Dear Warner Brothers,

Hi. How are you doing? Good I hope.

My name is Bill. I’m a comic book fan and have been for thirty years. I have been a film buff for almost as long. And I’ve been writing about both worlds for about as long as the Internet has been around, give or take a year or two.

I say this just to provide a little background to you. Because I have been meaning to speak with you in regards to your philosophy towards comic book films. And an article I read today compelled me to not wait any longer.

Over at Bleeding Cool, Rich Johnston relayed an experience from an anonymous comic store employee whose shop was visited by a “fan” who had a pronounced lack of knowledge of comic books, but an overwhelmingly odd knowledge of DC Comics films. This fan, no, wait, let’s call him what he likely was–a badly disguised marketing researcher, asked questions such as “what superhero films have had good Facebook pages?”, “Do you think comic fans would accept a superhero film without Nolan’s involvement, would him serving as a producer suffice?” “What do fans think of Aquaman? He’s lame isn’t he?”, “What is regarded as the strongest lineup of the Justice League and would work as a film?” The marketer closed his survey with an intriguing question: “What would fan reaction be to a Justice League movie with Frank Miller’s name attached?”

I don’t pretend to speak all fans or comics, films, or comic book films. I speak for myself and hopefully other fans agree with my opinion. And my reaction to this news is that it could quite possibly be the worst in a long line of bad decisions your studio has made in regards to its comic book properties.

Now, I understand that you’re in a difficult position. You once had the superhero film market all to yourself with first the Superman films then the Batman films. Then Marvel went from being a laughing stock to becoming the dominant producers of comic book films and you ended up playing catch up. Marvel has just had their most successful film to date with The Avengers and the DC Comics film slate is in a state of chaos. You are rebooting the Superman franchise for the second time in ten years. The Batman franchise is coming off a successful reboot by Christopher Nolan and is in a state of flux. Sure fire franchise starters such as Jonah Hex and Green Lantern ended up D.O.A. at the box office. Suddenly, playing catch up became being so far behind that there is a danger that it isn’t even a race anymore.

And, to be brutally honest, it’s all your fault. The list of failed attempts at rebooting the Superman franchise before you settled on Superman Returns is legendary for how bad the attempts were. I read the original script for Jonah Hex and while it might not have been a hit, it would have been closer to source material. But reading that script, it was easy to see what the studio mandated reshoots got us–Hex’s superpowers and the campy “weapons of mass destruction” plot line. I also read the Green Lantern script and thought it had the potential to be a fun film. Unfortunately, what we got was a film lacking a sense of awe and wonder.

Listen, I can see why you think Frank Miller might be an exciting choice for the Justice League movie, a film that needs some excitement because it meant to act as The Avengers in reverse (Instead of individual superhero films leading up to one big team up movie, you’re having one big team up movie that will hopefully lead to individual superhero films). Miller is a legendary comic book creator and has become a filmmaker as well. He even works with green screen techniques in his directing, which is quick, cheap and one of the reasons why you hired Zack Snyder to do Man of Steel.

But there is one flaw in the idea. the present day Frank Miller is just terrible at what he does. He just is. Now, I have nothing personal against Miller, despite how Wikipedia might make it look. I came in a bit after his storied run on Daredevil, but I was right on time for his Batman:The Dark Knight Returns. I consider that series to be the second best comic book story of all time. But since 2000, Frank Miller has become a case of diminishing returns. I don’t know if it’s because of the auteur syndrome (where creative individuals have been told that they were genius enough times that they figure anything they create is automatically genius so they stop trying) or something else, but Miller’s output in the new millennium–Dark Knight Strikes Back, All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, Holy Terror–has been awful.

I mean, have you seen The Spirit? Obviously not, because if you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Watch it. Okay, that might be asking too much. How about you just go on Rotten Tomatoes and read some the reviews for the film? No, that probably won’t work either. How about you take a look at the earnings for the film?  Money, you’ll pay attention to that. I’ll give you a hint: the reviews were as bad as the grosses–completely horrible.

The Spirit shows what happens when Miller is given free hand to write and direct a comic book film adaptation. He took one of the most quirky and iconic comic book characters in history, paid no respect to the original version, and married traces of the character to his fetishes (namely, film noir and hyper-sexualized femme fatales), a Calvin Klein ad, and force fed the concoction through a MacBook. The result is something the was as awful as you would expect it to be.

