Back in May, I couldn’t wait to write this column. I started this yearly recap of comic book films mainly as a counterpoint to the number of articles in the mainstream media bemoaning the fact that comic book films exist at all and the journalists who are trying to speed up them going out of favor.

So, when The Avengers broke big, setting all sorts of box office records and becoming not only the highest grossing film of the year, but also the third highest grossing film of all time, I thought 2012 was going to turn out to be one of the best years for comic book films in their entire history.

And it was. But it was also one of the worst years as well.

In the early morning hours of Friday, July 20, James Eagan Holmes entered the crowded Theater 9 of the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, Colorado. The theater was full of fans eager to be the first to see The Dark Knight Rises, the last film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. They would become victims of one of the most violent crimes in recorded history. Holmes, dressed in armored clothing and carry numerous firearms with him, opened fire in that crowded theater. By the time shooting had stopped, 58 people would be injured, and 12 people would be killed.

It is impossible to talk about the year in film in any context without talking about the Aurora shootings. The joy of seeing a film in a crowded theaters full of your fellow fans is forever tainted. This type of exuberant film fan became prey that night.

Now, four months on, it is still easy to look back on that night and see only the darkest part of human nature. An evil man methodically came up with a way to kill as many people as he could. It doesn’t get more sinister than that.

But I found that when great darkness shows its face to the world, there is always a bright and shining light that rises up to greet it. It’s natural to focus on Holmes and his despicable acts. But I also look towards the example of Matt McQuinn, who shielded the bodies of his girlfriend and brother with his own, sacrificing his life to save theirs. I look to Jarell Brooks, a young man who was wounded getting a woman and her two small children, people he didn’t know, to safety. I look to Emma Goos, who stayed in the theater to tend to the wounds of an injured victim while the shooting was going on. I look to All C’s Comics Collectibles, the Aurora comic shop that started the Aurora Rises charity to help benefit the victim’s and their families and I look to the numerous comic artists and writers that helped make that charity an ongoing endeavor  I also look to Christian Bale, who, on his own with no fanfare and publicists in tow, visited the Aurora area after to shootings to give his fans whatever comfort he could.

Yes, the Aurora shooting gave us a glimpse of the worst that humanity had to offer, but it also gave us a glimpse of the best that humanity has to offer as well. And while we filmgoers will never be free of the paranoia that night in July caused (especially when just two weeks ago a plot to do a similar shooting in Missouri during a showing of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 was, thankfully, stopped before it could be put into fruition), we should never let that fear stop us from doing the things we enjoy. We might never be able to stop bad things from happening, but we can always be there to help each other out when they do.

Now that I’ve said what I needed to say on that, let’s go back to the frivolous world of comic book films.

List taken from BoxOfficeMojo.com (http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012&p=.htm)

As of last night, comic book adaptations hold three of the top five spots on the yearly highest grossing films list. I’m sure Skyfall and the aforementioned Breaking Dawn, Part 2 might have some say if The Amazing Spider-Man stays in the Top 5, but even if it does fall out, we will have three comic book adaptations in the Top 10. And that has never happened. The closest we came to that was in 2008 when The Dark Knight and Iron Man were one and two and the original superhero comedy Hancock was number four. Add to that the fact that a sequel to another comic book adaptation, Men in Black 3, was #11 this year and you have a very good year for the comic book film.

Even Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, a film with a well-deserved 18% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes and which debuted an underwhelming third in its opening weekend was able to make over $132 million worldwide against a $57 million dollar budget. Yes, I am a fan of comic book movies and even I am stunned by that fact. That’s why Nicolas Cage keeps on getting to make movies.

The only true flop of this year’s six comic book adaptations was Dredd, whose $30,931,946 worldwide take was considerably less than its $50 million budget. I can only assume that the Sylvester Stallone version killed just about any interest anybody might have had in the character, which was a shame. I found the film a faithful adaptation of the original source material which held up well as a film on its own.

As lucrative as this year was for the comic book film, it is a year in flux. The Avengers marked the end of the first phase of Marvel’s film slate, and Phase 2 begins next year with Iron Man 3 in May and Thor: The Dark World in November. It will be interesting if they can carry any Avengers momentum over into those releases, or will fans force the studio to prove itself all over again.

And The Dark Knight Rises closes the Nolan era on DC/Warners’ Batman property. They start anew with their Superman franchise with The Man of Steel in June. There’s a lot riding on this new take on the character, as Warners is looking to not only get a franchise to replace Nolan’s Batman films on their docket, but also potentially use the film as a springboard into their planned Justice League film and to bring other DC comic heroes to the big screen.

