Is ''Heroes'' helping or hurting the comic book biz?

[SoulManX]

To all the powers on display in NBC's neo-superhero drama Heroes, add this one: superspeed. After seven episodes, the prime-time fantasy has distinguished itself as the breakout hit of the 2006-07 TV season, with more than 14 million viewers hooked on time-bending Hiro Nakamura and his assorted super (not quite yet) friends. More impressive is that the seemingly narrow-skewing (read: GEEKY!) enterprise appears to be growing among the masses; while its first three outings hovered around 13 million viewers, the show has been steadily increasing its numbers ever since.


How high can Heroes fly? No one yet knows. But it has certainly soared high enough for all who work in Hollywood to see, which can only mean one thing: copycats. Sources tell EW that TV and movie execs have let agents know that they want ''the next Heroes'' — i.e., a ''realistic'' treatment of superheroes, and, if possible, an original property that they can own and exploit without having to worry about irking zealot fanboys with their creative liberties, or sharing profits with SuperDuperSomebody's corporate landlord. Just a couple weeks ago, one of the movie industry's most famous unproduced projects, Tonight, He Comes — a dark fairy tale about a masked mystery man whose stab at a normal life in a small town has disastrous consequences — found new life when Universal hired Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) to direct. (FYI, Will Smith is attached to star.)


Heroes might also be blazing the trail for another long-languishing movie property, Watchmen, based on the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic book saga, considered by many to be the greatest superhero story ever told. Watchmen trafficks slyly and quite intelligently in superhero archetypes and situations, and one trepidation Hollywood execs have always had about mounting a costly adaptation of the comic was its inside-baseball aspect. Yet Heroes seems to have proven that movies like The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, and The Incredibles, plus the Harry Potter book and movie franchises, have united the world under a geek banner; we might not all speak the language fluently, but we know enough to get by. Watchmen is currently being developed with director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) at the helm, and we Watchmen fans at Entertainment Weekly wish him well and pray to the Geek Gods that he doesn't screw it up.


http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1555891_3_0_,00.html

[SLVRSR4]

It is helping it i think. I'm interested in this watchmen along with the moon knight now . >)