To this day (and this was something I first noted back when Tim Burton’s Batman came out), comic book geeks continue to vainly thirst for mainstream acceptance, and hope that the success of the next popular superhero blockbuster will stake them this. This won’t happen. I love superhero comics, but they are an acquired taste, and an oft silly one at that. (And I speak as a highly broke individual who yet just blew $20 to buy a Hulk vs. the Thing diorama, which I consider quite the coolest thing ever.)
More general b-movie fans, although not quite as needy, should probably begin to face similar evidence that they are also a quite small minority. The commercial bust that is Grindhouse is just the latest in a line of similar disappointments from genre films purposely designed to appeal to fannish sensibilities: Slither, Snakes on a Plane, Eight Legged Freaks, etc. Despite the fact that none of these films were particularly expensive, all of them lost money or just barely broke even when all was said and done. Although Grindhouse will probably make enough on DVD to turn at least a slight profit, one would think.
Tremors did OK back in the ’80s, but it seems increasingly obvious that making niche films that seek to have fun with horror formulas just don’t draw big audiences. It’s probably a generational thing, as people who acquired a taste for cheese by growing up on ’50s sci-fi movies are supplanted by younger filmgoers with different tastes and expectations.
We can rail all we want that dreck like the When A Stranger Calls and House of Wax remakes turn more coin than fare like Slither, but there you go. Most people watch a lot of horror and sci-fi at a certain stage of their lives, and then largely abandon it. (Increasingly, in fact, people abandon movie going entirely as they get older.) Since they don’t stick with it, they are less likely to get to the point where playing with the conventions brings the sort of pleasure we derive from it.
In the end, most people’s conceptions of fun junk are different than ours. Theirs largely entails higher production values and a greater emphasis on ‘realistic’ special effects, and they don’t possess the deep affection for screwball logic that older genre fare had back before everything was made by the big studios. Bad rubber monster suits are out, and bad CGI is in. I lamented that the recent Ghost Rider features motorcycle stunts that were CGI chicanery, because I didn’t see the point. However, when Grindhouse offers real stuntdrivers performing spectacular stunts with real cars, the interest is limited.
There have been and will be the occasional film that breaks this trend. However, with the lack of a ‘circuit,’ drive-in theaters in the past or a dedicated line of direct-to-DVD quality b-movie fare today, the fact is that we are likely to continue being frustrated. And really, there’s little you can really do about it.
Speaking of the Hulk (if not, sadly, of him fighting the Thing), Ed Norton is to the new Bruce Banner in next summer’s The Incredible Hulk. Ang Lee’s film, which oddly tried too much to lend depth to the comic book genre, is to be supplanted by a more action-oriented treatment. I’m not sure I trust director Louis Leterrier not to overcompensate for Lee’s approach, given that he’s best known for the perhaps overly kinetic Transporter movies. The Hulk doesn’t really call for that sort of quick cutting, and hopefully they know that. And while I’m sure Norton is happy with the larger-than-normal paycheck, and the presumptive career boost, I also don’t think he would have signed for the film had the script been simplistic crap.
The Hulk’s antagonist, meanwhile, is happily the Abomination, who is sort of an evil Hulk analogue. I hope they stick with a more or less traditional look for the Abomination, and don’t try to fancy him up too much. The coolest thing remains the slim but tantalizing possibility of a live-action Avengers movie. You start with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Norton as Bruce Banner, and can bring in newcomers for Captain America, Thor, Ant Man / Giant Man and the Wasp. If both Iron Man and the Hulk do well, maybe this will actually happen. (The actors might like it just because it’s less work.)
More cool news on those Warner Camp DVD sets due out in July. DVD Drive-In has updated their spread on the sets and announced the following commentaries (on half of the total 12 movies), which along with widescreen presentations makes these must buys:
COLOSSUS OF RHODES—Director Sergio Leone scholar/author Christopher Frayling.
QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE— The queen herself, Laurie Mitchell, and Tom Weaver.
[What, no Zsa Zsa?! Dammit.]
ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN–Co-star Yvette Vickers and Tom Weaver.
LAND OF THE PHARAOHS–Peter Bogdanovich, with Howard Hawks interview clips.
THE GIANT BEHEMOTH–special effects artists Dennis Muren and Phil Tippet.
THE PRODIGAL–historian Dr. Drew Casper.
Anthony Hopkins says he is mulling playing Benicio Del Toro’s father in the latter actor’s upcoming The Wolf Man revamp. Very cool, obviously. The well cast Del Toro will assay the classic role of Larry Talbot, and Hopkins would, if this pans out, step into the shoes of the great Claude Raines.
For what it’s worth, two guys over at AICN have seen and reviewed Spider-Man 3, and both reportedly think it’s the best of the bunch. I don’t know about that, but certainly it indicates the film will be pretty good in any case.
