Turning Back the Clock: Some Guidelines for Reboots

It’s been a while since I last gave my thoughts on Hollywood’s franchise-building techniques; almost exactly six months, in fact. Back then I talked about when it’s acceptable for Hollywood to remake a film. This time I thought I’d take a broader approach and look at when it’s appropriate for Hollywood to reboot an entire franchise.

Now, technically, even a single film can be viewed as a franchise. But for the purposes of this discussion, I’m looking at those situations where there is either more than one film in the franchise (e.g., Rocky), or where there’s one film but a pre-existing character and story from other media (e.g., The Phantom). (I’ll note that those examples were chosen specifically because I am unaware of any reboots in the making for either… and in the case of Rocky, I hope there never will be. But more on that later.) I’ll also note that I’m not really counting cases like Robin Hood and King Arthur, where there are dozens of films on the same characters, but they aren’t really connected as such.

Rebooting a franchise has a certain logic to it. It’s a known money-maker, or at least is strongly hoped to be. But for one reason or another simply continuing the series as it stands is untenable. So, assuming Hollywood wants to reboot a franchise, what are the things to consider?

News Bites: Jedi and Other Knights

It’s Friday morning, time for your weekly tidbits of the news. This week there hasn’t been a lot of solid news, but the rumor mill is in full swing with some mighty big possibilities. If any of the rumors are true, there’s apt to be some serious divides among fan-bases as they try to sort out how they feel about some of this.

Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams are planning to adapt Juliet Macur’s upcoming book Cycle of Lies, about Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal. No release date is mentioned, though with typical production times, it’ll probably be out in about two years, which will be about two years after the last person stops caring.

Speaking of Abrams, he may be directing a major science-fiction film set among the stars… and no, I don’t mean Star Trek. According to The Wrap, J.J. Abrams has been selected to direct Star Wars: Episode VII. Which, if true, means all that infighting among sci-fi fans about which franchise is better is about to get a whole lot muddier. (Note, however, that there have been a lot of “confirmed” directors attached already who were debunked within a few days, so until this comes out in the form of an official press release, it may not be a given, especially as Abrams denied wanting to direct the film last November.) EDIT: That press release has now arrived.

Also largely in the “rumor mill” stage, Latino Review cites “sources” as saying the characters have been chosen for Justice League. There will be a core team of five in the film, with the possibility of cameos for other characters. Those five? Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. As these are probably the best known members of the J.L.A., it makes a certain amount of sense.

All six actors to play James Bond in film will be on stage together at the Oscars. This will take place during Adele’s performance of the Skyfall theme song (nominated for Best Original Song). So there will be at least one cool thing about this year’s Academy Awards — actually, two, considering this implies they’re actually going to play the nominees for Best Original Song instead of doing 10-second clips like they have the last few years.

In a move sure to upset absolutely nobody — except perhaps all the fans of the film — the Weinstein Company is moving forward on a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, based on author Wang Du Lu’s Silver Vase, Iron Knight. The director currently in talks for the film is Ronny Yu, best known in the U.S. for Freddy vs. Jason and Bride of Chucky. This may be the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke.”
– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851

Weekly Weblinks: Horrors and Hendricks

It’s been a little bit of a hectic week for me, trying to get various things done for the site, so the Weekly Weblinks are running just a tad behind their usual schedule. But it’s still Friday morning, so they’re still technically on time!

I’m just going to cut the intro portion short, and get on with it; it’s all about the posts and news, after all.

Weekly Weblinks: Generals and Generations

It’s the last day of August, the summer movie season is essentially over, and the new releases are gradually shifting over from action-packed blockbusters to dramatic fare and the occasional horror movie, such as The Oogieloves. It’s also Friday, and that means it’s time for the Weekly Weblinks.

There’s a lot of looking back in the blog posts this week, with some reviews of films from earlier this year or last, and some posts that look a few decades back. The news, of course, mostly looks forward, as news is wont to do. There’s quite a bit on the news front, although much of it is in the rumor stage, but what it all has in common is that with very few exceptions, it’s downright bizarre. But if your brain is broken apart by the news, hopefully the blog posts will help you put it back together. So click on through for the Weekly Weblinks!

Weekly Weblinks: Masters and Minions

It’s Friday morning once again, and so that means it’s time for the Weekly Weblinks. There’s a good chunk of variety in the blog posts, with some new reviews, some vintage reviews, and some previews. And the news section is almost bloated, with twice the usual tidbits.

So rather than having me natter on for a bit, let’s just get right to it!

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

Perhaps it’s fitting that it took me a few weeks after my “Bat-Month” ended to get around to watching Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. After all, the title is also known as Batman of the Future; a certain amount of time-displacement in the review is kind of appropriate. Released direct-to-video in 2000, and directed by Curt Geda, it’s the fourth film spun off of the various DC Comics animated series; in this case, it came at the tail end of the Batman Beyond series, which focuses on Gotham City a few decades in the future.

