I’m always kind of surprised (but depressed) at the proclivity of people to spend others’ money. I see this all the time on, for instance, Cubs messages boards. A perennial assumption is that the owners of the Cubs have an infinite amount of money to spend because the team is a “cash cow,” or some similar formulation. People will even say things, and quite often, along the lines of “I guarantee they have the money,” an assertion I find bewilderingly meaningless on several levels.
Marvel Films has taken a similar amount of beating from ‘fans’ because they’ve been playing hardball to an extent with salaries on their upcoming movies. To these fans, Marvel should lay out whatever the talent wants, because, we are again assured, “they have the money.” (Also because companies are invariable ‘greedy,’ while ‘artists’ automatically deserve whatever number of millions they desire without accruing even the slightest moral taint.)
Of course, if Marvel makes a movie that bombs and turns out to have an overly huge budget—and somehow Warners spent about $300 million making Superman Returns, to put things in perspective—then the same people would mock them on that basis.
Marvel definitely got things off to a good start with Iron Man, and 2010’s Iron Man II seems an almost sure hit. However, The Incredible Hulk did middling business at best, and likely only went (slightly) into the black after DVD sales were taken into account. With Marvel now spending their own money to make these movies, and with highly questionable properties like Thor, Captain America and even The Avengers coming to theaters in addition to Iron Man II, well. The outcomes range from the very good (everything makes money) to the very bad (everything but Iron Man II bombs, and Marvel’s foray into the film business ends up a company-busting fiasco).
In order to limit the downside, Marvel rightly is trying to hold costs to roughly $150 million a picture, which is about what Iron Man cost. In the long run, this benefits everyone, even the fans, because (comparatively) lower budgets mean a greater chance of success, which translates to, eventually, more movies. And after all, as Iron Man demonstrates, we’re not talking about Marvel cheaping out. We’re talking about them keeping their eyes on the prize and putting the money where they think it will do the most good, which is up on the screen.
Even so, a string of such stories had fans beating on Marvel pretty hard for a while. First, Iron Man co-star Terrence Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle for Iron Man 2. Fans, needless to say, went nuts on their insular message boards, even though why the hell anyone would care that much was left unanswered. I mean, really, was Terrence Howard that big of a part of Iron Man‘s success?
Few spoke up to suggest that maybe Marvel’s actions were soundly motivated, and maybe critics should wait until the facts were out until they beat on the company that gave them such a great movie in the first place. (I was one of these cautioners, and took some amount of abuse in the process.)
Eventually the facts did emerge, and it turned out that what Marvel did made total sense. Howard’s salary on Iron Man was weirdly and inappropriately huge, we learned, and he didn’t want to take a pay cut to make his salary more in line with his role’s importance. Moreover, it was strongly rumored that the film’s director found Howard’s work unsatisfactory. In the aftermath of these revelations, though, formerly bitching fans failed to acknowledge their unfairness and instead just jumped on the next story.
Soon we heard that Mickey Rourke was up for a role in Iron Man II, followed by the news that Marvel was offering him such a ‘small’ amount of money that he might pass up the part. This brought further storms of outrage, because, we were again assured, “Marvel has the money.” Fans suddenly decided that Rourke’s participation was essential, and that Marvel should just throw at Rourke whatever amount of money he wanted so as to ensure he signed up. Budgets, smudgets.
Worse, and admittedly this sounded actually bad for a while, Samuel L. Jackson was making noise about not returning as Nick Fury. The whole interesting, even potentially fascinating, part of Marvel’s blueprint for these films is that they were, in fact, one connected whole. Each superhero would get his own solo movie (or two), and then The Avengers movie would bring them all together. Nothing like this has ever been tried before, and the one thing tying all the movies together was Jackson’s Nick Fury, the spymaster who will eventually bring the “Avengers Initiative” into being. Losing him would have truly sucked.
So Jackson postured for more money (as is his right), and the fans (surprise) completely took his side and further excoriated Marvel for their miserliness. Which is fine, but I must admit it would be nice if such ‘fans’ calmed down and admitted they were kind of acting like dicks after further developments ensued. For instance, Jackson has now signed to play Fury in up to nine (!) more movies, starting presumably with Iron Man 2, and perhaps including a film revolving entirely around SHEILD, the spy organization he oversees.
And just now, it turns out, not only has Mickey Rourke indeed signed on to play (probably) the ex-Soviet villain Crimson Dynamo for Iron Man II, but so has Scarlett Johannson to play the Black Widow. Now fans will bitch about that, albeit for better reasons—Johannson really doesn’t seem the right actress to play the Widow. (Especially since the character could factor into several of the later movies, especially The Avengers.) This seems, on the face of it, the sort of dumbass, ‘hire the hottest star regardless of whether they fit the part’ thinking that Marvel has successfully avoided up to now. Who knows, though, maybe she’ll surprise me.
Even so, I ‘guarantee’ that if it came out that if the story had come out that she was offered the role and turned it down because Marvel wouldn’t meet her price, many of the same folks now complaining about how inappropriate she is would have gladly taken that opportunity to castigate Marvel. Here’s hoping Marvel can screen out the noise factor and just go about their business, at least to the extent that they continue to focus *gasp* on making the films as good as possible.
