Charge reasonable prices for popcorn and soft drinks.
Posted on 05/05/2006 11:06:21 PM PDT by MadIvan
Sequels and franchises will dominate this summer as Tinseltown fights to lure people away from their DVDs and back to the cinema
WHAT can save Hollywood from another summer of dire sequels and box office catastrophes? Is it another documentary about exotic birds? Is it a story about a hijacked plane? No, silly — it’s Superman.
That, at least, is the hope in Hollywood, which collected only $3.6 billion (£2 billion) from American moviegoers last summer, its worst performance since 2001. Yet with summer releases accounting for up to 40 per cent of annual sales Hollywood is desperate for a caped hero to save the day.
“I told my wife somebody could have driven a car into my theatre and not hit anybody (last year),” complained one multiplex owner, at a recent movie industry conference in Las Vegas. “When you have a well-crafted, entertaining film that people will want to see, they will come out in record numbers.”
The National Association of Theatre Owners — and the rest of Hollywood — hopes that Superman Returns is such a film. It is due for launch in American cinemas on June 30. It will reach British cinemas a couple of weeks later.
The hype began this week with the first trailer for the movie, which will star a 26-year Iowan named Brandon Routh as the bumbling Clark Kent, who rips off his business suit to become the Man of Steel. Bryan Singer, the director, who made his name in Hollywood with the popular X-Men movies, justified casting a relatively unknown actor by saying that a known actor came with “baggage”.
“Superman is much larger than any actor. I wanted him to come just with the baggage of the superhero — that's enough history to contend with.” It was reported that James Caviezel was turned down by Mr Singer for the role of Superman because he was too famous after appearing as the Son of God in The Passion of the Christ.
The film’s star power will come from the other players. Lex Luthor, the semi-comic villain, will be played by Kevin Spacey, and the role of Superman’s crush — the ambitious Daily Planet news reporter Lois Lane — has been taken by 22-year-old Kate Bosworth.
It has been 68 years since Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 (owned by DC Comics) and 28 years since the the first Superman film, directed by Richard Donner, who was already well-known for The Omen and The Twilight Zone. The production budget of the 1978 movie was $55 million. Superman Returns is expected to cost north of a quarter of a billion dollars.
The film — which has taken ten years and multiple writers to make — is an uncomfortable reminder of the fate of its original star, Christopher Reeve, who was paralysed from the neck down after a riding accident in 1995. After a long struggle with disability he died in 2004. His wife, Dana, died from lung cancer this year.
The trailer for Superman Returns begins with portentous music and the God-like voiceover of Superman’s father: “Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them!” It cuts to footage of Superman leaping through cornfields as a child, in homage to the original film.
Mr Singer has claimed that Superman Returns is not a sequel to the four movies in which Mr Reeve starred, although it begins after the battle between General Zod and his gang of Kryptonian villains. Superman has disappeared from Earth for six years while he searches for other survivors from his home planet. The plot involves him returning to Metropolis and resuming his identity of Clark Kent. He soon finds out that Ms Lane is in a relationship and has a son. The residents of Metropolis have learnt to live without Superman.
Although critics are generally more enthusiastic about this year’s roster of films, they have pointed out that the summer season is still dominated by franchises and sequels. Other big films of the summer include Mission: Impossible III and another X-Men instalment. There is also a remake of the 1972 hit The Poseidon Adventure, directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
“Everybody is concerned, but it looks like maybe the tide is turning,” Mr Petersen said about the 2006 release schedule. “We have been killing ourselves to get something really exciting out there.”
There are many other familiar-sounding summer releases, including remakes of sequels to Miami Vice, The Fast and the Furious and Pirates of the Caribbean. Later in the year there will even be a new James Bond film, Casino Royale. Original projects include The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown’s bestseller book, starring Tom Hanks as the scholar who unravels the deepest secret of the Roman Catholic Church. Animated films — a huge genre, thanks to Shrek — will include Cars, from Disney/Pixar, and Over the Hedge, from rival studio Dreamworks.
Owners of film theatres are not betting everything on the boy from Krypton. Terrified that the public has exchanged nights out at the movies for nights in with DVDs and surround-sound home theatre systems, multiplexes are testing ways to make going to the movies more pleasant.
Ideas include offering electronic tickets via mobile phones and using technology to block mobile phone signals while movies are playing. Other ploys may include shortening pre-film advertising. In Hollywood the Arclight cinema lets moviegoers book seats as though they were on an airline and offers a bar service, espressos, digital projectors and a restaurant.
