well obviously after they saw how successful the first film was....who wouldn't have done that?
Warner Brothers distributed the first Superman movie. In fact they had so much confidence in it that they decided to distribute it in foreign countries.
They are. Please don't come here with a selective view of history. There isn't a media or industry individual that would dismiss the merits and milestones of the releases of Superman or Batman.
Okay? I was merely indirectly responding to a poster who posted a message which turned out to be a very bizarre example of sarcasm if that was truly his intention. I doubt that was his intention because there's some truth to the WB almost killing the comic book genre with one of the worst comic book films ever made.
Of course if Batman and Robin had destroyed the genre it would have been temporary. An overall studio interest in developing comic book films was initiated in the late 80s and it continued to grow in the mid 90s. One failed comic book film wouldn't halt all studio interest.
Furthermore, there's even a shred of truth to the statement Zant made about Fox. Yes, it's true that in some sense Fox's X-Men may have prevented studios from temporarily losing interest in developing comic book films. However, in reality this was never a genre that needed saving. It needed to evolve. Both Blade and X-Men helped the comic book genre succeed at this.
Overall, I'm not sure what aspect of Zant's post was meant to be sarcastic because both statements have some truth to them. I'm also, not sure what you mean by me having a selective view of history. If anyone has a selective view of history it's you for thinking the only reason people in this thread are angry at Fox simply for their bad comic book films. What angered people in the past was Fox's determination to micro-manage all their sci-fi/action/fantasy property rights while hiring studio hacks. Ruining once popular franchises(Aliens/Predator) and releasing a significant number of films that the general public lacks interest in didn't help Fox's reputation.
It's no coincidence that out of the 6 major studios they had the 2nd fewest number of films to break 100 million domestically since 2008. On a personal note Avatar was the first Fox film I watched in the theaters since 2006 because it didn't have the look of the more recent garbage Fox was spewing out at that time.
While one could make the argument that Dick Tracy's long standing history made it a character worth translating to film, The Crow and Men In Black are perfect examples of films based on comics, where even most comic book fans wouldn't necessarily give a rat's ass about their source material. Both films were treated as starring vehicles they could shape and mold as they saw fit. Neither of those films were made with the thought of, "This is such a well-known character in popular culture!"
That's an interesting statement to make. Here's some information for you. Wizard magazine's(a magazine for comic book/sci-fi fans) 2008 issue has a list of the top 50 best comic books ever had these two films listed around 25 out of 50 two years ago. Making this list doesn't necessarily mean that a comic book translation was great but, being around the top 25 comic book films of all time is not two shabby. Also, both films were commercial and critically acclaimed success stories.
If the statement you made about The Crow and Men in Black were true the studios developing these adaptations wouldn't have had any concern for following the source material at all. I've read the original comic book of the Crow. The movie took liberties with characters and certain scenes but, the setting and the core plot of the comic translated well. I'm not as familiar with the Men in Black comic as The Crow. What I do know is the film at least got the tone of the comic right and kept most of the core characters with the same names.
I will reiterate that your suggestion is an interesting theory but, there's no evidence that proves you are right. People who are fanboys/fangirls usually find out all the background information on these types of films well in advance before they're released. Their decision to watch will depend on how strong the source material is and how well it's being adapted. If The Crow and MIB had weak source material the majority of comic fans wouldn't have given seeing these films a second thought. However, getting decent recognition in a fanboy/fangirl magazine suggests that comic fans probably cared about the source material in both films.
Time-Warner owning New Line when Blade came out doesn't count for squat. Development of that film was handled by producers and executives from New Line that were there long before Time-Warner bought the studio.
Blade coming out 2 years after Time-Warner purchased New Line does count for something. Apparently Time Warner was inteligent enough to realize that New Line owned the property rights to some very marketable franchises(Blade/Lord of the Rings). They also, helped New Line promote the movie so of course they get some credit. Of course if your reasoning was true maybe Disney shouldn't have made a boat load of money off of Iron Man 2 since they owned the rights less than a year of it's release. An argument can be made in Disney's favor that the acquisition of Marvel entertainment helped stockholder confidence and even played a minor role in marketing Iron Man 2.
As for X-Men, it was a more visible success in regards to a recognizable comic book series being adapted to film. And in the case of Marvel, for them to be one of "The Big Two", it was kind of embarrassing that so many of their film productions couldn't even make it to the big screen, for one reason or another (the main reason being most of the resulting films were cheaply done and profoundly awful). This is mostly what people talk about when they give credit to X-Men.
No argument here.
And believe me, there are definitely more people now that give Blade credit as the first Marvel property to be successfully translated to film.
This is subjective. If you're referring to comic book fans I would agree with you. If you are referring to the general public I disagree. X-Men was the first comic book film to show the Marvel logo before the beginning of these films. I know plenty of non comic book fans who didn't have a clue that Blade was a comic character until I told them.
(Men In Black doesn't count, the book was an independent , and the rights to the property ultimately ended up under Marvel ownership)
What do you by "Men in Black doesn't count"? It was an independent comic book company named Aircel. It doesn't matter that Marvel acquired it nor would it have mattered had another prestigous comic company grabbed the property rights before it was adapted into a film. Touchstone pictures didn't wait for The Crow to be taken over by one of the major comic book companies before trying to adapt it to film. I really have no idea what point you are trying to make here? My original assertion was that Fox was doing nothing at the time many 90s comic films(The Crow/Men in Black/Dick Tracy) were being released. Comic book company property rights was not the focal point of the discussion.
It's not that Fox was ever given credit for movie studios interest in doing comic book films in general. It was more about the resurgence of comic book films (especially for major recognizable characters), following a time when critical praise and commercial returns were beginning to diminish. And again, a lot of those films were more about who the star was, than the actual comic. As successful as The Mask was, that was about giving Jim Carrey full reign to do what he had always done best as a comedian. Timecop was just another Van Damme action flick in his heyday. Barb Wire was about showing off Pamela Anderson when she was immensely popular for Baywatch, and the general public had not yet soured on women with comically huge breast implants. Judge Dredd betrayed one of the key traits of the character by having Sylvester Stallone as its star (granted, I actually like that movie).
Agreed except I thought Judge Dredd not only took too many liberties from the comic but, was an overall piece of crap.
And even the "great and influential, unjustly overlooked" Warner Bros. cared not for the fact that Shaquille O'Neal had two critically lambasted films where his acting ability was major point of contention, when they decided to unleash Steel upon a movie-going audience that had learned their lesson from those aforementioned bombs.
Show me the quote where I said the WB had never developed any bad comic book movies. Every major studio has made at least one forgettable comic book film.