Hollywood Can't Get Enough of Comic Book Stories... Here's Why:
I know what you must be thinking: here is another comic book nerd jumping on a soapbox about his beloved books. I assure you this is far from the truth. Although I may be considered a comic book nerd in some circles, my level of nerdy-ness hardly scratches the surface. I did read comics as a kid but I also spent the majority of my younger years playing sports and watching TV like a good consumer American. I started with older TV shows like Batman and X-Men from the 90’s and I soon graduated to the real thing, the glorious paper backs of my teens and early 20’s. The savior of my imagination, and the paper friend I so desperately needed and didn’t even know. I was starving for something to satisfy my deep-seated nerd gene, my mutation of normal TV and book consumption. I admire comic book writers, and artists for that matter, but here are 5 reasons why I think the stories of comic book writers are in such high demand.
5. The writing formats are very similar and sometimes exactly alike.
I attempted a short stint in film school. The one class that I enjoyed the most was screenplay writing. (I’m a writer and I like the writing class, go figure). We were all poor college students and none of us wanted to buy real script writing programs. So, we all used a very nice and very free version of a script writing program. We learned from this program there were a few formats to work in, two of them being “Film” and “Comic Book.” These two formats are considerably similar. The film format begins with a scene, and that begins with the scene description; so if it’s inside you put int. for interior, if it is outside you put ext. for exterior, than begin with the characters and surroundings of the scene. I know it sounds kind of complicated but think of some of your favorite movies, watch the opening credits, and imagine this concept, I bet it seems easier then. Comic books are nearly exactly alike in this aspect. Comic books have pages instead of scenes and each page has a certain number of panels. Instead of starting with the scene you start with a page, instead of describing the scene you describe each panel of the page, but in essence each panel of a comic is like a scene to a movie, each describing a certain action complete with character dialog.
4. What is a Comic book besides a visual ride similar to movies?
Every comic book I have ever seen, even underground and slightly sub-par books, have a considerable amount of time put into the visual aspect of it. Artists of all kinds from penciler’s to inkers, to colorists, even letterers (Yes there are artists that do nothing but letters), and everyone in between spend countless hours getting visually stunning pages done to the best of their abilities. Just because it’s a flimsy little paperback throw away doesn’t mean that time and effort were not given in abundance. I feel this is similar to film. Countless days and nights spent setting up cameras and imagining the right angle to catch a shot, all in hopes of having a perfect one to three second clip capturing a feel or making a point through visuals.
Comic book and film writers both pour their hearts onto paper and write lively and engaging dialog just to hand it over to the “creative” teams in charge of capturing those thoughts and feelings and putting them into something the consumer can look at visually and be moved by. I totally feel that a movie producer or director can take a comic book and turn it into a movie without even changing the dialog; the only real difference would be the fact that movies would have to move and show more of the scene instead of capturing the mood with only one to five panels.
3. Exciting and wonderful storylines, dare I say, better than a lot of movies.
That’s right Hollywood, I said it. I know some really awesome screen writers will probably ban me from the special little writers club in Hollyweird now, and hang me from the rafters at the Emmy’s, Golden Globes or Academy Awards, but it had to be said. Comic book writers know storylines and they have been responsible for some of the most influential story arcs of all times, never shying away from new ground, pushing the limits of what is acceptable, even doing what film writers do, but better. Who can deny the intricacies of the love triangle between Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey? I mean seriously, all of the lovey dovey, ooh and awe of a typical love story without the 120 minutes of the mushy Notebook-like crap in between. In fact, it fills the rest of the time with ass kicking adventure coupled with special abilities and makes for a much more interesting watch. So, in other words, it does what a movie is supposed to, it entertains, and it has the possibilities to hit on all major plot designs like love, drama, action and everything in between.
2. Longevity of the characters, ideas, and story arcs.
Keeping with the theme that comic books hit on all the kinds of points that movies do; things like love, drama, politics, current affairs etc…it’s easy to plunge these characters into today’s new and updated roles even though the characters themselves are ancient in terms of ideas. Superman first appeared in June of 1938, Batman in May of 1939, and X-Men September of 1963. In terms of characters, they have been done and redone like most things in Hollywood. In 1938, The Adventures of Robin Hood was a success and it wasn’t the first time. At least two other renditions of the classic story were made between the early 1900’s and 1938. Similar to Robin Hood, Batman and other comic heroes have seen similar fates, re-dos and reimaginings of the classic characters. This just goest to show that a good idea is a good idea and people can get behind good ideas like the Dark Knight over Tim Burton’s “Cirque du Soleil” Batman. I’m talking longevity people. Do you think Christian Bale was sitting around the house as a child watching Adam West on TV thinking, “I’m going to make that guy’s Batman look seriously silly one day?” Probably not. But when the opportunity came, he nailed his part and redid an iconic character seamlessly. These characters are timeless and can be done over and over, but so can the general story arcs. The idea of the Joker and the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents is amazing and has been done in several different ways. Just look at the idea of the Punisher having his family murdered in front of him and being shot before being left for dead. These ideas have been used by Hollywood and tweaked enough to not be considered thievery, but us true comic fans know a theft when we see one.
1. Box Office Gold, AKA Money.
I know that number one really lacks the luster of the first four but you have to understand one very important thing, money makes the world go round. That is doubly true in Hollywood. The first X-Men movie premiered in July of 2000 and grossed 150 million dollars at the box office, then X2: X-Men United premiered in May of 2003 and grossed 214 million just shy of 215 million. This trend was just the beginning, comic book adaptations that were not even that good made money hand over fist for various different Hollywood studios. Even before the early 2000’s break out franchises like X-Men and Spider-Man grossing no less than 157 million (the first X-Men), movies like Men in Black in 1997 were making millions. In fact, the first Batman movie from Tim Burton in 1989 made over 250 million, and that movie was really, super, massively, hardcore, cheesy.
Between the writing styles being similar, the visual aspect being similar, and the longevity of story arcs and characters being similar, comic book writers should have a place at the big boy table with all the good writers in Hollywood. In some cases, these Hollywood guys owe their careers to comic book writers, particular Stan Lee. Where would Hollywood be without the drawing power of Avengers grossing over 620 million and clearing 200 million opening day? I can tell you this: those movie goers wouldn’t have been going to see The Cabin in the Woods if the Avengers movie was never made.
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