EDIT: Mr. Johnston was kind enough to swing by and clarify what was going on. While he may hate “The Avengers”, it’s the scary fanboy “see it a dozen times” hate, not the plain old hate I mistook it for. Apologies to Mr. Johnston and Bleeding Cool
So, when we were getting our assignments, amid the planet porn and scary robots was an article entitled “The Avengers Only Has a $40 Million Budget?”. I grabbed it, because it sounded familiar. I’d previously written a sanity check on rumors Marvel was making “The Avengers” for a pittance, so I wanted to follow up.
Then I noticed it was from the same author, Rich Johnston, who’s been writing on comics and comics-related news for years for publications like Comic Book Resources.
Here’s the thing: Johnston has always been a consummate professional and journalist, even when he doesn’t have to be. He’s the guy who busted “Cowboys and Aliens” trying to rig the comics charts back in the day, for example. “Lying In The Gutters” is a widely respected column in the comics industry. Which makes Johnston beating on the Avengers movie not just annoying, but flat out baffling, because he’s better than cheap stunts like this.
Johnston’s piece cites a Cleveland Plain Dealer article that mentions a $40 million Marvel production that was previously going to Michigan, and Johnston is correct: “The Avengers” was previously shooting in Michigan before Michigan decided to dump their film tax credit in favor of some other dumb idea.
Of course, even cursory research on the Internet also tells you that “The Avengers” is also shooting in New Mexico and New York. So, obviously, the Plain Dealer either left out a digit, or meant that $40 million would be spent in Ohio.
Johnston, of course, knows all this, and at least acknowledges it as a possibility. But “Avengers Only Has $40 Million Budget?” gets way more hits than “Avengers Filming in Ohio?”. That still doesn’t justify misleading people for an entire article, or sticking to guns that are flagrantly wrong.
On the other hand, that Cleveland photoshop was goddamn hilarious. So there’s that.
[ via Bleeding Cool ]