The cinema owners acknowledge that the most important factor is one over which they have no control: the quality of films. If the Man of Steel can’t save the summer blockbuster, they ask, then who can? The pressure is clearly being felt by Routh. “If I really sat down and thought about all the possible implications, the good, amazing things it could mean, you could go a little crazy,” he said.
Superman Returns was initially supposed to be directed by Brett Ratner, but he left the project after reported clashes with Warner Bros over casting. It is thought that actors including Ashton Kutcher, Brendan Fraser and Josh Hartnett were considered to play the man who is faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive. By 2001 McG (as Joseph McGinty Nichol is known) was tipped to direct, but he left in 2002 to make Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, returning to Superman in 2004. He left for good after reported disagreements over budgets and locations.
Mr Singer was chosen to replace him because the studio was impressed by Batman Begins and thought that the X-Men director could create the a similar noir atmosphere. The director also agreed to shoot the film in Australia. The Kent farm in Smallville was shot in Tamworth, New South Wales.
Superman Returns is expected to include footage of Marlon Brandon as Superman’s father from the original movie. General Zod will not appear because Mr Singer could not persuade Jude Law to accept the role and did not want anyone else to play it.
IS IT A BIRD...
#
The 1938 comic-book Superman's skills were relatively limited. He could lift a car above his head, leap an eighth of a mile and was vulnerable to all projectiles larger than an artillery shell
# By the 1980s Superman could fly into space, had x-ray vision, moved planets out of orbit and could survive a nuclear blast
#
The first Superman movie, which came out in 1978, starring Christopher Reeve, spawned three sequels in the following nine years as well as the disastrous 1984 movie Supergirl #
Between them, the films grossed $330m at the US box office alone #
The original Superman cost $110m to make, Superman Returns will cost $200m-plus #
The late Marlon Brando, who played Superman’s father in the first movie, will be digitally recreated to appear in this summer’s Superman Returns. Clark Kent’s home farm in the film was built on a sound stage, disassembled and moved to Australia where it was rebuilt
# DC Comics are releasing four comic books to explain the events that shaped Superman’s life between his last big screen appearance and Superman Returns
#
Studios are confident that Superman Returns will be a success — there are already plans for a sequel
COMING SOON TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU: THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER
Mission: Impossible III (opened yesterday) Tom Cruise returns to the screen as everyone’s second-favourite secret agent, Ethan Hunt. This time he abandons cushy retirement to battle a sadistic arms dealer, Owen Davian, (Philip Seymour Hoffman). M:i III, as it likes to be known, is the most expensive of the three Mission: Impossible films, with a budget of $150 million (£80 million).
The Da Vinci Code (May 19) The movie least likely to make it to the Pope’s DVD player might not have even made it into our cinemas if the recent court case had had its way. Copyright assured, the film of Dan Brown’s book looks easily set to recoup its estimated $125 million budget when it opens in a fortnight. Tom Hanks plays Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon; French actress Audrey Tatou is his cryptologist sidekick, Sophie Neveu.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (July 7) In one of the many sequels of the summer, Johnny Depp reprises his role as pirate Jack Sparrow. In debt to Davey Jones, he battles to save his soul from eternal damnation in the afterlife while trying to save the wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley).
World Trade Center (September 29) Oliver Stone directs the second of the year’s movies to dramatise the events surrounding the terrorist attacks on September 11, the other being United 93. The action is based on the true story of the last two people to be extracted alive from the World Trade Centre, officers John McLaughlin (Nicholas Cage) and William Jimeno (Michael Pena).
The Omen 666 (working title, June 6) Thankfully there have not been 665 Omen films since the 1976 classic about a couple who had the misfortune to adopt a satanic baby. This instalment, cleverly opening on 06.06.06, is a remake of the original and stars Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber and Pete Postlethwaite.
Poseidon (June 2) The director Wolfgang Peterson gambled $175 million on this remake of the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, which cost $5 million and grossed $84 million in the US. As in the original, a boat capsizes and survivors clamber through the bowels of the ship to safety. Stars Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss.
The movie I actually WANT to see is:
"The 11th Day: Crete 1941"
http://www.crete1941.com
It is about the Nazi defeat at the hands of ordinary people of the island of crete. It is what caused Winston Churchill to say "Greeks don't fight like heroes, Heroes fight like Greeks."
But I am biased, not because I know people involved. I am biased because I know people who lived it.
It does not have a distributor last I heard, I guess hollyweird does not like movies where good defeats evil.
I will see Pirates.
I read this week Hollywood is now starting to lower salaries -- bad box office makes no one worth 25 million.
