Where Are the Black Superhero Movies?

[Retroman]

Saw this good article and thought it most appropirate here. Article (pdf file) includes a photo of Wesley Snipes as Blade and Halle Berry as Storm.

From The Houston Insider:

Volume 1, No. 7  January 31 – February 6, 2006

Where Are the Black Superhero Movies?

By Thaddeus Lavalais


For yet another year, movies will be made that are based on characters that originated in comic books. While the genre of the comic book superhero does stand a chance of getting stale if there are too many of these movies flooding the market, Hollywood has so far been able to turn a decent profit off of the men in tights. One of the few bright spots of the 2005 year in movies was Batman Begins, which rebooted the Dark Knight franchise with a thoughtful take on the caped crusader. 2006 sees the return of the original superhero icon, Superman, in a blockbuster directed by Bryan Singer, who has previously reaped success with the first two XMen movies. The mutant superheroes aren’t sitting this year out either, with X-Men: The Last Stand slated to hit theaters this summer. V for Vendetta, a graphic novel written by Alan Moore, gets a big screen treatment from the Wachowski brothers (the Matrix movies). There are even more comicsbased movies scheduled for the following year, with Spider-Man 3 and Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage, set for 2007 premiers. The genre has proved to be so popular that Marvel Entertainment, the company that produces comics like Spider-Man, X-Men and The Incredible Hulk, has gotten into the movie-making business, with plans to produce their own films using any of the thousands of characters that they own the rights to. The movie superhero genre is not a foolproof profit maker. Films like Daredevil, Elektra and The Hulk did less than stellar box office. Still, enough of these movies do well enough to garner a continued interest in these characters by movie makers. The genre is also fortunate enough to attract some of Hollywood’s biggest talent, with Oscar winners like Halle Berry and Nicholas Cage, respected actors like Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson and Ian McKellan, and up-andcomers like Christian Bale, Jessica Alba and Hugh Jackman.
Still, with all this spandex-clad movie activity, one would expect a little more...diversity. Especially since the fact is, by the mid-90’s, the superhero movie genre was on its last legs. The campy, awful Batman movies directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Val Kilmer and George Clooney had pretty much turned off Hollywood to dropping big bucks on comic book properties. Then, a little film called Blade came along, with Wesley Snipes as the vampirehunting hero who was based on a minor character in Marvel’s comic Tomb of Dracula. Blade did decent box office for a moderately budgeted movie, and that set the wheels in motion for superhero movies like Spider-Man and XMen to make big box office and make the comic book hero movie a viable and popular option. Even though a movie starring a Black hero kick-started the superhero franchises again, the only other Black superhero to make it onscreen since then was the X-Men’s Storm, played by Halle Berry, a role which didn’t give the character or the actress much to do in the first two movies. So what’s the problem? Are racial issues involved in us not seeing many other noncaucasian superheroes on the big screen? The problem actually lies in the source material: comics have been for the most part scarce in the number of significant Black superheroes that have been created. Blade was a throwaway character; when he was revamped (no pun intended) for the movies, it was almost like a completely different action hero using someone else’s name. In the 1980’s, Marvel produced a handbook of all of it’s comic book characters. There was a subsequent listing of characters by racial makeup and skin color. At the time there were actually more blue skinned characters than black ones. Go figure. Things have changed for the better, however. Marvel plans to produce a Luke Cage: Hero for Hire movie, directed by John Singleton and possibly starring Tyrese Gibson. Luke Cage, also known as Power-Man, is a super strong, bulletproof hero whose gimmick is that he’ll play the hero...for a fee. He is also the character that a young Nicholas Coppola borrowed his last name from to become Nicholas Cage (maybe there will be a cameo involved).
There’s no solid production or release date, but a movie about The Black Panther has been in some form of development for years now. Marvel Entertainment head Avi Arad has said that getting this character, an African king and superhero, to the silver screen is a top priority.Other than these hero movies, there aren’t any other known black superhero characters that are in the pipeline for big screen portrayals. Will Smith will play a Black superhero in the upcoming Tonight He Comes, but the character was created just for the film. Spike TV will be producing a Blade cable TV series, with former Onyx rapper Sticky Fingaz taking over for Wesley Snipes in the title role. There have also been rumblings that a new movie about Spawn, a character created by Todd McFarlane, may see the light of day. Considering how bad the first Spawn movie was, however, this may not be good news. Still, it would be nice to see a mighty,masked brother or sister in a form-
fitting costume fighting for truth and justice before somebody makes a stinker and the superhero movie genre gets put on ice again.

Source: http://thehoustoninsider.com/archive/vol1/no7.pdf

[MJB]

Their isn't a lot of quality black superheros. I really don't care to see Luke Cage. A criminal and thug for hire. Or at least it will be with Singleton at the helm. He is going to ghettoize this movie. Black Panther good be good but he has no real powers for us to be like wow. Probably storm and Spawn are the only quality Black heroes. Neither was done justice on the bigscreen. Spawn coul have been sweet but it didn't have a decent budget. Oh well.

[Red Mask]

At least Marvel has some black superheroes. Don't expect any from DC.

[roach]

Originally Posted by MJB

Their isn't a lot of quality black superheros. I really don't care to see Luke Cage. A criminal and thug for hire. Or at least it will be with Singleton at the helm. He is going to ghettoize this movie. Black Panther good be good but he has no real powers for us to be like wow. Probably storm and Spawn are the only quality Black heroes. Neither was done justice on the bigscreen. Spawn coul have been sweet but it didn't have a decent budget. Oh well.

