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Culture, Society, and Comic-Con


In the midst of my morning survey of pop culture landscape and I come across this story on the failure of Tron Legacy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Watchmen, and Kick-Ass and the role of San Diego Comic-Con in creating or failing to create a success. Since I think seriously about comics and popular culture I have already thought about this. I know, very self serving, the professional media types at blastr.com write a story and I reply I have already thought about it /:-)

Still, the analysis of the failure of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World after the great buzz at comic-con touched on these issues already. There are several factors playing in the background here. Still my reaction to this story is...duh its comic con!!

If you have a comic or pop culture related movie bringing it to comic-con is the equivalent of bringing water to a person dying of thirst in the desert. Yes, he or she will be happy to see you. That doesn't mean he or she will let you move into their house and eat their food once they are out of the desert.

Media companies, desperate as they are to create certainty in an endeavor that is full of uncertainty look to the geek audience at comic-con and think to themselves,"These people are obsessed with X, if we go there and show them Y, they will blog about it and build buzz." Buzz, in the era of the internet is important, bad buzz can damage the possibility that people who don't know anything about X will spend money to see it at the theater. If the movie is getting bad buzz why not wait until it hits Netflix and watch it for a fraction of the price? On the other hand, positive buzz can drive people who have no interest to check it out. They don't want to be left out of the conversation at the mystical watercooler.

The problem with comic-con and buzz is that the audience represented by comic-con is a highly specialize subset of the general population that may or may not relate directly to mass market appeal. The grouping of films represented in the story reinforce this idea. Tron Legacy isn't a failure. It isn't Avatar, so Disney may be disappointed. Still, it clear Disney's plan is to build a whole platform of media property on the Tron brand and they can do that if the movie makes a modest profit. In a similar vein, was Kick-Ass a failure? I don't think it is fair to call it such. It was not a monster hit, but it was extremely successful when you consider it was an independently financed movie based on a creator owned property. Kick-Ass basically went from a niche comic success to a broad mainstream success. It made a ton of money given its budget and placement. The real issue for media analysis of all these films is the budget to profit ratio. Watchmen's budget was estimated at 100-125 million. A box office tally of 108 million means it didn't make it money back at the movie theater. Scott Pilgrim is in the same boat. In an era of short stays in the movie theater, failing to generate massive box office in the first four weeks means you are failure. Successful movie need to make a bulk of their money in the first two week in the theater!!

Comic book movie have the potential to draw a big audience because the property is known. That same knowledge however is a hindrance. If you are making Superman, it needs to look and feel like Superman otherwise people don't want to see it. Thus, you need geeks and fanboys at comic-con to know about the movie and want to see it. The problem is that you need those people, plus non-geeks and non-fanboys. The film must be open enough to attract the marginally interested viewer who has heard through chatter from their hip and geek friends that a new movie is coming out and it will be fun. So, you take the movie to comic-con and build the buzz. You still however, need to make a good movie. The best comic to film adaptations are "true to the source material" but focus on making a great movie. This is why some the best comic book movies are based on characters people aren't really familiar with. In that scenario you get the best of both worlds. You have a small and dedicate geek community that will cheer you on (Iron Man fans) and a general audience that is an open book that you can introduce to the property. This is why, in my opinion, Iron Man is the most important Marvel movie of all time. Everything about the Marvel cinematic universe is built upon this movie. If you know Marvel, you realize the movies are a hodgepodge of story-lines from different Marvel imprints fused together into a semi coherent whole. From the standpoint of the long time comic reader (me), it kinda confusing, but I go with it. For the general audience....it is what they know.

There is some question about the future of comic movies in my mind. The problem of cost to profit is a real one. The Avenger movie is perfect example of this problem. All these characters, all the stories related to them from different movies. All this must come together and...what? Are we going to get a trilogy of Avenger movies? What about Thor II, Iron Man 4? Are you going to recast Iron Man after 3? If so, what do you do with the Iron Man in Avenger II?

There is also the concern that a coherent creative vision can be easily loss (see above). At some level, Marvel should be mindful of this point. The ultimate universe imprint basically allowed creators to take characters and tell great stories. This has been extremely successful for the company. The current run of Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis is classic stuff. The Ultimate universe started with Bendis and Mark Millar, they built it and controlled it. Jon Favreau provided a similar strong creative vision for Iron Man. I have faith that Kenneth Branagh's Thor will work. For everyone struggling with the concept.....Thor is Shakespeare with superpowers--done, I have explained everything for you.

Joss Whedon will need to do his best work and bring the Avengers movie in on time and on budget. I saw Serenity and he can do it. The goal is to make a good movie, not a good comic book movie, that is always hard regardless of the hero or the circumstances. Yet, it can be done on small budgets and large ones. So, the key is to focus on the goal of a good movie. No it is not all about special effects, try engaging characters. Massive marketing campaigns are ok, but staying true to the values represented by the character is very important. Those values are what drive comic fans and those value are what attract the broad audience.

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