A movie that began the current comic book craze.

[Peyton Westlake]

Neglecting Julie , his lawyer lady friend, Dr. Peyton Westlake works feverishly to perfect his latest invention — artificial skin that could be used to treat burn victims. Peyton himself falls victim to an explosion when one of Julie's crooked clients sends his henchmen to sniff out an incriminating document that's been left in Westlake's lab. Hideously disfigured and left for dead, the good doctor receives an experimental medical treatment that renders him super-strong, impervious to pain and prone to heightened fits of rage. Rebuilding his lab into an underground hideout, Westlake begins using his synthetic skin to impersonate various characters and engineer his revenge against those who destroyed his life. Reconnecting with Julie, however, becomes the unsightly vigilante's biggest challenge........this is a hero who truly is the NIGHT!

[Flexo]

Darkman, so what?

[Swordmaster]

Good movie it is

[XPunisherman88]

X-men, but thats only my opinon.

[ZER0C00L]

No. Blade

[Kable24]

A movie that came out in 1990 began the current comic book craze??? I think X-Men got the big craze going.

[Peyton Westlake]

Yes, it did begin it. I know the gap between it & the current movies is great but...

1. It was directed by Sam Raimi. If you watch Darkman you can see how its a blueprint for the Spider-Man films.

2. It was made at a Major company....Universal, which had a vision in '90 that a 'comic book' movie may have potential.

[Kable24]

The first Batman movie proved you could take a comic book and make it dark and have a real story and not some campy piece of crap.

[halfmadjesus]

Originally Posted by Peyton Westlake

Yes, it did begin it. I know the gap between it & the current movies is great but...

1. It was directed by Sam Raimi. If you watch Darkman you can see how its a blueprint for the Spider-Man films.

2. It was made at a Major company....Universal, which had a vision in '90 that a 'comic book' movie may have potential.

Yes, but Darkman itself was the direct result of Batman's success. Almost certainly it was greenlit due to Burton's Batman (Darkman came out about a year and a half afterwards). So, no, Darkman didn't kick anything off. It fell smack into the wake of the last big comics-2-film cycle.

Darkman's mainly interesting because it showed that Sam Raimi has a knack for super-hero material. Even though it wasn't based on a comic book, it WAS a comic book, so it was easy (for me at least) to see how Raimi's style applied to Spider-Man. And Darkman was Raimi's only real box-office success until Spider-Man.

Sorry, it was Blade followed by the Matrix that spun the current comic-2-film craze. X-Men sealed the deal by showing the pictures could do blockbuster money.

[Mentok]

Blade made marvel push Xmen harder. (The sucess of ) Xmen started the craze.

[Mentok]

Originally Posted by halfmadjesus

Sorry, it was Blade followed by the Matrix that spun the current comic-2-film craze. X-Men sealed the deal by showing the pictures could do blockbuster money.

Matrix was a Movie, then a Comic. So its not a "comic book movie"

By definition it has to be a film based on a existing comic book.

[The_Guyver]

Blade was the catalyst for X-Men, but X-Men got the ball rolling on all the other properties that followed it.

[Marc]

Originally Posted by The_Guyver

Blade was the catalyst for X-Men, but X-Men got the ball rolling on all the other properties that followed it.

Spider-Man had been in pre-production hell for around a decade.... it was going to come out regardless. Which was going to make money no matter how lame a film it turned out. Stuff like the Punisher had already done a movie too.

Oh and The Crow totally made comic book films credible.

[Peyton Westlake]

I do know Raimi had success before with the Evil Dead Films, but they were horror/comedy and were not huge box office success'.......they have been re-born by a cult following now. And halfmadjesus , Batman came out in June of '89 & Darkman of August of '90 so even though Batman did come out 1st......it takes I think somewhere between 3 to 6 months to film a big budget movie so i'm not so sure it was given the green light just because of Batman, it may have been planned beforehand anyway.

[The_Guyver]

Originally Posted by Marc

Spider-Man had been in pre-production hell for around a decade.... it was going to come out regardless. Which was going to make money no matter how lame a film it turned out. Stuff like the Punisher had already done a movie too.

Oh and The Crow totally made comic book films credible.

True, good points. However, had Spider-Man remained in development hell X-Men still would've helped push a lot of other properties into development. The Crow remains a credible comic book movie, no doubt, but the recent surge in comic book films have come from Marvel properties, so that rules The Crow out as the catalyst. Blade was Marvel's first blockbuster, so it was the catalyst, but the success of X-Men sealed the deal/s.

