My Million Dollar Idea . . . For Free

By Steven McLain

The Hunger Games.  Twilight.  Harry Potter.  The Avengers.  Batman, Superman, Spiderman.  Lord of the Rings.  What do all these things have in common?  Other than the fact that they are all highly successful films, what's more relevant is that they're highly successful adaptations of works of written fiction.  Fourteen of the top fifty movies of all time have been based on pieces of fiction.  These film adaptations owe their success to the success of books.  Their fanbases are easily transferable, and better still, fans are willing to shell out billions of dollars on merchandise based on the movies. 

Bella and Katniss are brands all their own.  Team Jacob, or Team Peeta?  We invest ourselves in the fiction, and the fiction rewards us with an alternate reality in which we can immerse ourselves.  That the immersion doesn't end when the movie does means that producers of these highly successful movies often find themselves the beneficiaries of the success of authors who probably never even dreamed of this level of success.

But there is a weak link in this chain of money-making.  That's the books themselves.  Waiting for the next YA success means that movie studios have to idly bide their time waiting for the next Suzanne Collins or J.K. Rowling to put the final touches on their masterpieces and sell them to a New York publisher.  While they're waiting, movie producers are losing money on movies that are less than sure things.  The solution seems obvious to me.  Movie houses need to become publishers.  

And the books themselves don't need to be successes.  In fact, most of the proposed replacements for Twilight are going to fail.  While this is devastating in the publishing industry, where profit is negligible and risk high, considering the tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, involved in the creation of modern blockbusters, a few tens of thousand or hundreds of thousands necessary to create the next fiction sensation are literally drops in the bucket.  Especially if a few of the bigger houses (Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount) were to join forces with the big five in New York to gain access to their distribution networks and print infrastructure, risk is exponentially reduced.

So there you go: The Next Big Thing.  To be successful, movie producers need to create their niches; they need to invest to create a fanbase into which they can insert their next blockbuster.  Meanwhile, it's good business sense in New York, as well.  An infusion of fresh capital and new blood could re-invigorate a flagging industry.  So take a look around your local bookstore.  The big names you see there are the big names you're going to see on the screen.  It's just a matter of time before people figure this out and start creating their own market.

Dark Knight of the Soul . . . Or, Iron Man Versus Batman!

By Steven McLain

With the recent success of Marvel's Avenger franchise, and DC/Warner's Batman franchise, I've been thinking a lot about how particular superheroes might match up in a fight.  Of course, there have been these types of mash-ups ad nauseum.  So I thought I might do something a little different.  Instead of the comics, I'm going to stick to movie continuities.  So, in this mash-up, it's Iron Man v. Batman, but only Christian Bale's Batman and Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man.

At first, I thought this might be pretty cut and dried.  Iron Man wins from the outset; he's got tank-busting mini missiles, he can fly, and oh yeah, he's got a superweapon exo-suit.  But breaking down the specifics, I think there's a lot of competition from Batman, and the decision isn't as cut and dry as I thought it would be.

First of all, Iron Man and Batman both have alter egos.  Tony Start and Bruce Wayne, respectively, are each brilliant, driven men.  They have access to seemingly inexhaustible wealth and have few scruples about how they use it.  Tony Stark is driven by insecurity vis-a-vis his father; Bruce Wayne is driven by grief over the death of his parents and desperate for revenge.  Tony Stark has an arc-reactor in his chest; Bruce Wayne knows kung-fu (or some variation thereof).

So, Bruce Wayne easily kicks Tony Stark's butt.  Stick Tony in the Iron Man platform, however, and things swing in his favor.  I've already mentioned the tank-busting mini-missiles, and the fact that he can fly.  So, basically, all he has to do is hover a few hundred feet off the ground and launch blasts of plasma at Batman.  Not even the graphite faceplate and the fancy Batsuit are going to save him from that. You can argue that the Tumbler and the Bat-wing might be able to counter some of that fire-power, but I counter with TANK-BUSTING mini-missiles. 