And this was a character created by his friend and mentor, Will Eisner! What would he do to the Justice League, a concept he has no emotional attachment to? Well, we do have some idea based on how Miller portrayed the team in All-Star Batman, The Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again.  Superman will be an ineffectual wimp incapable of independent thought, preferring to be led around by weaker men. Green Arrow will be a raving lunatic hippie. Wonder Woman will be a man-hating harridan. Batman will be a psychotic bastard. And the rest of the League will be made up of either sociopaths or feeble weaklings. In other words, nothing like the casual fan remembers them as being and not the type of characters that would be appealing to everyday moviegoers.

What’s that you say? You’ll never let that happen? Gosh, the only worse thing I can think of other than a Frank Miller Justice League film is a Frank Miller Justice League film after heavy studio meddling.

That fact that you might be considering Miller for this job tells me something I’ve always suspected–you think there’s some hidden secret to doing a successful superhero movie, and, by gum, you’ll try everything until you find it. Jonah Hex doesn’t have powers? All Marvel’s film characters have powers. Let’s give him some. Iron Man was a cocky and arrogant who is unfazed by whatever life throws and wields a powerful weapon. That characterization would work exactly as well for Green Lantern! The Nolan Batman films were dark and gritty. So, making the Superman film dark and gritty would mean that it will be just as successful! Joss Whedon, a Hollywood director who wrote comic books, leads The Avengers to over a billion dollars in box office receipts? Man, then fans would really flip if we got Frank Miller, a comic writer who is a Hollywood director, to do Justice League!

You are right though. There is a proven method of doing a comic book movie right, but it’s no secret. You get a talented and proven director. You get a great cast of actors. You get a great story that respects the source material while standing on its own as a film. You work with the comic book company to make sure the films stay on point. You don’t interfere unless it is to make any of the four prior things happen.  It’s rather simple, but it’s not easy. You need to invest the time, do the due diligence, and trust the people you’ve hired when your only instinct is to overrule them and make unnecessary changes. But if you do that, your films might just be the quality of Marvel’s or Nolan’s.

Thanks for listening to me, Warners. I know I might have come on a bit too strong. After all, you were just pooling opinions. But I just think hiring Frank Miller for Justice League would annihilate any chance you have of ever competing with Marvel’s film output. I felt I had to say something, as a friend, before it was too late.

Stay in touch!

Bill Gatevackes.

Rumor has it that 2004′s The Punisher made a comic book fan out of Thomas Jane. He struck up a friendship with the cover artist for the Punisher comic book, Tim Bradstreet, who used him as a reference for the covers to Dark Horse’s Cal McDonald series. He started RAW entertainment with Bradstreet and Cal McDonald creator Steve Niles, and wrote one of its comic book offerings, Bad Planet.

He campaigned for the role of Jonah Hex, eventually voicing the character for an animated feature. He was briefly attached to play the role of the Comedian in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. And he famously dropped out of a sequel to The Punisher when it became clear to him that the film was moving in a direction that would do a diservice to the character.

But it would be hard to imagine that Jane would become a fan enough of the character to create a fan film around the character. And he didn’t, wink wink, nudge nudge. But Dirty Laundry is as close as you can come to a Punisher film without getting sued by Marvel/Disney. Jane is not shy about the inspiration for the short:

“I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in – a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish — we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.”

The film runs about 10 minutes and was directed by Phil Joanou (Three O’Clock High, Rattle and Hum, State of Grace, Gridiron Gang). Ron Perlman has a small role as a store clerk. The lead character, played by Jane, is never mentioned as Frank Castle or the Punisher by name, but if you want the character to be the Punisher, they don’t tell you it isn’t him either.

Here is Dirty Laundry:

Superheroes are taking a beating this summer, and not just at the hands of their arch nemesis’s. In terms of tickets sales, Thor, X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern have all not quite measured up to the bar set by the likes of the Iron Man, Batman and Spider-Man films. But the one that has proved to be the greatest and perhaps most unexpected disappointment at the box office has been Warner Brothers’ Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. In the ten days of its release it has barely cleared $120.5 million domestically and internationally as of June 27 (as per Box Office Mojo), not a good number when compared to its estimated production budget of $200 million.

FilmBuffOnline publisher Rich Drees and comic book film editor William Gatevackes got into a discussion as to what went wrong with the film. The conversation started with Gatevackes admitting that he had gone back to the theater to see the film for a second time.

Rich Drees – What brought you back for a second viewing?

William Gatevackes – My wife. She hadn’t seen it. I wanted to get her opinion on it. She liked it a bit better that I did, but admitted it could have been better.

RD – So did you see it in 2D or 3D? I saw it in 2D and was glad I did. The opening scene where the alien astronauts accidentally free Parallax was so dark and murky I’m afraid it would have looked terrible in 3D.