You really dont know alot about Luke Cage

[The Question]

Originally Posted by MJB

I really don't care to see Luke Cage. A criminal and thug for hire. Or at least it will be with Singleton at the helm. He is going to ghettoize this movie.

Luke is from the ghetto. He's not a criminal. He was wrongly acused of a crime. And he's not a thug for hire. He's a body gaurd and private detective.

Originally Posted by MJB

Black Panther good be good but he has no real powers for us to be like wow.

So? Neither does Batman, and people go to see his movies.

Originally Posted by MJB

Probably storm and Spawn are the only quality Black heroes. Neither was done justice on the bigscreen.

Icon
Static
Rocket
Luke Cage
Black Panther
Black Lightning
Falcon
Storm

Those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

[WOLVERINE25TH]

They should do a Static Shock movie.

[Super_Ludacris]

I wanna see a movie with a Black Captain America and use that miniseries from a couple years (Truth I think it was called)

[The Question]

Originally Posted by WOLVERINE25TH

They should do a Static Shock movie.

His name's Static, not Static Shock. ANyway, that might be cool. But Icon would be better.

[Nightwing]

Originally Posted by The Question

Icon
Static
Rocket
Luke Cage
Black Panther
Black Lightning
Falcon
Storm

Those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Brother Vodoo
Black Goliath
Photon
Bishop
The Prowler
Mr. Terrific
Vixen
Cyborg

[The Question]

Thanks man. Forgot about them.

[Nightwing]

Originally Posted by The Question

Thanks man. Forgot about them.

No problem.

There was supposed to be a Brother Vodoo show on UPN, don't know what happend to it. Read that in Wizard...

[HighVoltage]

Originally Posted by The Question

Luke is from the ghetto. He's not a criminal. He was wrongly acused of a crime. And he's not a thug for hire. He's a body gaurd and private detective.



So? Neither does Batman, and people go to see his movies.



Icon
Static
Rocket
Luke Cage
Black Panther
Black Lightning
Falcon
Storm

Those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Good Post, The Question.

And here´s one of my favorites;"The Prowler".

That´s a great Character.

[Super_Ludacris]

For some reason though when I see the title of this thread I wanna say:

"....at the club" lol

[Hypestyle]

I think that Static Shock would make a good live action movie for a modest budget.. the cartoon was popular.. (put it out on dvd!)
out of the other Milestone characters, Icon was my favorite series... it was based on a black "superman" figure, an alien who crashlanded on Earth in the slavery-era US south..

[Ronny Shade]

I'd like to see a Static movie, as long as it knows what it is and it doesnt overstep its bounds.

When they started bringing the justice league into the show it was just going too far.

[tamron]

Originally Posted by The Question
Icon
Static
Rocket
Luke Cage
Black Panther
Black Lightning
Falcon
Storm

Originally Posted by Batman

Brother Vodoo
Black Goliath
Photon
Bishop
The Prowler
Mr. Terrific
Vixen
Cyborg

War Machine
Steel
Night Trasher
Triathalon
Spawn

[dpm07]

From a marketing standpoint, how well financially would a superhero film with colored superheroes be? There are some good heroes out there, but probably not so many actors that could do the roles justice and make them the hits. I'd love to see a Brother Voodoo or Black Panther film. I think Djimon Honshou would rock with either role.

Icon would be good. Will Smith has a superhero film coming out where he plays a hero who's black and has powers similar to Superman. I think it's coming out this year.

They could go the John Stewart route and do Green Lantern with someone of color.

[Nightwing]

Originally Posted by tamron

War Machine
Steel
Night Trasher
Triathalon
Spawn

Nice, also forgot to mention Onyx and Orpheus.

[deemar325]

Originally Posted by WOLVERINE25TH

They should do a Static Shock movie.

It'll make a cool cgi movie.

[deemar325]

Originally Posted by Batman

Brother Vodoo
Black Goliath
Photon
Bishop
The Prowler
Mr. Terrific
Vixen
Cyborg

Bumble bee
Joto
Aegis
Rage
J.J. Thunder
Patriot
Battalion
XS
M
Synch
Queen Divine Justice
Vibraxas
Kasper Cole (White Tiger II)
Maggot
BattleStar
Butcher Knight (sorta)

[MJB]

Originally Posted by WOLVERINE25TH

They should do a Static Shock movie.

Actaully wouldn't mind that, but it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

[MJB]

Originally Posted by roach

You really dont know alot about Luke Cage

I know Cage's history and that he was wrongly accused and convicted and what not, but the negative image was already put forth regardless if he's innocent or not. Not all black people are poor and come from the projects. This is sadly how a lot of mainstream america perceives blacks. Cage was created in the 70's with all the blackploitation films were taken Hollywood by storm. In someone else's hand other then Singleton's i'd be amped for a cage flick, but I know Singleton and the man can not get away from the hood tales and references. I just don't care for Singleton all that much as a director. I liked Boyz in Da Hood, but the rest of his movies were made up of hits and misses, mainly misses, but even the hits were just decent more so because they didn't suck as opposed to being great films.

[MJB]

Originally Posted by tamron

War Machine
Triathalon

Oh my god, one of the worst heroes ever created what was marvel thinking? Nothing is what I'd say. Not much thought is put into creating black heroes. They are there more so for diversity then actually having something to do. Afew are good, but the rest ughh.

[LetsHangBendis]

As long as Tyler Perry makes bank, there will be no black super hero movies. Do what must be done.

[MJB]

Originally Posted by dpm07

colored superheroes

Colored? D@mn people still refer to blacks with that term. Haven't heard or read that in a long time.