A lot of earlier geek fandom movies were released ahead of its time. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came out in 2010 and didn’t find its audience, if it had released 5 years later it would’ve been a smash hit.
I’d put Spawn in this category as well. While not without its issues I think it captures the spirit of the comic fairly well and is still worth a watch even 20-some years later. I still have no idea how Michael Jai White didn’t become a bigger action star…
Because they cut this scene from Kill Bill. Par II
[also, there’s a ridiculous number of Michaels involved in QT’s movies; Michael Parks, Michael Madsen…
I think it released at the perfect time as this was the era of 90s action heroes. The problem was they leaned so heavily on bad CGI that it aged super fast.
Other examples could be Mystery Men and Dredd. Great movies, didn’t land, feel topical now.
Dredd’s problem was it was marketed as “Dredd 3D” in 2012. Three years after Avatar when every movie had a 3d version and only trash movies like Piranha 3DD were still advertising it in their titles.
But it would be derivative if released nowdays. A part of its appeal was that it was something different in a sea of the same.
There’s an incredible irony here too. Watchmen the comic was released after years of superhero comics had played out the tropes to exhaustion. Watchmen was a critique of that comics industry. So to say that it belongs in a post-Endgame world is to acknowledge that the movie adaptation is now working as pre-satire of what superhero movies would become.
But this is why things like The Boys and Invincible are doing so well right. They parody the super hero movie tropes, as well as modern day life and media. The Watchmen movie as it exists was just fine for what it was, but instead of dark parody, like its source material, it went full-on blockbuster superhero. If it was released today and done well, I think it would be a hit
The point you made about the boys and invincible is the point the article is making. If it had realesed around now itd be crazy successful as a tear down of the super hero capeshit, assuming they did it the same justice now as they did then.
It just goes to show how far ahead of the cultural curve comic book authors/artists can be.
I’m waiting for Alan Moore’s Promethea to gain traction, but that’ll mean the majority of people are ready go to movies that speculate on how to go about becoming enlightened…so I’m not holding my breath.
I liked Promethea, astounding to encounter another fan in the wild! (I liked it enough to try to read Jerusalem, which convinced me that maybe I’m not generally an Alan Moore fan, haha.)
It could probably work well as a limited series, like on Netflix, but I think they’d water down the messaging too much to really do it justice. But it could also be an opportunity to correct flaws as well. I didn’t always love how the (almost?) all male creative team wrote women, as one prime example I remember.
True, Zack Snyder was failing to understand comics long before Disney was.
Mystery Men has entered the chat…
Don’t forget about Mystery Team.
the performances in that film are fantastic… actors don’t get enough credit for the work they do in silly films like this one, because Kinnear is great, Stiller is great, Geoffrey Rush is hilarious, Garofalo is awesome, Macy is obviously great, they’re all awesome…
Fun trivia that Smash Mouth’s All Star was originally on the soundtrack for this movie and the music video features clips from Mystery Men, two years before Shrek.
I keep telling people to watch the HBO show from 2019. It has some obvious flaws but Regina King is always fire and IMO episode 6 is still some of the best TV I’ve seen.
It also came out the year before the BLM protests of 2020 and damn was the subject matter relevant. Almost prescient.
My wife and I had never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the time. We were debating whether it was in poor taste to write such a disturbing/racist/violent event in fiction. Then we actually looked it up and realized how we had been failed by our grade school educations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
It was honestly mind blowing to learn that most white Americans legit didn’t know what the US was like in the 1900s.
That realization played a large part in me investigating how white Americans basically lied themselves into believing the US gov/white Americans made amends for their crimes towards blacks during the period called Reconstruction - in reality, most gains black Americans made after the civil war (e.g. the surge in black politicians, the ability to get educated/start schools, etc.) were immediately taken away by means of terrorism, disenfranchisement, and bs legislation.
The movie/doc Exterminate All The Brutes does a great job detailing the stories Americans used to tell about themselves and how they had to deal with savage natives/tribes and whatnot. It’s hard to watch but it really shows how we’ve all been victims of very effective propaganda. I mean, we literally recite a pledge of allegiance as children. The bs goes deep.
Watchman is a franchise with an intense blessing when so many seem cursed. The movie was made by someone who didn’t understand the comic at all and it turned out fantastically, despite that. Easily the best Snyder product, and I do generally like his goofy ass.
Then, over a decade later, it has a weird HBO TV show, made by the creator/writer of Lost, someone who did at least understand very well the comics. But someone with a controversial track record, and making a show entirely out of original material. And it SLAPS. I tend to market it as “what if lost was rated R, 1 season long, and perfect”. Still got my fingers crossed for another season, but it doesn’t need it at all.
It’s a good show but it feels like it has barely anything to do with Watchmen. The main villain was so weak compared to what the comic was going for, and the main character is a raging asshole while the show acts like we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her.
the main character is a raging asshole while the show acts like we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her.
So… like the comic?
That’s what they were going for, but missed completely. In the series it feels like she gets rewarded for being that way, the ending especially sucked.
