*Sigh*
I was just in the midst of typing up a very lengthy entry, which, I might add, I hadn’t saved, when an unfortunate series of “fat fingering” caused me to close Word and choose NOT to save changes.
This was, of course, catastrophic, given how long-winded I am, and that I was probably about three-quarters of the way through the entry at the time.
Which means that I lost a lot.
Ah well, as they say, save early and save often…
What keeps this disaster from being TOO disastrous, though, is that nothing I have to say is actually especially important, so really, nothing of value was lost.
In a nutshell, here’s what I said:
Due to rain and sheer laziness, I didn’t exercise today, and I’m planning to revamp my exercise routine.
I did go out into the world and pick up some groceries.
I’ve been in the process of making “Mexican Chuck Steak” with a side dish of “Garlic and Pepper Pilaf.” Tomorrow I plan to make “Italian Chicken Cutlets with Garlic and Lemon,” though I’ve yet to decide on a side dish for that.
I also noted that since I began doing more cooking that I’ve found that whenever I discover a new recipe, I typically have all of the ingredients on hand and no longer have to go out to buy things specifically for the recipe as I’ve amassed quite a stockpile of potential ingredients.
Then I moved on to comics.
I started off by mentioning that I just read a copy of "Fantastic Four" #500, which included the original plot synopsis for the first issue, written by Stan Lee in 1961. In it, "The Man," as Stan is known, expressed his belief that Soviet ventures into space were developing at such a rate that he feared that they would have launched an expedition to Mars before the first issue of FF saw print. I thought that was very funny and cute, and wished that I could reach back 40+ years, pat Stan on the head, and tell him that he’s “precious.”
This mention of the FF led to a lengthy discussion of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, and movies based on Marvel Comics properties in general, which I think I’ll try to reproduce. If you thought you had been saved by my disaster, think again...
In the late summer of 1989 I read an interview with a guy by the name of Neue Constantin.
An odd name to be sure, but Constantin was presenting himself to the greater mass of comic fandom as something of a messiah.
Buoyed by the phenomenal success of the “Batman” film, this Constantin character was making some wild claims about the Fantastic Four movie that he was going to make.
This movie, which would have a $40 million budget (fully $10 million more than the budget of "Batman"), would not merely draw "inspiration" from the comics, or simply steal the name in order to capitalize on name recognition, all the while bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the source material.
No, his FF movie would be a LITERAL translation of a specific issue of the FF comic.
With some minor tweaks, mostly in the name of padding, Constantin was promising to lift the story from the pages of the comic panel by panel, directly rendering them as live-action frames on the big screen.
This was a pretty bold promise, and while it was clearly an impossible dream, it was very much the dream of most of comic fandom. It would have been amazing to see an untainted story brought directly to life.
Throughout the years the FF script changed hands many times, undergoing multiple rewrites, and all the while the proposed budget continued to dwindle.
By the early 90s, the movie had fallen into the hands of filmmaker Roger Corman, whose name is synonymous with low-budget schlock.
Corman’s films are made on shoestring budgets, yet somehow they manage to look as though they were made for EVEN CHEAPER than they actually were.
Among Corman’s most notable films is the original “Little Shop of Horrors.”
By this time, the actual budget for the film had decreased to $2 million.
No, I didn’t forget a zero. TWO million dollars, or a half a million for each member.
The movie did get filmed, but was never released, even on video. There are bootleg copies of it available, and I’m sure it can be found on Kazaa or some other file-sharing service.
I’ve never really been curious enough about it to seek it out, though. I saw some still photographs back when it was being filmed, and while it didn’t look absolutely horrible, though Corman performances usually fall into that category, it did look extremely cheap.
While I’ve never indulged my curiosity by seeking out a copy of the film, sometimes I do imagine what it might be like, and in my imagination it’s embarrassingly bad.
Give it a much larger budget, which, when not handled properly, can increase the potential a film has to suck ass exponentially, and throw Jessica Alba into the mix, and you have a pretty good idea of what the new FF movie is probably going to be like.
Which is to say, terrible.
For those of you who are sick of the comic book movie trend, I think you’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief when FF comes out, as it will undoubtedly be the movie that sounds the death knell for the genre. I think it will be just that bad.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
On an interesting (to me) historical note, the Corman FF movie was only one of a series of abortive attempts to bring Marvel characters to the big screen.
FF had been preceded in failure by the direct to video stinkers “Captain America,” starring “Catcher in the Rye” author J.D. Salinger’s son Matt, and “The Punisher,” starring Dolph Lundgren (Who, amazingly enough, attended MIT on a Fulbright Scholarship. I’m not kidding.).
Both movies were absolutely terrible, and were just part of Marvel’s overall failure in the movie business.
Marvel had enjoyed considerable success on television, with the 60s “Spider-Man” cartoon, and “The Incredible Hulk” in the 70s, but movies? No dice.
Rival company DC, on the other hand, ruled the cinema, with the enormously successful Superman and Batman franchises.
Strangely, since that time, though, circumstances have completely reversed themselves.
Marvel is not only riding the crest of the current wave of comic book movies, but was also, in fact, responsible for it.
I find it especially odd that Marvel did so not with its “big guns,” with whom they had failed so miserably to even get into theaters, but with a very minor, utterly obscure character.
That character was “Blade,” and the movie was such a tremendous success that, in the wake of the death of the Batman franchise it revived the comic book movie genre.
Coincidentally, that resurrection was actually much like a vampire rising from the grave…
In any case, with the Spider-Man, X-Men, and Blade franchises, and the less than stellar, but still respectable success of "Hulk," and "Daredevil," which has already given birth to a spin-off, the upcoming Jennifer Garner vehicle "Elektra," Marvel now rules the box office, and DC hasn’t had any luck on that score in quite some time.
The last DC movie I remember was “Steel,” featuring Shaquille O’Neal, and let me tell you, “Steel” was no “Kazaam.”
Sure, “Batman Begins” is on the horizon, “Smallville” rules the television airwaves, and if they ever manage to cast the Man of Steel for the big screen, eventually Superman may soar once again.
In the meantime, though, the multiplex belongs to Marvel.
At least until Fantastic Four finally comes out and stinks up the place…
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