Hollywood loves to make superhero movies — more to the point, it loves to make specific kinds of superhero movies.
Hollywood has a real thing for origin stories — if a superhero movie isn’t about the origin of the superhero itself, it likely mostly revolves around the creation of the film’s villain. Hollywood has of course also recently discovered the magic of the superhero crossover with The Avengers.
But not all comic book stories are origins or crossovers! There are all sorts of other well-worn comic book story types I’d like to see Hollywood tackle. Such as…
Hollywood loves Christmas movies, it loves superhero movies, so where’s our superhero Christmas movie? Having the save Santa Claus (or alternatively, defeat an evil Santa Claus) is a superhero tradition – everyone from Superman, to Green Lantern to the Fantastic Four has had to do it.
Time travel is, in general, underused in superhero movies. I can’t really think of a comic book movie that’s used it (well, aside from the flying backwards around the planet business from the first Superman movie).
I don’t just want a time-travel focused superhero movie though, I want a movie based on a very particular type of time-travel story — the ones where superheroes go back and team up/fight with historical figures. I want that story where The Thing becomes Blackbeard playing at my local multiplex dammit. I want Benjamin Franklin saving Batman with his famous electrified kite. I want The Avengers to collectively punch out John Wilkes Booth.
Yeah, there’ve been weddings in comic book movies before, but they’re usually skimmed over pretty quickly. I want a movie that draws inspiration from giant-sized superhero wedding extravaganzas. In other words, I want a superhero movie that’s all about a superhero wedding, and all the wacky things that would entail. Bridesmaids for the masked vigilante crowd.
Whoever’s working on the Avengers 2 script, trash whatever you’ve got and get working on a Black Widow/Hawkeye, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, Hulk/Thor triple wedding.
Yeah, the Green Lantern movie tried a little of this, but it was still primarily an origin story that mostly took place on earth. Plus it had Ryan Reynolds in it, so I’m just going to go ahead and completely discount it.
What I want is an entirely set in outer space, trippy, cosmic, Silver Surfer in the 60s style tale. It’s not like people are afraid to see a movie that doesn’t take place on earth — the Star Wars and Star Trek movies have done just fine for themselves. Give it a shot Hollywood.
There are plenty of comic book movies about young heroes in the early stages of their careers, but what about going the other direction? What about stories like Dark Knight Returns and Days of Future Past that feature curmudgeonly older heroes? Hollywood has done plenty of movies featuring grizzled older protagonists — entire film franchises such as Die Hard, Dirty Harry and Indiana Jones are built around guys who are “too old for this s–t”, but still manage to get it done.
Basically, if half the movies in theatres are going to be comic book based anyways, make a few for old coots like me.
How about you folks? Any common type of comic book story you’d like to see Hollywood tackle?
5 Comic Book Story Types Hollywood Has Yet To Tackle, But Should
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