WG – I saw it in 2D as well. The shame of it is that the scene was pretty much designed for 3D. Filmmakers just haven’t got it that keeping scenes dark for CGI purposes and shooting scenes in 3D don’t go together.

RD – Well, Michael Bay has been making a big push to get Transformers: Dark Of The Moon shown properly in 3D, but that’s another topic. Putting aside the 3D, it seems that a lot of the reviews have bagged on the film for the amount of CGI used, but isn’t that the point of CG? To show things you couldn’t do any other way? And for the scope of a Green Lantern story, you are really going to need CG.

WG – For me, if anything there was too LITTLE CGI. The green light constructs were born for CGI. They don’t need that fine of definition, which CGI lacks, so they would look awesome in computer generated art. They should have included more. And when it comes to aliens in the Green Lantern mythos, it wouldn’t be cost-effective to create make-up effects for an alien that is only onscreen for ten minutes. Just the amount of time it would take wouldn’t make it worthwhile.

RD – So would say that the scope of the story was a problem? That it was just too big a story?

WG – My main problem, storywise, was with the lack of definition on several plot points. I would have liked the relationships between the characters developed more, especially between Hector Hammond and the other characters.

RD – I agree with you there. The film could have used about ten more minutes or so of character work. Also, I think I would have started the story on Earth and then gone to the scene where Parallax was freed. I think the way it is structured now it is too much of an infodump on non-comic fans. It’s a big, sprawling story and I think it needed to start small to allow the audience to connect.

WG – Another bad thing about the infodump at the beginning is the fact that much of the info is repeated later on in the movie. One of the best ways to lose an audience is to show them something after you told them something. And they have a perfect way to introduce that info – a new person from a new race joining the Corps. Hal could have been the audience’s representative, we would learn as he did.

RD – But at least all that info is out of the way if Warners definitely goes ahead with a sequel.

WG – Yeah, but in a way that killed the film critically and via word of mouth, which puts any sequel in jeopardy.

RD – Well, Warners is still considering it. If they do move forward, what advice would you give them?

WG – Wow. Where do I start? Show, don’t tell. Create an emotional bond between your characters and your audience. Hammond was a good villain, but would he have been better if we saw a reason why he’d give up on the human race? Why did Hal become a test pilot after watching his father die in an accident as a test pilot? That was something that would have strengthened the character. That’s the thing they need to fix for the sequel.

RD – Part of me wants them to pull back and do an Earth-bound story, but that would mean possibly ignoring the cliffhanger involving Sinestro.

WG – One of the things that bothered me about the comic was that most of the stories took place on Earth. That’s like being a beat cop who only patrols the street he lives on. If his beat is the Milky Way, logic dictated that most of his time should be spent off-planet. But that could be addressed in a number of ways. However, I still want to know why Sinestro put on the ring in the first place.

RD – I thought they covered that a bit when he argued with the Guardians for the need to forge a yellow ring? Still, I would have liked to see more of his “fall from grace” as it were.

WG – The argument was that they need to fight to fear with fear (which I didn’t think would work – Parallax “ate” fear to make himself stronger). Parallax ended up being cooked in the sun, so there was no need for Sinestro to put on the ring. Who was he going to fight with it?

RD – Good question. I’ll grant that it did seem like a fan service moment. Surprising, as there wasn’t too much of what I would call fan service in the film. I’m thinking of the scene in the early draft of the screenplay that had the ring bypass Clark Kent and Guy Gardner when Abin Sur sent it out to find a replacement.

WG – Yeah, and I was waiting for that too! But think of it, if Parallax was attacking an Earth that Superman was on, he’d be the one to take care of it. No cameos either, but that kind of made sense. John Broome and Gil Kane, the creators of this version of the character, are dead. Geoff Johns would be self-serving.

RD – I think that the only bit of fan service was Carol’s callsign of “Sapphire,” a nod to the character becoming the villain Star Sapphire later in the comics. Getting back to the script problems, I was surprised that we didn’t see Hal’s family again after that one scene.

WG – They served their purpose. They told the audience that Hal was trying too hard to be his dad (and set up the Hot Wheels track for use as a construct). After that, they weren’t needed. However, that bit of info would have been better if they had a longer scene with Hal and his dad that showed us that.

RD – But I think that showing the family in the third act would have given Hal a greater personal stake in his final conflict with Parallax. Besides, I think it’s bad scripting to introduce something like his family in the first act and not have them be part of a payoff in the third.