Apparently, never....Look at what Joel Schumacher did with the Batman franchise. It looked like the only thing he knew about Batman was the TV series. Then, along came Batman Begins, and that at least gave us a chance to see Batman played straight.
Hollywood has NEVER gotten that it is possible to make a straight drama related to these superheroes. Case in point--the original Superman III (Richard Pryor), and the disatrous Superman IV, (which looked like it was shot as a kid's movie).
Especailly Jim Carey.
James Nelson's fighting sail series would make an enjoyable film franchise, as would Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt tales.
Actually, I really enjoy the Gene Hackman portrayal of Lex Luthor. Basically, he's a genius whose mind is so warped that he has turned to villainy. If he was played straight it would probably be a bore. Nah, Lex Luthor is the smartest kid in the 6th grade, all grown up, and smart enough to realize that everything's a joke. That kind of combination of brains, avarice, and criminal vision would probably come out more sardonic than menacing (though he is a tough customer).
The character is peppered with very funny incongruencies. The greatest criminal mind in the world, probably of all time, and he hangs out with idiots. Priceless. The only thing I would change is having him be bald throughout Superman 1 and 2. Spacey seems to borrow heavily from the Hackman vision, AND he is bald, so it looks good to me.
Lex Luthor and General Zod were awesome evil doers. Campy and at the same time well...campy. I loved their lines in those Superman films. I mean, the movies were about comic books and they were the bad guys.
Terrance Stamp was great in "The Collector" and Gene Hackman in Superman and in Unforgiven ... I just wish that I could have shot him in by the time that I was in that part of that movie. Clint has the gift.
That story is totally overblown. All the stars mentioned have had at least their last movie, and some their last few, flop. Flops cause salaries to drop. Meanwhile Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Colin Farrell, and Hugh Jackman are having their salaries climb. It's the normal cycle, some stars fade, some stars brighten, there's always somebody making a ton of cash.
No, I thought Halloween 3 was a good movie that stood on its own, despite the fact it had nothing to do with the others. The main villain in that one was great-remember him just before he died, smiling up at Atkins and applauding after Tom had screwed up the works? Brrrr. The idea when they made that movie was to have a movie every year based on Halloween-the holiday, not Carpenter's movie (they should have stopped that franchise after part 2)-at least that's what I've read. It bombed so bad, they dropped the idea.
I can't wait for the "Begins" sequel, with The Joker. Should be great. By the way-did you notice all the inmates from Arkham Asylum got away at the end of that movie? That's so they can come back in the sequels as villains. The guy who created Bats sure knew a lot about psychology-Bats and all his adversaries were either schizophrenic, psychotic,or screwed up in some way.
See posts 15 & 16.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1625808/posts
One great story I remember when I was a kid was one of those Phantom Stranger-Batman crossovers. The Phantom Stranger gave Batman the opportunity to go to a parallel universe, where a young Bruce Wayne (from that universe) was going to see his parents get killed. Batman was torn between stopping the murders and in some way avenging his own parents' death, or not stopping the murders and giving this world a Batman to prevent crime in the future.
He had to do a lot of soul-searching about who he was and what he had been able to accomplish with his life. In kind of a Hollywood ending, Batman prevented the murders, but the young Bruce Wayne saw that it was Batman who intervened and saved his parents' lives. He was so inspired by this mysterious man dressed in a bat costume that put his life on the line to save his parents that he decided that was what he wanted to do with life, and began training to become a costumed hero in the future. Pretty good stuff.
I never read that one, but I have "The Killing Joke" and the hardcover 1st edition of "Arkham Asylum". Great stuff, and a lot more hardcore than the comics. "Killing Joke" actually made you feel sympathy for The Joker, even though he's a vicious psychopath. Tells the full story of his past.
Charge reasonable prices for popcorn and soft drinks.
As far as I'm concerned last years best movie was Curse of the Wererabbit.
No joke.
I very much dislike going to the movies. I don't like crowds. I don't like to sit in the dark with a room full of strangers. I don't care much about movies, though I like films. I pay about $1200 a year for the full cable package so I don't have to go and spend $50 to go to the movies, with parking, popcorn, etc.
The original Superman films were actually pretty bad, imho. The casting was bad, and they were too many goofball antics. If this superman is darker, maybe I'll rent it when it comes out on DVD. Otherwise, I'll wait until it comes on cable.
Sorry to the theater owners. Maybe they should redevelop their properties. They almost always got the short end of the stick anyway.
B: I have no clue whatsoever why the comics cover I originally posted at #52 was pulled... but, if you didn't get a chance to see it: FReepmail me. :)
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