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With Heroes one of the most talked-about shows on TV, an enthusiasm for super-powered heroes no longer carries the social stigma it once did. The year 2008 promises yet more comic-book characters migrating from the page to the screen, with big-budget debuts for the long awaited Watchmen, Iron Man, The Flash, and half-a-dozen lesser characters in production.
We thought it might be timely to review the biggest players in the superhero movie franchise business and assess their future prospects. We’ve scored them according to a range of substantially arbitrary criteria, focusing on their longevity both in comics and on film, and concocted a box-office score based on an average performance of all movie appearances by the character to date.
Having an iconic costume is a key part of establishing a major superhero brand, so we’ve added a rather subjective costume category too. This is based as much on the potential of the outfit to transfer from the printed page to the silver screen as much as it does on sheer elan.
1) Spider-Man
After a risible attempt at a big-screen transfer in the 1970s, Spider-Man finally made a successful leap onto celluloid in 2002, with Evil Dead director Sam Raimi establishing a kinetic, computer-driven style that connected with comic-book geeks and regular cinemagoers alike. The first movie made over $100 million in its first three days and it remains in the top 20 highest-grossing films to this day. There’s no doubt that the studio money men will push for a fourth film in the series (there’s talk of up to three more films) even if the director and star of the hit films do, as has been predicted, depart now that the record-breaking trilogy is complete. Tobey Maguire is currently planning to at least take a break from playing the misunderstood wall-crawling teenager and has reputedly signed to star in, and produce, the live action version of a vintage Japanese Transformers-style giant robot cartoon saga called Robotech.
Costume: 10
Coolness: 9
Longevity: 3
Box office: $2,495,718,076
2) The Incredibles
Essentially the film that Fantastic 4 should have been, The Incredibles is an excellently crafted story about superheroes that combines knowing nods to the geek fraternity (“Metaman, express elevator! Dynaguy, snagged on takeoff! Splashdown, sucked into a vortex! No capes!”) while still delivering a believable family dynamic and a plot that draws in the casual viewer. And all this with entirely computer-created actors. To his undying credit Brad Bird, the director (and voice of Edna Mode), resisted pressure to create a sequel because, in his own words, he couldn’t think of a story that was good enough. If only all film-makers had such integrity.
Costumes: 10
Coolness: 10
Longevity: 1
Box office: $631,442,092
3) 300
Not comic-book characters in the classic mould, but certainly rooted more strongly in Frank Miller’s graphic novel than in any history book, the improbably-toned and barely dressed hoplites were presented in a virtual world which although not entirely novel (Sin City, another Frank Miller adaptation, used broadly similar techniques) showed the way forward for directors seeking to translate the extravagant vistas of the comic book into cinematic reality. Unsurprisingly, director Zack Snyder has now been commissioned to make sense of the highly influential, but long considered unfilmable, Alan Moore masterpiece Watchmen.
Costume: 2
Coolness: 10
Longevity: 1
Box office: $454,592,590
4) X-Men
Marvel’s ever-changing lineup of mutant heroes has probably the most self-consistent explanation for its super powers of any comic book characters. Indeed, it’s worked so well that Marvel has expanded is ‘homo superior’ backstory to embrace virtually all of its characters. Less successful were some of the costumes, with both Wolverine’s brown-and-yellow coveralls and Storm’s revealing negligee being transliterated into speedway riders’ leathers for their cinematic outings. Although roundly castigated by the fans on release, the third X-Men movie has been the best performer at the box office and there is no reason to believe, especially given the rotating cast of characters, that the movie franchise cannot endure almost indefinitely. Halle Berry has publicly expressed her desire to revisit Storm in a fourth X-Men film but she may be disappointed; rumours have surfaced recently of an X-Men prequel movie. Spin-off vehicles for favourite characters Wolverine and Magneto are already in pre-production.
Costume: 4
Coolness: 10
Longevity: 3
Box office: $1,163,063,674
5) The Fantastic 4
One of those films that irritated the fanboys and critics alike, but still did pretty creditable business. The first Fantastic 4 film is by no means as bad as some people might have you believe, being a fairly faithful rendering of the extended family of heroes as they were depicted in their Silver Age heyday. The Fantastic 4 movies are one of the few examples of a comic book property being successfully true to the original form, rather than being adulterated with notions of ‘dark’ or ‘adult’ themes. One significant obstacle to their future success is the fancifully cosmic nature of their rogues’ gallery, typified by gigantic humanoid Galactus the planet eater who was, to widespread disappointment, reduced to an amorphous special effect in the recent Rise of the Silver Surfer sequel.
Costume: 6
Coolness: 6
Longevity: 2
Box office: $607,290,873
6) Batman
The most-filmed superhero property, not least because his main powers are a good deal of determination and a huge amount of disposable wealth, both of which are comparatively easy to fake on film. The treatments range from the deliberately campy 1966 Adam West effort to Christian Bale’s gritty American Psycho model which returns the Dark Knight to his gothic roots. The future of the franchise looks safe with another duel with The Joker in The Dark Knight already in production and the bubbling rumours of a ‘World’s Finest’ team-up with Superman or even, probably a dream too far, a movie featuring all of DC’s major heroes together.
Costume: 9
Coolness: 11
Longevity: 7
Box office: $1,570,772,639
7) Unbreakable
The film that took the fashionable ‘what if superheroes were real’ notion to its extreme, M. Night Shyamalan’s dark fantasy is a clear antecedent of NBC’s current TV hit Heroes. Bruce Willis’s unwitting superman is pitted against an adversary who lives and breathes comic books and knows how the story is supposed to develop. Rumours of a sequel abound, but they seem based more on wishful thinking.