In addition to those three films, there are at least nine other comic book adaptations scheduled for next year, including Hugh Jackman returning as Logan in The Wolverine, sequels to Red, Kick-Ass,300 and Sin City, and properties from publishers such as Dark Horse, Boom! and other smaller companies. 2012 proved that people still are willing to go to see comic book films. However, odds are that not all of the films released next year will be great successes, so we can expect the mainstream doubters to start the chorus of the comic book films doom next year. But for now, let’s bask in the highs the comic book film rose to, and take a moment to contemplate the lowest lows they experienced this year.

Thanks to the various trailers for the upcoming Men In Black 3, most people should be aware that the threequel’s storyline will involve time travel. And what better way to help set the mood once Agent J (Will Smith) lands back in the early 1960s than with some retro-looking aliens. And that is exactly what creature designer and make up artist extraordinaire Rick Baker did as we can see from the photo below. While not all the aliens reflect that aesthetic, the big brained guys in the front certainly do. And is that hairy gentleman over to the right a subtle nod to the classic Robot Monster? I’d like to think so.

Men In Black 3 opens on May 25.

Sony needs Men In Black 3 to be a big hit. And it looks like they’re thinking that will happen is by reminding people what was good about the first two films. Much like the first trailer for the film, the second trailer for Men In Black 3 emphasizes weird aliens, wacky hi-jinks and Will Smith cracking wise in between short glimpses of the film’s time travel plot. But is it enough to energize people’s interest in a third Men In Black film over a decade after the second one? In casual conversations I’ve had with friends, I haven’t been able to find one person who feels that this is the big film they’re looking forward to this summer. Anecdotal to be sure, but it still looks like Sony has a lot of work to do in order to get butts into seats over the next couple of months.

After seeming years of production, we finally have a look at the first trailer for Men In Black 3.

On the surface it certainly looks as if Sony is trying to promote the film as more of the same fun and is hoping that audiences don’t remember that it will have been a decade since the last film when this one hits theaters next May. I’m kind of surprised that they tipped off the film’s time travel plot in the package, but then again that just may be a move to let audiences know that while the fun will still be the same, the story won’t be. It also looks as if the interior of the MIB headquarters has gotten a makeover by the same Apple Store refugees who redesigned the Enterprise for J J Abrams’ Star Trek revamp.

We’re still not convinced that the film will be able to be as big as a financial hit that Sony needs it to be, but it should be interesting to see how the studio pushes the picture over the next six months. Don’t be surprised if they buy some Super Bowl ad time.

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin star alingside Alice Eve, Emma Thompson, Rip Torn, Johnny Knoxville, and Jemaine Clement. Men In Black 3 premiers May 25, 2012.

At this point, the Men In Black III seems to have been in production longer than a Stanley Kubrick film. We’ve been through the problems before and we continue to hope that the wait will be worth it.

While we wait though, Movieweb has managed to score a half-dozen on-location set photos of stars Will Smith and Josh Brolin as the two MIB agents trying to save Earth in 1969 from… something. We also get a glimpse of a couple of mysterious, high-tech shinny things. We’ve picked out two photos from the set below, but head over to see all six.

So what are those shiny pod things? Who knows. We’ll, find out next summer when the film is released.

Bill Hader has joined the cast of the still in production Men In Black 3. The comic actor will be playing artist Andy Warhol. Thanks to an element of time travel in the flick, Will Smith’s Agent J will go back to the 1960s where he will encounter several of the decade’s noted personalities including the famous pop artist.

While I’m still on the fence about how this film will turn out thanks to the numerous delays and script rewrites that have plagued the production, I think Hader will at least turn in a performance worth watching, evenif he’s only on screen for a few minutes.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

After a nearly four month hiatus, Men In Black III finally restarted production today. According to a tweet from On Location Vacation, the threequel will be filming today at Brooklyn’s Marcy Armory.

The Barry Levinson-helmed production had been on hiatus since a planned break for the holidays. The break was extended into mid-February and then again to this week, while the production scrambled to rewrite the next portion of the movie set to be filmed. Rumors, denied by the studio, have said that star Will Smith had been pushing for the changes.  Another rumor alleged that David Koep, the writer brought in to do some last minute script doctoring, has  requested that one of the producers has no contact with him. The continued delays have forced Alec Baldwin to drop out of the project.

The ongoing production delays for Men In Black III have caused another complication. Alec Baldwin has had to drop out of the film.

Baldwin told New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, “”I’m not doing that. I’m out of it; the schedule didn’t work out.”

