Ten Comic Book Movies That Need To Be Made
Jul 03 '05
The Bottom Line Rather than providing a list of the ten best superhero movies that have been made, here's a list of ten that should be made
These days, it seems like there's another new comic book movie every week. It's no mystery why, as the success of the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises told Hollywood that this is the way to make money, much the way the Scream movies started a seemingly ininite series of teen horror flicks during the 90s. I've got to say, this has been one of my favorite overexposed genre of movies that Hollywood has ever capitalized on, because I can never get enough of comic books. Of course, a large number of the films just aren't very good. And for every "Batman Begins," there will be at least two movies with the quality of "Batman and Robin" (ok, perhaps not that bad, but you get the point). This is largely due to the creative team behind the projects and the actors involved, rather than which comic book is being adapted, but with the large number of comic book superheroes to choose from (and they haven't even come close to covering them all yet, and probably never will), Hollywood has a lot better to choose from than, say, the Fantastic Four (and I would wager without the benefit of having seen that movie yet that it won't be very good). So I thought I'd write up this handy little list of ten comic books I think would make much better movies, some of which will probably never be made. I am not including movies that are in the works, but that haven't been released, like the upcoming (hopefully) Preacher movie from DC's Vertigo line, which I cannot wait to see, or the Wonder Woman movie to be written by the amazing Joss Wheedon (from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and currently writing "Astonishing X-Men"). So without further ado, here's the list:
10.) Batman: Knightfall
This one's kind of cheating, which is why I stuck it at the bottom of the list. I know there's a bunch of sequels to "Batman Begins" already in the works after the success of Christian Bale's Batman (and with good reason, it was great). But here's a Batman story they'll probably never tell in film that would make for an amazing movie (perhaps even a trilogy). It's the story of how Batman had to face all of his enemies at once when an enemy named Bane broke them all out of prison, only to have his back broken. Then comes the second part of the story, when Azrael (a man trained through the brainwashing of a secret organization not that different from the one ran by Ra's Al Ghul in "Batman Begins") takes over as Batman, only to become a Batman who's not afraid to kill. And finally, part 3 of the story, when the true Batman comes back to reclaim his identity from Azrael. I can only imagine how great such a story would be if told by director Christoper Nolan and with Christian Bale as Batman, but of course, this is a story that would have to occur much later in Batman's life.
9.) Gen 13
I debated whether to put this one the list, because the comic was so absurd, but that's what made it interesting. A story about several teenagers with powers would have just being teenagers and doing all the bad things that teenagers do. The movie could work as a sort of cross between X-Men and Melrose Place or the O.C. or something, both a superhero movie and a teen soap opera with lots of raging hormones.
8.) Green Arrow
While Green Arrow doesn't have any impressive powers and seems basically like a modern version of Robin Hood, which on its own doesn't sound very interesting, it's all about the personality of the character Oliver Queen. It would be best if they could get Kevin Smith (known for "Clerks" and a whole bunch of movies featuring Jay and Silent Bob) to write it. I say this because he told the best Green Arrow story there ever was in the comics, making him a worthwhile and interesting superhero.
7.) Sandman
Perhaps this one's a little too abstract to make into a movie, and it would hardly be a superhero story like all the others on this list, but if done properly, Neil Gaiman's masterful tale of Dream and his sister Death of The Endless could make for something comic book movies have seen none of so far, an artsy comic flick. I'm sure director Ang Lee thought that he was achieving this on the disasterous Hulk movie with its unique direction style, but that doesn't mean a comic book movie can't be more than just special effects, and someone will figure out how to do it sooner or later.
6.) Aquaman
This could be a hard one to do right, but if they managed to capture Peter David's take on Aquaman (the only good take on Aquaman there ever was), then it could be great. I'm not so much talking about David's story of Aquaman losing his hand and becoming a much darker hero, as the prior story in the "Tide and Time" graphic novel, of a man who doesn't feel at home either on the surface among what is considered normal human society, with all of its problems, or underneath the sea where he grew up a human among sea creatures. And you might think without having read Peter David's Aquaman that this is a lame character who simply talks to fish, but he's a whole lot more complex. Of course, it's unlikely that a movie version of him would be so deep, and one would hope this wouldn't turn into another Waterworld.
5.) Iron Man
Of all the Marvel Comics characters that have yet to see their appearance on the big screen, this one is probably the most deserving, and it's hard to understand why they chose Daredevil or the Fantastic Four over Tony Stark and his mechanical suit. The challenge in making a movie like this, however, would be the inability to see any emotional reactions on the face of the actor when he's in his suit, but that didn't stop Spider-Man and his full body mask from making loads of money. They would just have to tell the story about the man behind the machine, perhaps working in Stark's alcohol problem from the comic books for a darker and more interesting story.
4.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
A lot of people will probably roll their eyes on this one, and I can understand why. It's hard to distance yourself from the cartoonish image of the pizza-eating turtles who say "cowabunga, dude" and don't even act with the maturity level of teenagers, which was cemented by the prior movies in the 90s (I seem to recall one with a Ninja Turtle rap song in it or something horrendous even at the time it came out). But this is an epinion about comic books that need to be made into movies, and most people don't realize that the ninja turtles were originally comic book characters, and dark/violent characters at that. What I'm saying is that the prior ninja turtles movies didn't capture the essence of the comic book anymore than most of the prior Batman movies (up until "Batman Begins") captured the essence of that comic, and it's time for a movie that does.
3.) Green Lantern
It's only a matter of time on this one, I can virtually guarantee it. The only question is which Green Lantern to use, the John Stewart Green Lantern (not the guy from the Daily Show) used on the awesome Justice League Unlimited cartoon or the classic Hal Jordon Green Lantern? Either way, it would be great to see the special effects used as Green Lantern's ring creates whatever object comes to his mind, besides which DC Comics has thus far failed to take advantage of a large amount of great characters within its universe (this is less so with Marvel Comics, as should be obvious by this point on the list).
2.) Hitman
This one is kind of obscure, but it places highly on the list because it would be incredible. The upcoming Preacher movie is based on a comic book by the same writer, Garth Ennis, who most comic fans are familiar with for his work on The Punisher (in my opinion, the least interesting of all his work, and which made for a lousy movie featuring a hammy John Travolta bad guy, ugh). Although it didn't work for The Punisher, Garth Ennis' style of writing comics makes it read like a movie. In the case of Hitman, it would play like a great John Woo action movie with Quentin Tarrantino characterization and loads of comical violence. Of course, this one will never be made, because for some reason I can't figure out, this great comic never took off.
1.) Captain Marvel
I can't for the life of me understand why this movie hasn't been done yet, and I can only assume it's because the name "Captain Marvel" is kind of lame, but they could also call it "Shazam," the secret word spoken by a child to turn into a superhero as powerful as Superman. Considering that children are such fans of the superhero genre, the appeal of this character to his audience is obvious, and in this movie, two actors (a child and an adult) would be needed to play the superhero. With the right director/writer/actors behind this project, it could be incredible, just don't let Joel Schumacher near it.
It'll be interesting to see as time passes how many of these actually wind up being made.
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