WG – Definitely. On a quasi-related minor note, that shot of the school bus full of kids at the climax in the line of Parallax’s attack is a sign of an ugly trend in films like this. Maybe this is just my being a parent talking but it seems whenever they want to sell the villain as a threat, they put kids in the line of fire. It’s cheap, manipulative and bad story telling.

RD – I’ll agree, but that can be traced back to Superman saving the bus load of kids on the Golden Gate Bridge in Superman: The Movie. (Side note – DC Entertainment’s Geoff Johns, who oversaw this film started off as a personal assistant to Superman: The Movie’s director Richard Donner.)

WG – But it’s been done more often in more blatant ways. There was no need for the bus to be there other than to put the kids in peril. Because, unlike Superman, Green Lantern wasn’t able to save everybody.

RD – I actually thought that how they showed Parallax “eat fear”/kill his victims was a bit on the strong side for a PG rated movie.

WG – That’s more on the MPAA than anyone else. You know how arbitrary they can be. Maybe they thought that because most of the victims were aliens it wouldn’t be that bad.

RD – Are you saying that the ratings board is racist towards non-human intelligence life forms?

WG – Hah! Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Now a question for you – Do you think the filmmakers went into this trying to make a great film or just not to screw things up?

RD – I don’t think anyone spending close to $200 million on a movie starts out with any other intention than to make a great movie. However, I think that in everybody’s mind was the specter of the Catwoman movie and more recently the fan reaction to the briefly mooted Green Lantern film that would have starred Jack Black and have been written y Robert Smiegel. Combine that with the studio’s need to launch a franchise to replace the Harry Potter income streams and it very quickly can become a case of “Don’t screw this up.”

But I’m wondering two things – 1) Did they pick too ambitious a hero to start a DC Comics film franchise with and 2) Are they trying to follow the Marvel Studio model too closely and will that prove a detriment? OK, that was three things.

WG – Don’t forget that Jonah Hex, a film with studio involvement that ruined it, was even fresher. This goes to answer #2, since the heavy hand of the studio changing the film to what they think audiences wasn’t didn’t work, following Marvel’s lead was a smart way to go. And answering #1, I belive that Green Lantern was an ideal choice to make a movie – if they made it correctly. A big part of the concept that was missing was the awe and grandeur aspect. This might be where following Marvel’s lead was bad. Marvel’s films lend themselves to be more grounded. DC’s comics are more about being mythic and bigger than life in nature. When you lead character is so blasé about meeting different alien races and travelling to alien planets, it ruins the awe aspect.

RD – true, there was no real feeling of awe. Hal seemed pretty nonchalant with the whole going to a different planet thing. But I was thinking of Marvel’s Kevin Feige and his philosophy of only asking the audience to accept one fantastic concept per film, i.e., a man can build a flying suit of armor. As much as I like the character of Green Lantern and its mythos, I’m wondering if perhaps they should have started with someone not quite so complicated, perhaps the Flash or Green Arrow, both of whom are currently being developed for their own films.

WG – Well, if not being complicated was the idea, Thor would not have been made. Asgardian gods, frost giants, evil half-brothers, hammers that control the weather is not all the much less complicated than space cops, evil forces, corrupted humans and wish granting rings. So I don’t think that Green Lantern being too complicated played a role.

RD – But with Thor, audiences had three movies to acclimate themselves to Marvel’s cinematic world. Green Lantern is a bit of a plunge into the deep end.

WG – Not really. Outside of SHIELD, there was nothing to really set up anything in Thor. It’s a big leap to go from altered humans and technological geniuses to a thunder god. Thor was different enough from what came before that it was still a struggle to overcome.

RD – Well, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.

WG – Yes, you ignorant slut.

RD – Hah! So any final thoughts?

WG – I know that I probably came out sounding like I absolutely HATED Green Lantern. I thought there was a lot of good there too. But the film should have been a slam dunk. And it wasn’t because of some bad choices. That’s frustrating.

RD – Well, all I’m hoping is that if Warners goes ahead with a sequel (and since I have trouble seeing them hit $150 million, let alone $200 million I doubt that they eventually will), I hope that they concentrate more on the story and remember the human element in the grand scheme of things.

WG – Ditto!

Green Lantern is a by-the-numbers, textbook comic book movie, and I don’t mean that as a complement. While it isn’t a bad movie, it lacks a definite wow factor, which, considering the concept, it should have in droves.

