Minting a successful superhero franchise out of a preexisting comic book is easy (despite what Green Lantern might suggest). It’s far more notable to create an entirely new superhero who can contend on a Marvel scale—which is why no one’s done it. Rather, film history is littered with one-off adventures from new…
A blockbuster with more studio notes than script (underlined: “Be more Marvel”), Justice League attempts to inject some levity and rock ’n’ roll into Zack Snyder’s dinosaurian version of the DC Comics-verse; in many cases, it ends up with the worst of multiple worlds. Gone are the artistic pretensions and doofy…
From Iron Man on, the gajillion-dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe has toyed with portraying its characters as A-list and B-list celebrities or even actors cast in roles—a Hollywoodian fantasy where superheroes go to lunch, get asked for autographs, mingle at after-parties. (Avengers Tower is supposed to be in Midtown…
Many a night at the local watering hole has been spent debating which actor best embodies our favorite superheroes. Luckily, Cracked’s Daniel Dockery is here with a definitive answer, at least when it comes to Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Joker, the Incredible Hulk, and the Punisher. While most superhero fans…
Zack Snyder, a 5-foot, 7-inch steward of comic book franchises, is known for his attention to detail. This is clear to anyone who has observed his keen interest in actors’ heights, revealed in a Bloomberg profile before Batman V Superman’s release, where he noted, “I think Ben [Affleck] is a pretty good Batman… I…
Look, 20th Century Fox isn’t new to this superhero cinematic universe thing, okay? It’s well aware you’ve been talking behind its back, after reports from press screenings for Logan came back with the news that there was no post-credits stinger scene attached to the film. “What, is the company some dumb behemoth,…
The trailer for the incredible-looking Russian superhero movie Guardians is here, complete with jokes about Borsht and an armored bear who carries machine guns. The plot follows a team of superheroes who were assembled during the Cold War but had to go into hiding until they were called upon by the government to…
This summer’s superhero movies have mostly consisted of superheroes fighting each other, superheroes fighting each other, and supervillains being assholes. And with lighter superhero shows like The Flash and Supergirl on summer hiatus, there’s a distinct lack of optimistic live action superhero material on the market…
Before there were instruction manuals, self-help books, and televangelists, there was mythology. Expansive stories of fantastical feats passed down through generations, these parables were meant both to entertain and to expound wisdom. Whether one’s holy scripture is the Bible, Irish folk music, or the primetime…
Although they have been superseded in recent years by the ubiquity of Marvel Studios’ homegrown product, the X-Men remain Marvel’s first and in some ways most important film franchise. Although the filmic destiny of the X-Men is notoriously still controlled by Fox, it is inarguable that the success of every subsequent…
Among the most obscure DC Comics adaptations in movie history is Steel, a Shaquille O’Neal vehicle that came and went very quietly in the summer of 1997, grossing only about a tenth of its relatively modest budget. The How Did This Get Made? podcast with Paul Scheer tackled the film recently, and now SlashFilm‘s Blake…
With so many new series popping up on streaming services and DVD, it gets harder and harder to keep up with new shows, much less the all-time classics. With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. If you watch these 10, you’ll have a better idea of what that…
If you are, say, 33 years old, you’ve seen the Joker go from Jack Nicholson to Heath Ledger to, now, Jared Leto. You’ve seen Spiderman recast from Tobey Maguire to Andrew Garfield to Tom Holland. You’ve seen, like, 38 Batmen. And with the success of Ant-Man and the anticipation of Batman Vs. Superman, the seemingly…
Superheroes have good reason for their similarity: They started off as a pretty narrow genre within comic books. For the most part, Superman took the idea of costumed heroes, added the secret sauce of invincibility, and other artists and writers spent decades trying to build their own knock-offs with shades of…
