Why are theme songs from movies based on cartoons so generic or nonexistent?

toddly6666

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Ever since the trend of releasing good movies (starting off with Marvel's 1998 Blade) created from cartoons/comic books, why have the theme songs either been:
1. Not the same ones based on their famous cartoons.
2. Some forgettable, generic rock song

The only ones that used the famous theme song was in Superman Returns and a parady of one in the first Spiderman (the street performer). Actually the only sort of memorable one is the one used in the Spiderman movies, but it's just music. I'm assuming many of the movies can't use the original cartoon songs or re-inventing the cartoon song due to cartoon producer rights. But still, why do they always opt for either no theme song, or some generic rock song?

I just watched the highly entertaining Transformers movie and surprisingly good Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I was waiting for some type of song during the movie and even during the credits for some type of reference to the cartoon song.
When I think of the recent crop of superhero/comic book movies, such as X-Mens, Blades, Hellboy, Batman Begins, Avengers cartoon movies, Hulk, Iron Man cartoon movie, Daredevil, The Punisher, Transformers, TMNT, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Fours, etc, none of these movies have a theme song, whether it be vocal or music.

Do producers think it's cheesy to have a theme song for these films because comic book movies are considered to be taken more seriously now? Or they are ashamed of its cheesy past? The main attraction of watching these cartoons (for the ones with a cartoon) growing up was the appeal of the opening theme song or the theme song when the heros
do their thing "a la James Bond song."
Even during the Transformers movie, I think I only heard the famous "transforming sound" maybe twice. It should have been every time an Autobot or Decepticon transformed.
 
Cheesy .... that sums it up.

When we were kids these theme songs were cool .... if I sat in a cinema and heard them now it would just sound a bit naff.
 
Using the cartoon themes, in most cases, would just be silly. Or cheesy. Or stupid. I can't imagine the Spider-Man movies using any kind of version of the cartoon theme in any way but jokingly.

As for simply having main themes. Most, if not all, of the movies you listed have them. I can easily start humming the main themes of Spider-Man, Hellboy, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, and so on...
 

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