The film tells the story of Hal Jordan, who is summoned by a dying alien called Abin Sur. Sur was killed by the unbelievably powerful cosmic entity called Parallax, a being so powerful that it has killed a number of other members of the intergalactic police force Sur belonged to, the Green Lantern Corps, as well as the residents of at least two other planets. Hal is tapped to take over Sur’s replacement and is charged with stopping Parallax. Problem is, he doesn’t think he is the man for the job.

My main problem with the film is that it seems like in order to avoid going too “off the reservation” like Warners did with Catwoman and Jonah Hex, they decided to make a cookie cutter film made out of all the elements that make a great comic book film. It was like they were reading a list from a text book. Hero with daddy issues? Check. Villain with even bigger daddy issues? Check. Funny training sequences? Check. Quick glimpses of interesting looking CGI aliens? Check. Hard to please mentor who will turn evil? Check.

In and of itself, this isn’t bad–if presented with wit and with the mission to generate emotional resonance. Martin Campbell just slaps them up on screen, figuring that the audience will provide the emotional resonance for themselves. However, when what we see on screen is a flat simulation of similar scenes that were done better in other movies, it pales in comparison.

This is not to say that there are not good parts. The acting is solid from top to bottom, which is what you’d expect when you have actors the caliber of Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, and Jon Tenney in essentially cameo roles. The nods to the comic fans are nice, especially in the creativity of some of the constructs Hal makes. And the way they handle Hal’s secret identity amongst his circle of friends should get a chuckle or two. The plot does try to build a parallel between Hal and Hector Hammond, a Parallax infected Earth-based scientist (Peter Sarsgaard, who manages to be understated and chew scenery at the same time–not easy to do but he does it to great effect), which shows at least the attempt at depth.

But since there is nothing really to emotionally involve the viewer, the cracks in the firmament begin to show. The heel turn that Hector Hammond  takes is not explained the way it should be. He starts good, gains powers, turns evil, but there’s no definitive inciting incident to explain the change.

And there are points where your attention will start to wander. Here are some points to consider while you wait for the action to pick back up. One, what happens to Hal’s car when he is shanghaied to Oa? Each time his car is left in an awkward location or a bad neighborhood. But it never seems to be much of a problem. Two, take special notice of Ryan Reynolds’ beard stubble. You’ll see a lot of it, including a lovingly-filmed slow motion shot of every whisker of Reynolds’ five o’clock shadow. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.

While the film is good enough to be considered a triumph in comparisson to other, non-Christopher Nolan helmed DC films, it seems like the film missed out on a great opportunity by playing it safe.

1. Green Lantern (Warner Brothers, 3,816 Theaters, 105 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Once upon a time, DC Comics held a monopoly on the comic book movie. Between the Superman and Batman franchises, DC was being well represented on the silver screen. Marvel was relegated to the B-move and direct-to-video market.

But those franchises became cases of diminishing returns as the filmmakers strayed away from what made the originals a success and move towards Richard Pryor as co-stars and nipples on Bat-suits. Marvel took a more active role in the production of their films, and we get resounding successes such as X-Men, Spider-Man and Iron Man. DC was forced to play catch up.

They took a step in the right direction when rebooting the Bat franchise with Batman Begins. It followed the same pattern as the Marvel films–stay true to the comic book roots while molding it into an exciting film. Things looked positive.

Then Jonah Hex came out, and it showed the same kind of studio think that caused the Superman and Batman franchises to fail. The filmmakers had no idea what made the comic book character so good, and they fiddled with it until the film was just horrible.

This brings us to Green Lantern. I always thought that this would be a comic character that, if done right, could establish DC as a powerhouse in the comic movie genre. The concept is equal parts Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Top Gun. It would be hard to screw up.

I reviewed the script and found it had the potential to be a quality film. Then I saw the jokey first round of ads for the film and felt a knot in my stomach. Jokes were added that weren’t in the script, and when the studio ads humor to a DC movie, it kills it.

The next round of ads seemed to be more on track with what I originally expected, so I started feeling good about it. Then I saw that the film is rated 22% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and I felt discouraged again.

I don’t know what to expect. But I know DC is pinning their hopes on this film to jump start a Marvel-like dominance of the movie theaters (a sequel is already in the works). But if they drop the ball, it could doom any DC film not being overseen by Christopher Nolan from ever getting made. And if they screw this film up, that would be for the best.

2. Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Fox, 3,338 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated PG): Having any attempt at doing dramatic work met with lukewarm response, Jim Carrey is in an interesting stage of his career as a film comedian. He has grown out of being the “Village Idiot” type of roles he played in Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber. He has grown out of the immature man-child roles he played in Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. Now he is consigned to the role of the neglectful father who only realizes the value of family after being reminded of it as his life undergoes an unorthodox upheaval.