Costume: 0
Coolness: 7
Longevity: 1
Box office: $248,118,121
8) The Hulk
It’s difficult to say how it all went wrong for The Hulk — although ‘wrong’ is a relative term when the film is still in IMDb’s all-time Top 100 blockbusters. Certainly the trailer, with the jolly green giant playing swingball with tanks, looked like the stuff of movie legend and the world-class director and cast seemed set to deliver a roaring success. Something about the excessive tinkering with The Hulk’s origins, with the addition of a superfluous ‘genetic engineering’ element, weakened the character in a way that the minor modification of his stable-mate Spider-man’s powers did not. A sequel/reboot is in the works and it may well be that Marvel can yet add The Hulk to its long list of successful page-to-screen transfers.
Costume: 0
Coolness: 5
Longevity: 1
Box office: $245,360,480
9) Constantine
Bearing only the loosest relationship to its source material, a comic called Hellblazer from DC’s adult-oriented Vertigo imprint, Constantine is part of a long and noble Hollywood tradition of filleting all of the subversive quirkiness out of an Alan Moore property and turning it into something palatable for popcorn-throwing US preview audiences. Of all of the comics characters most suited to star Keanu Reeves’s likeable brand of dim laconic cool, this isn’t the one.
Costume: 2
Coolness: 7
Longevity: 1
Box office: $230,884,728
10) Ghost Rider
On paper, this looked like being a disaster. A comparatively minor comic book character portrayed by one of the most renowned hams in Hollywood. Where did it all go right? Ghost Rider benefited from a well-timed release, and excellent promotional campaign, and an endearingly silly story that anyone could understand. As a bonus, it featured a blazing skeleton in a leather jacket who rode an enormous motorbike. What’s not to love?
Costume: 10
Coolness: 6
Longevity: 1
Box office: $228,738,393
11) Daredevil
Considered by fans to be rare dud for Marvel, it’s hard to see where it lost the public’s attention. The character’s costume was tinkered with, but no more than those of Batman or The X-Men. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, if the story isn’t up to scratch then no amount of special powers or martial arts skill will win. Despite a better response to the extended retail DVD, there seems little chance that Ben Affleck will be required to wedge his legendary chin into hornhead’s cowl for a second attempt.
Costume: 7
Coolness: 5
Longevity: 1
Box office: $179,179,718
12) Superm an
Christopher Reeve’s ability to switch between bumbling everyman Clark Kent and saintly Übermensch Kal-El is what made the first two episodes of the 1980s Superman franchise the best-loved superhero movies of all time. The character was undone though by his own omnipotence, with expensive affects and a paucity of credible opposition driving the Reeve incarnation into a creative cul-de-sac. The recent Brandon Routh reboot has taken a reverent approach to Reeve’s iconic characterisation but the addition of a Superbaby bodes ill for the integration of The Blue Boy Scout into the new pantheon of ‘serious’ comic book movie stars.
Costume: 8
Coolness: 10
Longevity: 5
Box office: $875,116,559
13) V for Vendetta
Along with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this rather clumsy adaptation of an Alan Moore graphic novel was instrumental in making the comic genius turn his back on the film world. The multilayered plot of a drably totalitarian Britain was simplified to something closer to a standard superhero tale. We hope the eagerly-anticipated Watchmen movie can redeem Moore’s faith in the Hollywoood machine.
Costume: 6
Coolness: 6
Longevity: 1
Box office: $131,411,035
14) Blade
One of the advantages, for a screenwriter, of a less well-known comic character is the extent to which artistic liberties can be taken with their personality and capabilities. Certainly Wesley Snipes’s Blade is a good deal more taciturn, and more powerful, than the character as originally presented in Marvel Comics. The first film seemed to be released with comparatively low expectations but the lure of the trilogy was too strong for Marvel once the box-office figures came in. A projected TV spin-off was considered but it looks now as if Blade may, like many of his quarries, be destined for the grave.
Costume: 4
Coolness: 6
Longevity: 3
Box office: $338,605,468
15) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
One of the most effective comic book-movie-TV-toy synergies ever, the four tortoises named after Renaissance painters began life as a parody of several Marvel Comics characters in a comic published by industry minnows Mirage Studios in 1984. Through a combination of savvy business dealings and sheer good fortune, creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman built a merchandising empire peaking with a trilogy of puppet/live-action movies. A recent sequel looks to have revived the fortunes of the martial arts reptiles among a new generation of action figure collectors.
Costume: 3
Coolness: 3
Longevity: 4
Box office: $416,381,410
16) Hellboy
Adapted from Mike Mignola’s blackly witty books for Dark Horse comics, Hellboy came from apparently nowhere (or, specifically, Hell) to be one of the major genre successes in 2004. Hellboy is a demon adopted by the US military and employed to combat an endless parade of Lovecraftian menaces. Like many of his fans, Hellboy enjoys sugary treats and mild profanity. A perfectly-cast Ron Perlman looks set to return in a Hellboy movie next year, as summer 2008 shapes up to be dominated by a slew of comic book movie franchises new and old.
Costume: 4 (+6 for horns)
Coolness: 9
Longevity: 1
Box office: $99,318,987
17) The Phantom
Because he was in many ways the original comic book superhero (pioneering the form-fitting costume that has since become the standard) and was played on screen by one of Hollywood’s most handsome leading men, it’s something of a mystery why The Phantom was such a disappointment as a movie. Perhaps the period setting was partly to blame (although that did no harm to the equally pulpy Indiana Jones franchise). There is, nevertheless, rumoured to be a franchise reboot in the works for The Phantom, demonstrating the studios’ inexhaustible enthusiasm for fit young men in tights.
Costume: 6
Coolness: 5
Longevity: 1
Box office: $17,300,000