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise as the filming on the Barry Levinson-directed comedy should have already commenced as per the original schedule announced when the film took a planned hiatus at the end of last year. The hiatus was planned to allow for script revisions to the section of the film set in the 1960s, which Will Smith’s character will visit thanks to some time-traveling. Baldwin was set to play the head of the Men In Black agency in the past.

Currently David Koep is working on revisions for the section of film yet to be shot. Production is now set to begin in New York at the end of the month. And meanwhile, Sony continues to throw money at the project in such a way that I continue believe will preclude them from ever showing an appreciable profit.

Earlier this week, we told you about a new delay in the production of Sony’s 2012 summer tent pole film Men In Black III. The film reunites stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones for another installment in the science-fiction/action/comedy franchise that has already earned the studio a little over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. As an immutable part of the studios plans for 2012 – They’ve already stated that the film’s May 2012 release date will not change in the face of the production delays – Sony is staking a good part of its second quarter earnings on a similar return for this new installment. But is it a gamble that can really pay off?

It is no secret that all studios’ fiscal plans incorporate summer blockbuster box office intake and that any studio’s fortunes may entirely depend on how well their big summer films fare. Films are routinely given a greenlight based on things like their cast and whether it is a property that potential audiences are familiar with rather than whether the project has a good, strong script. It’s a decision that is made more on business factors than artistic ones, a switch from the Golden Age of Hollywood when studio heads came up through the ranks of show business rather than from an Ivy League business school, and as such had a better feel for what original material might appeal to audiences instead of relying on focus groups and surveys.

The unfortunate and ironic result of this, though, is that oft time projects are rushed into production to meet a certain release date before they are really ready to be in front of the cameras. This appears to be the situation that director Barry Sonnenfeld finds himself in now, stuck with a problem script and possibly losing money with each further delay. And if the film is hemorrhaging cash, it will be that much harder for it to turn a profit. Sony put the cart before the horse in this instance, nothing new, but it could be a decision that comes back to haunt them.

The studio is obviously hoping that Smith’s star power will help get butts into seats, but the fact of the matter is he may not be able to do it as well as he once did. Smith has taken time off from acting to oversee his two children’s – Jayden and Willow – own burgeoning careers. The actor hasn’t been in a film since 2008′s Seven Pounds and won’t be appearing on screen again until Men In Black III premiers. Such a gap could severely diminish a star’s box office draw. Will audiences care that Smith has a new film after nearly half a decade of absence. And even bigger question might be will audiences want to return to a franchise that hasn’t had a new installment in ten years?

And then there are the diminishing returns of Smith’s more recent films. Despite poor review, Seven Pounds managed to gross $166 million worldwide against its $55 million dollar budget. But factor in the cost of prints and advertising and the film barely breaks even. Smith’s two previous films, Hancock (also 2008) and I Am Legend (2007), did reasonably good box office, though their $150 million price tags significantly shaved their profit margins, hi fact, Smith’s last bona fide runaway hit was The Pursuit Of Happyness, which earned $306 million against a budget of $55 million.

I think it is a fair bet that Men In Black III‘s budget is closer to what was spent on I Am Legend and Hancock rather than Pursuit Of Happyness, so the risk here of not turning a profit is considerably higher.

Of course, this isn’t the only gamble that Sony will be taking in the summer of 2012. The studio also has their reboot of the Spider-Man franchise hitting screens in July. They were able to keep the new film’s budget much lower than the last installment by forcing out director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, all of whom had big number paychecks, and replacing them with the much cheaper Marc Webb as director and Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man. But will the change in cast coupled with the plan to take the franchise characters back to high school to once again tell Spider-Man’s origin story keep the casual audience member from plopping down their hard earned cash to see a story that they think they’ve already seen?

Still, it is a long time between now and the summer of 2012 and a lot can happen. Hell, Men In Black III may turn out to be a pretty good film, although I’d be happy if it was just an improvement on the second film. People may decide that they’ve missed Smith and charge back to the theaters to see him in this film.

But if I were a Sony exec, I would be having at least a few sleepless nights between now and then.

Alice Eve has joined the cast of Men In Black III. She’ll be playing the younger version of Emma Thompson’s character, the head of the secret government agency that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones work for.

Thanks to a time travel twist in the plot, Smith’s Agent J goes back to 1969 to save the younger version of his partner Agent K (Jones), to be played by James Brolin. Eve’s character will be shown as being hired as a secretary who proves that she has more than just good looks going for her.

The 1969 section of the film was supposed to start production this week, though as we reported yesterday, it has been delayed a month due to script issues. Hopefully, Eve will be able to get to work soon.

Via Deadline.