That unorthodox upheaval comes in the form of six penguins sent to him by his father. They force him to not pay so much attention to work, which allows his family to enter into his life.

Formulaic family entertainment to be sure, but, depending on what your tolerance for Carrey’s earlier work is, it might come as an improvement.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the shortlist of seven films eligible for the Academy Award for Best Makeup. From this list, member of the Academy’s Makeup branch will choose three final nominees after attending a special meeting where they will view ten minute presentations for each film.

The seven films under consideration are -

• Alice in Wonderland
• Barney’s Version
• The Fighter
• Jonah Hex
• True Grit
• The Way Back
• The Wolfman

You have to admit that there is a certain equality of films under consideration for some technical awards, such as this. The film could be great (The Wrestler) or have a terrible script (Alice In Wonderland, Jonah Hex) or look as if it was sabotaged by horrendous studio interference (The Wolfman) and the hard work that its crew put into it may still have a chance to be honored without being penalized for things outside of their control. Remember, even Eddie Murphy’s Norbert, as supremely awful as it was, has an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup.

The Academy Award nominees will be announced on January 25.

2010 has been a rocky year for the comic book film. There were two blockbuster smash hits. The first, Iron Man 2, which $621 million worldwide box office take more than tripled its estimated $200 million dollar budget. So what if this edition was less favorably received by the critics than its predecessor, that haul guarantees a sequel, which is already been scheduled.

The second, Kick-Ass, is sort of a phantom hit. It made only $48 million in the United States, just over a 50% profit on its $30 million budget. However, it duplicated its U.S. take over seas making it a healthy hit and a sequel all but certain, when schedules align.

After that, it gets a bit dicey. The Losers, and underrated film if there ever was one, made $29 million worldwide against an estimated $25 million budget. That’s barely covering your costs if you don’t add in advertising.

Then there are the flops. Jonah Hex made $10.9 million at the box office, less than a quarter of its relatively modest $47 million budget. And Scott Pilgrim vs. the World made only $31.5 million domestically, half of its$60 million budget. It made another $12.7 million overseas, which only means that it made three fourths of its budget back instead of only half.

With two sizable flops such as the ones listed above, talk begins anew  about the death of the comic book film. This time, the talk might be right on, although the performance of RED this past weekend gives us hope.

The reason why we should worry is because the failure of Jonah Hex and Scott Pilgrim can be laid at the feet of one thing–the movie studios.

The Jonah Hex we got differs quite a bit from the one that was on paper. The script I read was closer to the original comic book stories. There were no superpowers for Hex, no superweapon for him to stop. I believe that a majority of this original script was shot. The climax between Hex and Turnbull from the script makes its way into the film as a dream sequence, so we know it was filmed.

However, there were a number of reshoots done on the film. If I was to hazard a guess, I’d imagine that a studio executive saw a cut of the film made from the script, question where Hex’s superpowers were and why the film wasn’t more comic book-y, and demanded reshoots to bring the film in line with what his idea of a comic book film should be.

The result is an awful movie. Characterization was truncated, exposition was given in big info dumps of dialog, and the more blockbusteresque aspects added were laughable. Would the original version be any better? Maybe not. But it certainly wouldn’t be any worse.

Quality was not an issue with Scott Pilgrim. The film was a visual masterpiece and incredibly inventive. While changing quite a bit from the original text, it kept true to the tone and feel of the original graphic novel.

The problem came in the way it was marketed. It was sold mainly as a comic book action film. It was marketed as a story of a young man who must fight the seven evil exes of his current paramour. That leads to fairly straightforward expectations–we’ll see Scott Pilgrim fight his girlfriend Ramona Flowers’ exes from the onset. I’d imagine many people were fairly surprised when the first 10 to 15 minutes of the film details Scott’s relationship with another woman, Knives Chao. Ramona Flowers isn’t introduced until much later and the fighting doesn’t come in until later still.

By marketing it as a frenetic version of your typical comic book film instead as a layered romance and story of a man growing up, it set up unrealistic expectations on the film. And when these expectations weren’t met, audiences rebelled.

RED is a sign of hope, mainly due to the fact the studios got it right. Instead of marketing the film to the typical comic book movie audience–the 18 to 35 demographic, they skewed 35 and above. The film made $25 million in its opening weekend, not enough to cop the number one spot but far better than its rather mediocre reviews call for. It’s too soon to tell if RED will truly be a hit, but making half its budget back right out of the gate and well before it opens internationally is a very good sign.

