film manages to do what I thought was impossible in establishing its own unique working dynamic for the Khan character it had to go and recreate one of the entire Star Trek franchise’s most iconic moments – the death of Spock in the Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Now I am sure that Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof all congratulated themselves on being so clever as to reverse Kirk and Spock in this situation, placing Kirk in the deadly radiation-filled chamber and Spock on the outside unable to reach his friend. But this isn’t clever, it’s a terrible cheat. Abrams and company aren’t just taking elements of what has gone before and reworking them, they are relying on a specific moment from a previous film to evoke an emotional reaction from the audience rather than doing the heavy-lifting themselves and trying to create their own scene to do get that reaction. However, it falls short of achieving what they seemed to hope for and felt rather forced in the film. It not only pulled me out of the movie but made me lose any good will I had built up from their previous handling of Khan. It is just lazy and cynical screenwriting and the film’s third act suffers greatly for it.

(I should note screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (Lost In Space, I, Robot, I Am Legend) has a cameo as a Starfleet admiral in one scene. Since I have found a number of his films also suffer from third act difficulties, I half want to believe that it is his own bad mojo responsible for the problems here.)

The rest of the film is fairly top notch. The relationship we glimpsed in the 2009 Star Trek between Spock (Zachery Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) gets explored a bit more prominently this time, allowing for a comedic moment between the two with Kirk stuck in the middle and lets Saldana have more screen time and things to do than Nichelle Nichols got to do in any of the original cast films. Although not specifically stated in the film, there are a few moments for Spock’s character where we see how the destruction of his homeworld in the last film has colored his actions. The rest of the main cast all acquit themselves nicely with what they are given, though John Cho’s Sulu seems to get the short stick again.

As I stated before, Star Trek Into Darkness is an entertaining enough film if you experience it in a vacuum, without the baggage that fans of the series will undoubtedly bring with them to the theater. However, the filmmakers seem to be distinctly counting on that baggage to sell a major moment in the film’s finale but instead they only manage to remind us how much better the original was.

The website is quoting “Hollywood sources” in saying that the actor who played Clint Barton/Hawkeye in both Thor and The Avengers is being dropped by Marvel Studios, mainly due to negative comments he made about his role in the latter film.

Renner was candid in his feelings about the way his character was portrayed on screen in an interview with Total Film magazine:

“For 90 percent of the movie, I’m not the character I signed on to play. It’s kind of a vacancy. [He's] not even a bad guy, because there’s not really a consciousness to him. To take away who that character is and just have him be this robot, essentially, and have him be this minion for evil that Loki uses … I was limited, you know what I mean? I was a terminator in a way. Fun stunts. But is there any sort of emotional content or thought process? No.”

To be fair to Renner, he does have a point. On the other hand, Hawkeye pretty much serves the same purpose as Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow character, and since Johansson joined the Marvel family first, she gets to play the hero and they had to find something else for Renner to do. That being said, even in the 10% of the film where he WAS the character he signed on to play, he really didn’t make that much of an impression. His quiver had more personality than his Hawkeye did.

But regardless, Marvel has made a point not keeping any actor who is unhappy or unable to work the Marvel way. Terrence Howard was rumored to be difficult to work with during Iron Man. so his role as James Rhodes was minimized in the sequel and he was asked to take a substantial pay cut. He balked and was allowed to walk and Don Cheadle (who was rumored to be Marvel’s first choice originally) took his place. Edward Norton was supposedly so hands-on during The Incredible Hulk that rumor has it he even did script rewrites on set. This didn’t sit well with Marvel or Joss Whedon, so in The Avengers he was replaced with Mark Ruffalo (who was rumored to also be Marvel’s first choice for the role). Hugo Weaving has also been very vocal about  not being excited about his role as the Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger and has expressed not being interested in reprising his role in the future. Well, everyone from Toby Jones to Hayley Atwell to Dominic Cooper will be back for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but not Weaving.

All of this makes the rumor very plausible. And all things considered, this might be the best thing for Renner. He has a burgeoning franchise in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters(which made an inexplicable amount of money overseas), appears to be in line to take over the Mission Impossible franchise in the event Tom Cruise ever lets go of it, and while many view The Bourne Legacy as a disappointing entry into the franchise, it made enough money worldwide that he might be in the mix if they continue with it. While, at Marvel, his next appearance would have been in a similar, low-key capacity in The Avengers 2. Hawkeye wouldn’t be even considered for a solo film until 2016, and there are a lot of characters, concepts and ideas in development ahead of him.

The source also brings up the possibility of the character being recast and appearing on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. If the role is recast, it will probably be with whoever Marvel’s first choice for the role was.

The Nazis who have been hiding on the dark side of the moon may be coming back to Earth, but they need your help!

Iron Sky director Timo Vuorensola is turning to crowdsourcing to get a sequel to his lunar Fourth Reich cult hit Iron Sky.

But rather than rely on fans to fund the entire project, which Vuorensola admits will probably run about $15 million, he is hoping that he can raise enough to finance the project’s initial scriptwriting and pre-production phase for Iron Sky: The Coming Race. Writing on the project’s IndieGoGo fundraising page, Vuroensola states -

Our intention is to finance the whole film ourselves, using crowdfunding and soft money and any money that allows us to be completely independent, allows us to make and distribute the film exactly the way we believe it needs to be made.

