How important is the physical appearance in Comic Movies?

[Optimus_Prime_]

If you ask comic fans who some of their favorite superhero performances are, inevitably someone will mention Michael Keaton as Batman. Short, not really well built, but underneath his rubberized suit a lot of people thought he disappeared into the role. Batman, however, is an insanely physical character. Moreso than even most street level vigilante's. In his drive to become Batman it is understood by the reader that he is physically perfect, or as damn close as any man can get.

We've also had Liev Schreiber, whom I really enjoyed as Sabretooth. Arguably his attire masked his size a good bit, but considering Sabretooth is generally depicted as large as Venom or Colossus, Liev was incredibly undersized for the role. He wasn't even in that good of shape as revealed from some onset photos.

On the other hand, certainly some actors have raised the bar. Chris Hemsworth packed on more than a decent amount of weight to play Thor. Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds looked like comic book superheroes for Blade III. Ironically Ryan Reynolds' character, Hannibal King, was a chain smoking, middle aged, balding man in the comics.

So from here on out, could we have another Michael Keaton, or has that time past? Are our expectations for what an actor should look like when playing a part like Batman fundamentally changed because of movies like Begins and Spider-man?

 

[BlackLantern]

the time is past...no one is going to cast "out of the box" because the standards have been raised for comic book films and the backlash is pretty bad

 

[SuperFerret]

It depends on the character. I think the claims that Batman trains himself so hard that he's the best a man can ever get is ridiculous. Obviously he trains hard, and is at his best, but Batman is hardly the best normal human fighter in comics. He's good, but not that good.

Sabretooth being as big as Colossus and Venom is about as ridiculous as Colossus and Venom being that big in the comics. Granted, Colossus needs to be portrayed by a larger actor, but nothing about Sabretooth indicates that he needs to be that big. Thor on the other hand does.

 

[S.A.A.D.]

It's very important imo. I'm tired of half ***** attempts when it comes to people having to portray certain characters in comic book movies,I know that sometimes you have no choice but to unfortunately deal with it,but still. Micheal Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman is a major exception to me still to this day. The half ***** portrayals sort of tread into in name only territory. Superman from Superman Returns and Sabretooth from X-Men are first rate and very terrible examples for me,and Venom and Rogue,and Juggernaut. He looked like he was literally wearing a carved out rock for a helmet.

 

[BlackLantern]

agreed...I think its important that actors understand the importance of portraying these characters

 

[S.A.A.D.]

They totally need to stop insulting our intelligence with very blatantly bad appearances.