Of course, this does not mean that the future of comic book films is guaranteed to be rosy. Yes, there are a lot of comic book films in the pipeline, but there are a lot of potential question marks in the road as well.

January brings is The Green Hornet, not truly a comic book property but close enough. It’s release has been delayed and it has the makings of being the kind of campfest that destroyed the first Batman film franchise. Marvel’s Thor is scheduled for May. While Marvel’s films they do in house seem to be can’t miss opportunities, Thor leads more to the epic fantasy genre than the conventional superhero one. Outside of The Lord Of the Rings trilogy, these kind of films are hit or miss.

June brings us X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern. The former is a prequel to the X-Men franchise, focusing on the early days of Charles Xavier and Magneto. Granted, it is understandable that FOX would want to get a little bit of separation from Brett Ratner’s disappointing X-Men: The Last Stand, but is this taking the franchise too far back for the fans to follow?

And Green Lantern has a solid script that could be turned into a very good comic book film. But this is put out by Warner Brothers, the same studio that ruined Jonah Hex. Since GL is more of a conventional superhero flick anyway, I can’t see Warners needing to meddle at all. But if they do, the results could be disasterous.

After that we have Captain America: The First Avenger in July. On paper, this seems to be a can’t miss proposition. A man dressed as an American flag fight Nazis in Europe during World War II? In a film that stylistically resembles the Indiana Jones franchise? Directed by the man who made one of the best, if severely underrated comic book films of all time in The Rocketeer? I’d buy ticket to that right now if I could. But would anybody else?

And after that? Well, we have a Ghost Rider sequel nobody really asked for or wants, the culmination of Marvel’s cinematic universe build with The Avengers, sequels to The Dark Knight and Iron Man 2, both which should be decent, and revamps of the Spider-Man and Superman film franchises, the former which was unnecessary and the latter which will be rushed–to say the least. Lots of potential pot holes in the future.

The continued success of the comic book film depends on how well studios understand the reality that each comic book film is unique and should be treated as such. If the studios come to that realization, then the genre will remain vibrant. If not, then the naysayers who hope that the comic book film will just go away will get their wish.

1. RED (Summit Entertainment, 3,255 Theaters, 11 Minutes, Rated PG-13): 2010 has not been kind to comic book films. You had one hit (Iron Man), one moderate success (Kick-Ass), one that barely broke even (The Losers) and two rather big flops (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World & Jonah Hex). It is not hard to see why people are looking to the performance of this movie as to whether or not comic book films have a bright future.

Of course, this film might be helped by the fact that it doesn’t resemble a comic book at all. Oh, it does come from a comic book–one written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Cully Hamner, but it’s plot could come directly from Hollywood.

A group of retired CIA agents are targeted for death. They band together to find out who is behind the plot, blowing up a great deal of stuff in the process.

It has an all-star cast–Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren have Oscars, John Malkovich has been nominated twice, and you can make a strong case that Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker should have been nominated in the past. And the film has that “old people kicking ass” quality to it that is somewhat appealing. Who knows? This could be where the comic book movie bounces back.

2. Jackass 3D (Paramount, 3,081 Theaters, Rated R): However, no matter how well Red does at the box office, it probably still wont beat this one. Unfortunately.

I have never been a fan of Jackass. I quickly turned the channel when it was on TV, never saw either of the prior two movies, and pretty much avoided all the spin-offs and films starring the cast.

It’s not that I dislike watching people getting hit in the crotch. Hey, I still watch America’s Funniest Home Videos. But I thought these guys were just too smarmy and creepy for me to enjoy what they are doing. I don’t like people who laugh at their own jokes, especially when those jokes involve people sitting in a porta-potty being launched into the air via a slingshot.

But for those of you who like this sort of stuff, here it is in 3-D, another craze I can’t stand. Now I can ignore both of them at the same time.

As a new feature of these New Releases posts, from now until the end of the year, we will be running Oscar Watch 2010. Every week, we’ll run down the contenders for the Oscars so you could be ahead of the game before awards season rolls around.

I think it’s safe to say that Jackass 3-D will not be a Oscar contender in any category outside of the technical ones. So, if seeing potential Oscar nominees is your big thing, you can feel fairly secure if you miss this one.

Usually, action films don’t score a lot of acting nods at the Oscars. This year could be different. There are a lot of old Oscar favorites in the cast, and Malkovich and Mirren have showy roles that could garner a nod if the Academy is feeling generous. It is a longshot, but it is a possibility.

