Top Film Industry Stories of 2013: #7
Argo Batman Yourself
By David Mumpower
January 8, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
While the fact that Clooney’s turn as Batman did not is an exceptional trivia question, the overall track record here cannot be ignored. The actors who portray Bruce Wayne become more famous in the process. Additionally, their movies shatter records for opening weekend totals. Imagine the possibilities if an already world famous actor who recently starred in as well as directed an Academy Award winning movie accepted the role of Batman.
This scenario is exactly what transpired in 2013 when Ben Affleck, the creator of Argo, was announced as the next Batman.
Amazingly, there was an equally newsworthy aspect to the role. Affleck will be paired with the current Superman, Henry Cavill, in a mega-project featuring the union of Batman and Superman in what is presumed to be a build-up to an eventual Justice League movie. The news was announced during the 2013 Comic-Con in San Diego and quickly became THE signature moment of the event. Since the 1980s, fans of the iconic DC Comics characters have hoped to witness a joining of the duo onscreen. These people will soon get their wish.
How did all of this unlikely news transpire? Perhaps you have noticed that Marvel Comics has experienced a modicum of success with their recent theatrical adaptations. For the body of a decade now, their peers at DC Comics have shared similar ambitions. Jealousy would be a natural reaction to watching a peer absolutely dominate the box office with a similar strategy. Marvel Comics launched their billionaire playboy’s movie and followed it with a sequel. Then, they introduced dudes with shields, hammers, bows and arrows and a woman in a skintight costume and impossibly high heels. Suddenly, they possessed a multi-billion dollar property despite having notably less iconic comic book heroes than their counterparts at DC Comics.
Meanwhile, the world famous characters of Superman and Batman have starred in a total of five movies since 2006. The Batman movies did very well. The Superman movies did less well, yet still good enough to sustain the belief that a great Superman movie could break the bank. A couple of other DC properties, Green Lantern and Jonah Hex, also anchored films that were…less popular. So there were seven DC titles released in eight years. Anything lacking Batman in the title struggled relative to expectations or outright bombed. So how does DC Comics expand beyond the popularity of Batman at the theater the way that Marvel has?
The philosophy is that the sum would be greater than the parts if established characters from the Justice League were presented in a group movie. The rumors of such a film have existed for the body of a decade now. There was even a cast reported for so long that it started to possess the ring of truth. Once The Avengers became the #3 movie of all-time, however, the kind people at Warner Bros. grew more serious about the idea of a Justice League movie. After all, their characters are better known so they should have a competitive advantage in the field, at least theoretically.
I doubt that anyone outside the offices of Warner Bros. has such lofty expectations for a Justice League movie. That does not change the fact that if the film is even half as popular as The Avengers, we are still describing a potential billion dollar global performer. Care must be taken to protect the product during its nascent stage. And that is why Warner Bros. did something they have never done with the character of Batman before. They swung for the fences.
Consider that George Clooney is unquestionably the most famous actor to play Bruce Wayne. At the time of his portrayal, his two major cinematic roles were in From Dusk Till Dawn and One Fine Day. Those films earned a grand total of $72 million at the box office. Yes, Clooney had been the face of the most popular show on television, ER, but he was not a box office draw. He would become one in later years, of course. That career ascension did not occur until after Batman & Robin bombed. There was a three year gap where he selected smaller projects such as Out of Sight before he starred in The Perfect Storm and then cemented his career with Ocean’s Eleven the following year. Clooney is successful and famous; his Batman work was not.
Similarly, the most recent Batman was Christian Bale, and his efforts as The Dark Knight did *ahem* fairly well at the box office. His four previous movies prior to wearing the Cowl grossed less than $50 million combined. Three of them earned less than $4 million and the other, Reign of Fire, earned only $43 million domestically against a $60 million budget. Bale was largely an indie movie actor, with work in such titles as Laurel Canyon and The Machinist prior to his heavily criticized anointing as Batman. At the time, fanboys were livid that a virtual unknown was chosen to portray the legendary superhero. So there is a history of fans hating the Batman actors prior to seeing them onscreen.
Undeniably the most popular actor at the time he became Batman was Michael Keaton, a shocking statement to people who did not live through the 1980s. Keaton had already anchored a couple of huge hits with Beetlejuice and Mr. Mom before he starred in the first non-Adam West Batman movie. Those two titles were the #12 and #16 box office hits of their respective years of release. He at least had solid hits on his resume up until that time yet the general pattern has been maintained for 25 years and counting. The actors chosen to play Batman are selected for their potential rather than current resume.
The knowledge of this behavior is what makes the announcement of Ben Affleck so newsworthy. The Bostonian exploded into the public consciousness with his Academy Award winning writing for Good Will Hunting, a film in which he also co-starred. That title garnered $138 million domestically against a $10 million production cost. He followed that by anchoring a pair of mega-budgeted tentpole films in Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. Affleck proved he could be a franchise lead actor as well when he starred as Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears, a $118 million blockbuster. He also excelled in less celebrated yet financially lucrative projects such as Changing Lanes and Daredevil, the latter of which gave Affleck experience in the spandex hero genre.
Most recently, Affleck has revealed another new skill. With Gone Baby Gone, he stepped behind the lens to direct a critically lauded project. On the production of The Town, Affleck displayed all of his remarkable skill-set by co-writing, directing and starring in the $37 million production that grossed $157 million worldwide. He duplicated this feat with Argo, and you know how well that went. The movie received the industry’s most treasured honorific, the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also was a box office blockbuster, attaining $221 million against a $45 million budget. Frankly, there is nothing left for Ben Affleck to accomplish in the movie industry.
This knowledge underscores how surprising the choice of Affleck is for Warner Bros. They witnessed a respected actor in Robert Downey Jr. become the face of The Avengers as well as the individual Iron Man franchise. They sought to duplicate this business practice by choosing an even more established Hollywood talent, at least relative to box office history. In the process, history repeated itself.
Simply stated, movie goers are never pleased with the announcement of the new Batman actor. They are now five for five in this behavior. Keaton was a comedian who was considered entirely miscast as an action hero. Notably, Jack Nicholson received every funny line in the movie, which may or may not be a direct response to the criticism. Val Kilmer may have been Iceman in Top Gun but he wasn’t on the tip of anybody’s tongue when Batman Forever was being cast. The former Real Genius may have been the scariest man in Tombstone and BFFs with Willow; he was not the people’s choice for Batman, though. Clooney was a television actor at a time when the feature film industry still looked down upon that medium. Well, more so than today. And nobody knew who Christian Bale was.
What we have witnessed with the social media shade thrown at Ben Affleck is nothing more than history repeating itself. And this turn of events should not be keeping anybody at Warner Bros. up at night, either. After all, Man of Steel is a soulless, grim production starring a virtual unknown in Henry Cavill. It earned $661 million anyway. And for all of the naysayers who bemoaned the lackluster quality of The Dark Knight Returns, that title still earned $80 million more than The Dark Knight worldwide.
Audiences have demonstrated time and again that they possess an insatiable hunger for comic book adaptations. Warner Bros. has now positioned itself exactly as Marvel did while plotting a path to The Avengers. They have a legitimate A-List actor in Ben Affleck to portray the hero of Gotham. They will square him off against the most famous superhero of all time, Superman, in a slam dunk blockbuster. Then, they will follow that with a Justice League movie that if done well could easily become one of the five biggest films of the 2010s. And Ben Affleck is poised to become the biggest star in the world, just as Robert Downey Jr. did with The Avengers.