So one-on-one doesn't look so good.  But Iron Man has Stark Industries, and Batman has Wayne Enterprises.  Their resources offer them a distinct advantage.  Forbes every year estimates the net worth of fictional characters, and recently assessed the value of each.  Tony Stark comes in at $9.3 billion; Bruce Wayne trails with $6.9 billion.  At first, I'm a little skeptical of these numbers.  Sure, it seems like a lot, but it makes you wonder what Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are doing with their billions.

Connections seem to be everything in this case, as Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark are willing to leverage the power, influence and pockets of their companies toward their crime-fighting ends.  Batman turned every cell phone in Gotham into a Joker-detection device, opening him to charges of fascism.  Tony Stark can not only hack TVs (and we assume computers) at a distance, he has a more comprehensive intelligence network than the United States government.  So they both have access to incredibly advanced technology, and we've already established that Iron Man would win in stand-up fight.  The only question remains is whether Batman would ever show up at that fight.

Frankly, I don't think he would.  Batman is too cagey for that.  Despite charging in after Bane, Batman is a creature of the shadows, who has been trained in the arts of deception and misdirection.  We have to assume he would strike from the darkness, letting Tony Stark blunder around tossing off pot-shots and one-liners.  Maybe his concierge Happy could point him in the right direction, but without someone else giving Stark strategic direction, he's all too happy lumbering around in the dark.

And let's face it.  Batman is more than willing to risk it all to win.  He took the fall for Harvey Dent; he let his ancestral home burn to the ground; with a broken back he still managed to escape an inescapable prison and return to face his nemesis.  And he had his heart broken twice.  He knows pain, and he's willing to push through.  Stark, when the going gets tough, bails.

That weakness of character is ultimately why I think Batman would win in a superhero fight between the two of them.  He's wise enough not to confront Iron Man where he doesn't have the upper ground, and he's ruthless enough to give it everything he's got.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me hear who you think would win in the comments below.

A Justice League of Their Own

Legal problems have been holding Warner Bros. back from making Superman movies for years.  But last week, a key victory allows Warner Bros. to use Superman, and key elements from his mythos, in movies after 2013.  This is a huge boon for anyone hoping for a DC come-back in the face of the Marvel juggernaut that's been plowing through theaters.  With the success of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and a slew of others, superhero fans have been waiting for a DC rebuttal.  Except for the major success of Christopher Nolan's Batman, DC superheroes have failed to excite much attention.  All that could soon change, however, as plans for a Justice League movie are slated for summer 2015.  Warner Bros. is then hoping to spin out each superhero in their own movies, eschewing Marvel Studio's success teaming up their heroes after the fact. 

Though Christopher Nolan has signed on to produce the new Superman movie, Man of Steel, he has not signed on to produce the Justice League; furthermore, Christian Bale will not reprise Batman, and we can't expect Henry Cavill (if Man of Steel doesn't flop) to play the role of Superman.  Wonder Woman is up in the air, and no one seems to care about the Green Lantern, even with Ryan Reynolds filling out his tights.

While I'd love to see an adult treatment of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, I'm not actually excited to see this movie.  The Justice League has always seemed kind of hokey to me, the writing is barely tolerable, and the basic premise is just kind of shallow.  I get that it worked well in the 70s and the 80s, and the cartoon spin-off is one of the highlights of my childhood.  But it's not a memory that I want to revisit.  Warner Bros. have their work cut out for them to get me interested, but I'm looking forward to see what they're planning.

What are your thoughts?  Looking forward to it?  Love it, hate it, not really interested?  Let me know in the comments.

Batman: Puppet Master

 

With the end of the Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, I thought the Dark Knight was done until the next franchise re-boot.  And since I've never given credence to fan films I doubt I would have stumbled across this on my own.  But Nolan's universe is still alive and kicking.  Pairing the ventriloquist and Scarface up with E. Nigma was a stroke of genius, and the acting of the ventriloquist was more than enough to watch this video.  I'd never given much thought to seeing a live-action sequence with a tommy-gun toting dummy, but after this I think it might be worth a spin.

Originally found at io9.