[halfmadjesus]

The Crow, too, was developed in the wake of Batman, and was heavily influenced by Batman, obviously.

These things go in cycles. It was Blade that first demonstrated the kind of modern computer FX that could show superheroes doing real superheroey things on-screen, like leaping across a city block, or grabbing a speeding subway train. Until Blade, no one had seen action quite like that in a superhero movie. It was the Matrix that made everyone in Hollywood go, "Ooooh!" With that film, it became much clearer what was possible. X-Men built on that. Spider-Man built on it.

Originally Posted by Peyton Westlake

I do know Raimi had success before with the Evil Dead Films, but they were horror/comedy and were not huge box office success'.......they have been re-born by a cult following now.

The Evil Dead films were sucessful on video, and minor box office successes due to the fact that they cost almost nothing to make. Darkman was Raimi's first (and until Spider-Man, only) "hit" by Hollywood standards - a picture that had a decent-sized budget, was produced by a major studio, opened well at the box office, and made a considerable amount of money.

And halfmadjesus , Batman came out in June of '89 & Darkman of August of '90 so even though Batman did come out 1st......it takes I think somewhere between 3 to 6 months to film a big budget movie so i'm not so sure it was given the green light just because of Batman, it may have been planned beforehand anyway.

Well, everyone knew Batman was going to be big before it even came out. They didn't know how big, but it had "hit" written all over it. The Darkman script was probably in-development, but I doubt Universal gave the greenlight until they saw the kind of money Batman was making. Remember, back then, movies didn't need six months of post-production. A year-plus was plenty of time to go from greenlight to the movie showing in theaters.

[Murray]

i have to go with the people who say blade. I think it was that first sequence that got all the studioheads running to sign people on for a bigger movie. Blade was Marvel's test movie, and if it hadnt work the comicbook movie craze wouldn't exist.

[DACrowe]

Sorry.

Darkman was a direct follow of Batman' success which was the last craze. We saw the Batman movies (get progressively worse), Darkman, Spawn, and Men In Black. I believe that Blade is not part of either craze (its sequels are) or part of both. The last craze was dead but Blade was a throw away action movie for New Line that turned out to be actually good and did phenomelly well for a low budget action movie. This gave Marvel hope. They pushed X-Men which soared, and then Spider-Man was already in pre-production at this time but was put on the fast track after X-Men and everyone started buying rights (Fox went on to buy Daredevil/Elektra, and Fantastic Four and Universal bought Hulk) and once htey saw the success of Spider-Man, everyone went crazy.

But now because oversaturation (thanks to greedy bastard Avi Arad) and crap (once again thanks to rushing greedy bastard Avi Arad) with average DD and Hulk, mediocre Punisher, and ****ty Blade Trinity and Elektra the genre is starting to go downhill (like WWII movies in the '90s, Vietnam movies in the '80s, anicent world epic war movies since the mid '90s 'til about this year).

I think BB and FF will surprise critics financially (and BB critically) and the stuff will be afloat. But I suspect 2006 will look very bad for superhero films and after a few high profile disappointments (I won't say flops, but failures) all the "lesser known ones" will fall away for the likes of big ones known to make money like Spider-Man.

[Orko Is King]

Blade unlocked the door. X-Men opened it. Spider-Man kicked it off its hinges.

[greenlantern248]

You are talking about comic book movies that started the comic 2 film craze, well lets not forget a certain movie that made studios look at comics for source now the movie that inspired all of the comic movies today and that movie is none other than

SUPERMAN

But Blade was the movie that started Marvel's comic movie run
Stan Lee even said so himself

[DACrowe]

We're really talking about the current craze (the one that Blade tested the waters of and then X-Men set sail for and then Spider-Man built a route to follow for).

Superman Returns is taking that voyage because of those films now too. But true the first one to actually notice youu could sail is Superman '78, but it is not the film that started the current craze.

[JcDc]

No contest. Spidey is basically a tribute to Donner's Superman.



The true "blue" print for comic films.

[Peyton Westlake]

I'd like to see how Batman Begins & Superman Returns plays in all this.Will they both mix in, do decently? Or get hammered because there is over saturation with the genre. We'll see soon.

[Alexia Dark]

Originally Posted by Orko Is King

Blade unlocked the door. X-Men opened it. Spider-Man kicked it off its hinges.

[Hoedowned]

Originally Posted by Orko Is King

Blade unlocked the door. X-Men opened it. Spider-Man kicked it off its hinges.

Wonder which will be the one that closes it...again.