About 15 minutes into Jonah Hex, I started thinking about Josh Brolin’s teeth. I was thinking–were they accurate? There had to be dental hygiene back in the old west–tooth powders and whatnot, but Jonah’s mouth is constantly scarred open. Even if Hex was a regular brusher, he’d have to be open to all kinds of bacterial. His teeth shouldn’t look as good as they did in the film.

The fact I was think of this instead of being enraptured in the scene that was going on up on the screen illustrates an interesting dichotomy about the film. It is amazingly short, yet almost completely boring. And the reason why it is so boring, strangely enough, is because it’s so short.

There is a good film in the material provided, but the film needed to be developed far more, especially when it came to the characters. But this was a make it cheap, get out fast and take as much money as you can kind of thing. And a look at the weekend’s grosses shows there will probably not be a lot of money to get.

Hex is seeking revenge against Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) for slaughtering his family, but except for one brief exception we get to see no interaction between the Hex clan. Turnbull slaughters Hex’s family because Hex was responsible for the death of his son, yet we don’t see any interaction between father and son or the events that led to the son’s death. Hex has a relationship with the hooker Lilah (Megan Fox), but we never see how that pairing developed or what the two see in each other.

The addition of the “talking to the dead” superpowers to Hex isn’t as odious as I feared, outside of the fact they are another way to speed up the film. Why have Hex act as a bounty hunter and track down Turnbull from town to town when he can just touch a dead guy and have him tell Hex the information he needs. But the powers are used to good effect and create one of the best scenes in the film, one between Hex and Turnbull’s son Jeb (played in an excellent cameo by an uncredited Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the “Dean” of DC Comics adaptations after this film, The Losers, and Watchmen.). There is more emotional depth and character development in their short scene than there was in the whole movie. It was almost painful to watch because you can see  how good the film could have been.

And yes, the acting is not all that good. Malkovich pretty much sleep walks through the role and Fox shows the depth of a Barbie doll in her performance. And actors such as Michael Shannon, Aidan Quinn and Wes Bentley are wasted (which brings up an interesting future rule of thumb: if you see Bentley in any comic book adaptation, stay far away. His track record between this and Ghost Rider isn’t all that good). But we really don’t care because we really are not attached to the characters.

Which really dooms the film. It seems that it wants to be an over-the-top, don’t-think-that -much-about-it summer blockbuster but its whole plot revolves around betrayal and loss–two things that work better with subtlety and thought put into it. Jonah Hex might not be the worst film I’ve seen, but it is by far the most disappointing.

1. Toy Story 3 (Disney/Pixar, 4,028 Theaters, 103 Minutes, Rated G): The franchise that started the Pixar empire is back, and, really, how can you not be excited.

Of course, it has been 11 years between installments, so the kids who saw Toy Story 2 are now surly teenagers. But through the magic of home video, new generations of viewers can catch the previous installments and its fan base can constantly replenish itself.

The plot now revolves around the toys being given to a local day care center when their owner, Andy, goes to college. Life at the day care center is not all its cracked up to be, so Woody and Buzz lead the rest of the toys in a jailbreak.

I don’t know if this will be the last installment (although I can’t see how far they can keep going in the story progression), but it will be one you have to go see.

2. Jonah Hex (Warner Brothers, 2,825 Theaters, 80 Minutes, Rated PG-13): This film brings back a old-school brand of filmmaking. It’s where Hollywood takes a property from another medium, thinks it could present it better than how it appeared originally, makes unnecessary changes to try to “improve” it, takes away pretty much all that was good about the original concept and ends up destroying the idea in the minds of millions.

The Jonah Hex of the comic books was a badass. A horrible scarred badass, but a badass nonetheless. A lot of movies have been made about badasses. Heck, Clint Eastwood practically made a career out of them, many of which were westerns. So, you really don’t need bells and whistles to sell the character.

But this film gives us bells and whistles out the wazoo. Hex now has “talking to the dead” powers. His horse has two Gatling Guns on either side of it. His origin, one of the more interesting ones in comics, has been changed to one of petty revenge and a good man punished for doing the right thing. And there is  an anachronistic super weapon to provide the threat.

Now, I straddle the line between comic book fan and film buff enough to know that you do have to make some changes to bring a comic book to the screen. But you have to know what makes the property appealing in the first place. The Spider-Man films know this. Most of the X-Men films knew this. Christopher Nolan’s Batman films know this. The producers of this film doesn’t.

This film will be annihilated by Toy Story 3, so the quality of the film really doesn’t matter. But this explains what DC has such problems adapting its characters to the screen. I hope the new regime at DC Entertainment makes it their priority to correct this kind of thing.