Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

July 25, 2011

Centers are sweet.

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Thor and Captain America have name recognition yet there is a limitation to their overall awareness. Captain America is obviously a military icon while Thor is crazy, fun cheesecake as a protagonist. They each have more negatives than positives, though, and this is why I give Marvel a tremendous amount of credit for pulling off what they have accomplished this summer. Their *least* popular movie is a stronger performer than DC's only major release, Green Lantern, and by over $30 million.

With regards to what Shalimar states, I fully agree that the trailers never really built to anything. I liked the teaser quite a bit but then it became clear that this was the gist of the film. It's a period piece with an American icon fighting against Nazis...and they didn't even do the more marketable Space Nazi aspect as I had hoped/expected. I do feel that Captain America is a strong comic book character, however, and I am not just saying that because I grew up reading The Invaders. There is something about that iconic shield that resonates with American males, a key ingredient in the popularity of the movie since the primary movie-going demographic remains males under 30. Whenever we play Marvel Ultimate Alliance as a group (and several BOP staff members and I have done this over the years), there is a fight to play as Cappy, because that shield is such an awesome weapon. In point of fact, this is something I believe is crucial to the box office triumph of Thor and Cappy. People know their weapons every bit as much as the characters themselves, and I think that earned each character the benefit of the doubt in a way that Green Lantern wasn't given.




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Booster Gold!

Kim Hollis: With the release of Captain America, does this mark the end of high-profile comic book character adaptations? If not, which heroes remain "un-moviefied"?

Edwin Davies: The only superhero that I'm interested in seeing brought to the big screen at this point is Ant-Man, and even then that is solely because it is being scripted by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (who already worked together on the terrific Attack the Block and Spielberg's forthcoming Tintin movie, which is to say nothing of Wright's own great work as a director apart from Cornish). Otherwise, I think all of the biggies have been tapped at this point and we are firmly into reboot territory.

Bruce Hall: No matter how many times I continue to see proof that they're working on an Ant-Man flick, I will not truly believe it until I see a trailer. When it comes to the subject of "comic book movie fatigue", I don't think we've even scratched the surface yet. To my knowledge, adaptations currently in development include Luke Cage (obscure), The Flash (who runs so fast you almost can't see how silly his costume looks), Deadpool (obscure), Ant-Man (yeah, right), Doctor Strange (obscure but possibly cool), Iron Fist (okay...), Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson fatigue is something we may be talking about soon), Silver Surfer and Sub-Mariner - who walks around in a green metallic Speedo and has wings on his ankles. I'm just not ready to look at that for two hours. And I haven't even mentioned the Spider-Man reboot, the Conan reboot, or the Judge Dredd reboot. If you think they did Westerns to death back in the day, just wait. Even the most devoted and fanatical comic book geek is going to have his patience tested over the coming years. If you want to talk about comic book fatigue, let's bring it up again this time in 2013. We may have to devote a whole section of the site to it.


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