Show J Comic Book 00 Movies OVIes on the e rIse t v By Aaron Zundel Staff Writer When it comes to action cinema seem to be the order of the year With a plethora of comic book based movies which have either been released or willbe will willbe willbe be in the near future it is safe to say that comics are cool again Its It's not just MARVEL comics either it seems every comic is being put to the silver screen Image comics titles such as Bulletproof Monk and come to mind as well as independently independently independently inde inde- written comic In fact it is not just the that are are getting the star treatment either many of you probably did not know the six time academy nominee Road to Perdition was a graphic novel first printed in 1998 So what is the reason comics are now coming into the spotlight after all Bob K Kane ne created created created cre cre- cre- cre Batman in 1938 and Stan StanLee StanLee Lee created Spiderman in 1962 The first really successful comic based movie was Superman in 1978 Spawning three sequels and now another S Superman perman movie that is not a sequel per se but another crack t at telling the story Tentatively to tobe tobe t be e released in the summer o of- of 2004 Batman also went Hollywood and also getting three sequels that unlike r ry y t J a q c y z T 4 9 Gl 44 r r j fi 4 I i 9 ii ce d 3 p A nr i it r a. a Hu 4 t tl l. l Y n r i Q 11 Y a Y Y t ti i ri x Photo Courtesy of Twentieth Centery Fox Superman got worse as they went For comics having the especially huge following they had in the and it would seem that would have been the perfect time for Hollywood to cash in right Guess what they did The fact is every major company in Hollywood has owned to rights to our favorite at one time or another making them into cartoons carto cartoons car car- to ns or TV series panics have owned the rights and never used them Unknown to the public a slew of comics have gone into production but were eventually canned for one reason or another Sometimes it was due to the special effects and superpowers were impractical if downright impossible to pro pro- duce The most common reason was the cost of making the movie did not justify what was expected at the box office Comics were regarded as kids stuff and therefore relegated to tel television vision because movies were an adult thing for the most part As the began to wind down clown comics started to become n unpopular with the general public public public pub pub- lic comic companies started to lose money and the largest publisher publisher publisher pub pub- lisher Marvel declared bankruptcy bankruptcy bankruptcy bank bank- in 1996 In a desperate plea to make good on their debts Marvel began to sell off the rights to most of their properties out parts of characters characters characters char char- to the highest bidder Avi Arad the production director director director tor at Marvel decided to make a movie in an attempt to generate a little more cash for the compa compa- ny Arad realized the public had little appetite for comic based movies at the time and came up with the bright idea to make a movie and bill it as a fi action film for adults It was the goal of Arad to make sure the movie was not billed as another superhero flick and strict attention was paid to keep people from associating it with comics at all In fact it was decided to give the movie an R rating to do just this The first for comic book movies and what was considered a major no-no no atthe atthe at atthe the time They decided to use a character charac charac- ter which was not a household name could be billed as a fi movie and one which they still owned all the rights for to boot The character that suited this role the best was best was the vampire slaying known as Blade With a total production budget of just under 45 million mil- mil lion linn which w wac nil all 11 hut hilt n a little hit u u. u of the money Marvel made from its it's massive sell out StanLee Stan StanLee StanLee Lee green lighted the project that would either keep Marvel from going under for a little longer one year was the projected project project- ed figure or put it out of business business business busi busi- ness entirely No one expected the outcome which was over 70 Million at the box office and around 45 million on VHS and DVD sales Immediately other Hollywood companies scrambled to ramp up production on as many movies as possible Only to find out that although they had the rights to the movies other companies owned the likenesses creative control or names of the characters characters characters charac charac- most of which had been sold in parts during the 1996 bankruptcy For instance production for the movie X-men X began bega the week after the opening weekend success success success suc suc- suc- suc cess of Blade Fox had purchased purchased pur pur- purchased chased the production rights of X-men X several years before when they had made the animated ed series but during Marvels Marvel's veritable orgy of product liquidation liquidation liquidation dation the image rights and names of a couple of the characters characters characters charac charac- were sold to Universal Picture St Studios dios for use in their theme parks A completely legal move and one that at the time nobody had a problem with With the success of Blade people people people peo peo- realized they were sitting ona on ona a gold mine Very quickly the whole thing collapsed into a legal melee Marvel was not the only company caught in a crossfire crossfire cross cross- fire Fox wanted the rights from Warner Bros to make another Batman moving sighting th the rights were included in their agreement from the Batman animated animated animated ani ani- ani- ani mated series The end result was wasa a kind of joint The X-men X situation was ended quickly about 10 months with Fox obtaining the rights for fora a movie and all people in it while Universal got to keep using the property in their parks Others were not so lucky and it itis itis itis is only now in the last year and a half the dust has settled and most pr properties have been negotiated out of the r red ed tape zone Some properties were traded out to companies to obtain rights to others This is why Universal Pictures is making The Incredible Hulk and Artisan is making The and Ghost Rider Two years ago Marvel created their own movie division to keep things running smoothly and to tomake tomake tomake make sure everybody plays nice To boot Stan Lee has always held creative control over his comics stating I would rather die penniless than give away what I have created for someone else to destroy This creative control and the fact that the contracts for the rights are running out has forced Hollywood to become more flexible and have more of a give and take attitude The next time a superhero movie comes out watch the opening and the credits and it will blow you away how many in association association association with credits there are Th I I f If f 4 t f- f n 1 In I n flA- flA J rl f 4 l s f Cf 1 1 t j. j j LV u. u laI u L V U Y Ya a bankrupt company and the miracle of computer graphics a golden age of superhero movies is coming to the screen What may seem like a lot now is only the tip of the iceberg Expect double this years amount of comic book movies to come out next year and almost three times as many in 2005 Dont Don't expect it to stop anytime soon either After all all they have seventy years of movies to catch up on onO C |