In the first phase, we are looking to raise 150 000 from the community. This money will be used to produce a full script for the film, a clear production plan including a budget, and a four to five minute promo reel to help us with further funding. In exchange, we’ll let those who contribute to read the script, comment it, or even get a (small) speaking role in the upcoming promo.

Here’s Vuorensola’s IndieGoGo pitch video, which references a joke made at North Korea’s expense in the first film. Since Iron Sky had some strong political satire aimed at the United States and specifically Sarah Palin, will the sequel set its satirical sites on North Korea? We’ll see.

Still no word yet as to who may be directing the film, but I would assume that that decision should come quickly in order for Pearce to have someone to shape the screenplay with. Cruises’ Jack Reacher collaborator Christopher McQuarrie still remains the rumored frontrunner, even though he signed last week to write and direct a remake of Ice Station Zebra for Warner Brothers.

Via Deadline.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be starring in a big screen remake of the classic Troma film The Toxic Avenger with Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink at the helm.

Honestly, at first thought, it sounds like a bad idea. And at second and third thought it still sounds like a bad idea. The Toxic Avenger is known in part for its campy, comedic tone. While I don’t doubt that Pink could bring a similar feel to a remake, time and time again Schwarzenegger has never shown any real comedy chops.

Here’s the press release –

Los Angeles, CA (May, 2013) –Action superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger (TERMINATOR series, TOTAL RECALL) is in negotiations to star in writer/director Steve Pink’s (HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 1 & 2) big budget action comedy THE TOXIC AVENGER produced by Akiva Goldsman (CONSTANTINE, I AM LEGEND, MR AND MRS SMITH), Richard Saperstein (HANCOCK, 1408, SE7EN), Charlie Corwin (HALF NELSON, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE), Stephen Kessler and Michael Benaroya (LAWLESS, MARGIN CALL). Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz will executive produce. The announcement was made today by International Film Trust’s (IFT) President Ariel Veneziano who will handle all international rights to the film alongside IFT’s Head of Sales Christian de Gallegos.

Set to be introduced to buyers at Cannes 2013, THE TOXIC AVENGER is currently in pre-production and scheduled to start principal photography this fall.

Loosely based on Lloyd Kaufman’s classic Troma franchise, THE TOXIC AVENGER is the tale of a high-school kid who gets dunked in a vat of toxic waste by a corrupt chemical company. He survives the ordeal with one major side effect: upon contact with toxic chemicals, he transforms into a monster with superhuman strength. Schwarzenegger would play “the Exterminator,” a former black ops agent, who trains Toxie to use his powers for good. Together they take on the lurking menace created by the polluters, and the polluters themselves.

“Moviegoers around the world were thrilled when Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to acting so effortlessly filling the gap that he left behind,” said producer and IFT co-founder Michael Benaroya. “He is the ultimate action hero with a natural comedic versatility and will be pitch perfect in The Toxic Avenger.”

“Our film is a perfect combination of commercial genre, star power and award winning filmmakers to set it apart from other titles on offer at Cannes this year. The Toxic Avenger is a blockbuster in waiting with franchise potential. The buyers will love it,” said IFT President Ariel Veneziano.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role in James Cameron’s THE TERMINATOR series solidified his place as one of the leading action hero actors with roles in blockbuster hits including PREDATOR, TOTAL RECALL, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY and TRUE LIES. Proving to be a multi-talented performer, Schwarzenegger crossed over into comedic roles with box office hits TWINS opposite Danny DeVito and Ivan Reitman’s KINDERGARTEN COP. After taking an extended break to become the Governor of California, Schwarzenegger returned to acting in 2012 with THE EXPENDABLES 2, which grossed over $300 million worldwide. He will next be seen in Summit Entertainment’s ESCAPE PLAN and Open Road Films’ TEN. He is represented by CAA and Patrick Knapp at Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LaViolette Felmdman Schenkman & Goodman.

Via Deadline.

Marvel may have a few surprises in store for audiences in next year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but an actor commected to one of them has spilled some beans.

Back out now if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Seriously.

OK, you’ve been warned.

Speaking with Total Film (via Bleeding Cool), actor Dominic Cooper, seen in Marvel’s Captain America as inventor Howard Stark (and future poppa of Tony Stark aka, Iron Man), let slip that he will be back for the sequel.

We’re shooting something for it… I’ve worn the costume again… it was good fun getting back into it and he’s got some very cool shades now.

Cooper does not elaborate how much time he spent filming, whether it was for one quick, short scene or something that would be more substantial in the film. I am sure that we will hear more about this before Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s release in the spring of 2014.

Just two months and a few days ago, Kevin Smith announced that he had started working on a screenplay for Clerks III, and this morning he has confirmed that he has finished work on it. Posting the photo below on Facebook, Smith stated he was excited at the prospect of heading back to New Jersey to shoot the film and that he would fund the production himself and not turn to a crowdsouring website like Kickstarter.

Smith is calling Clerks III “The Empire Strikes Back of what’s now become the Clerks Trilogy,” though I suspect that is more for its 137-page length than because it might end on any cliffhanger. Of course, there could be the revelation that Silent Bob is actually Dante’s father, so who knows?