Gotham in the future is a bit of a different town than in the main animated Batman continuity, and it’s worth going over a few of the fine points here for people who haven’t seen the series (though the movie does a decent job of standing on its own). Bruce Wayne (still voiced by Kevin Conroy) is too old to continue wearing the cape and cowl; the long nights and constant fighting have caught up with him over the years, and his heart is weak. But he still has a drive to see justice done in Gotham, and that drive is met by a young man named Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle). Terry’s father was killed early in the series, giving him much the same reason to fight crime, though he also feels a need to atone for his juvenile delinquent past. The new Batsuit is a marvel of technology, with flight capability, strength enhancers, and limited-duration cloaking. There’s still a Commissioner Gordon watching over Gotham and reluctantly accepting the help of Batman, but now it’s Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl. And Gotham still has its assortment of thieves, assassins, and utter nutcases. Gene-splicing is used by some individuals to gain inhuman powers, and the city is plagued by roving teen gangs, most particularly the “Jokerz”, hoodlums who dress garishly and paint their faces in homage to the long dead Clown Prince of Crime.

But then Gotham is turned upside down by the reappearance of the real Joker, who takes over one of the gangs of Jokerz, and starts systematically attacking the members of the Bat-family and working towards a plan to leave the city in utter chaos.

Weekly Weblinks: Reboots, Remakes, and Recall

Bandwidth issues may be slowing me down, but they’re not stopping me from making my rounds. It’s Friday morning, so it’s time for our weekly assortment of blog posts and news links, complete with a shiny new graphic I spent my downtime creating. In fact, this edition of the Weekly Weblinks is just a bit heavier on the news than it has been, and I’m not skimping on the blog posts either. There are a few reviews of new movies, a review of a much-reviled comic book movie, and a review of one of the greatest comedies ever made.

On the news front, there are quite a lot of things to cover, from rumors and news on comic book movie directors, to a surprising film adaptation, a film franchise which is getting rebooted, and — refreshingly — one which isn’t. So read on for the Weekly Weblinks!

Favorite Films: Batman: The Movie

“Gives a feller a good feeling knowing they’re up there doing their job.”

Before Christian Bale, before George Clooney or Val Kilmer, before Michael Keaton, there was Adam West. A minor actor, still somewhat struggling in Hollywood, he was taking small roles in television episodes and doing commercials when producer William Dozier noticed him in a Nestle Quik ad as a secret agent, and decided West might be a good fit for the lead role in his upcoming Batman television series. Coincidentally, West had heard of the series being produced, and had been pushing for his agent to try and get him the role. The two came together, and Dozier’s dream of a comedic take on the Caped Crusader started to become a reality. Adam West was cast with very little competition, but Dozier had West do screen tests with the various actors trying out for the role of Dick Grayson, Batman’s sidekick Robin.

Dozier hoped to find a candidate with whom West had the right chemistry, and they found it in Burt Ward; reportedly any time the two were together, it was a constant struggle for the crew to not bust out laughing. The two actors became fast friends and remain so decades later. Dozier told Ward to simply be himself in the role; his personality and mannerisms were already what Dozier had pictured for the Boy Wonder. Of course, a minor snafu in communication led to Ward not knowing for several weeks that he had gotten the part; his agent thought the studio had informed him, and the studio thought his agent had. As Ward tells it, he’d receive occasional calls over the next four weeks asking him details like his shoe size and the circumference of his head, and wonder if meant that he was being seriously considered for the role. He was on the verge of taking a job as a gas station attendant when he was finally informed that he had gotten the role almost two months prior.

Though a television show was Dozier’s primary goal, it was not his initial plan to start with the show. Dozier planned a Batman movie to show the television networks how successful the idea could be, and sell the series based on the reception of the film. However, ABC, facing low ratings decided to purchase the show as a mid-season replacement, before Dozier was able to put the plans for the movie in motion. The cast and crew set to work on the first season of Batman, airing in 1966. But the film idea was not shelved. Instead, it was shot after the first season concluded (and after the second season was shot, but before it aired), with the intention of using it to sell the series to an international market. In 1966, Batman, sometimes called Batman: The Movie to distinguish it from the series, hit the big screen. It was the first time a superhero was in a color feature-length picture (and only misses out on being the first feature-length superhero movie if one counts the hour-long Superman and the Mole Men as being feature-length).

10 Unfilmed Batman Villains

Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy” has come to an end. He’s done with the Batman franchise, and so is Christian Bale, who played the role of the Caped Crusader in the films. But we all know that, sooner or later — and it’ll almost certainly be “sooner” — Warner Brothers is going to want someone to pick up the cowl and bring Batman back to the big screen once more. And, as it has often been said that a superhero movie is only as good as its villains, I thought I might take a look at what villains they could use — if they chose to do so.

Now, I already said I think Mister Freeze would be a great choice, particularly in order to bridge the more realistic Nolan films with the upcoming Justice League film. And I’m not changing in that position. But I got to thinking about all the unsung villains in Batman’s rogues gallery. After all, even if Mr. Freeze’s on-screen portrayal was far from great, he has been on the screen before. The major villains have a tendency to get revisited. The Joker and Catwoman have each been around the block three times, and the Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face two times each. When Batman and Robin was so poorly received, one theory that was often floated around amongst fans was that the villains were simply too low-profile to build a successful movie around. Few people who weren’t regular comic book readers would know who Mister Freeze or Poison Ivy were. Perhaps a Batman movie could only be successful with major, iconic villains.

But when Nolan revived the franchise with Batman Begins — notably the very next Batman movie from Batman and Robin — he disproved that by using two villains who were every bit as obscure. Ra’s al Ghul wasn’t even a frequent face in the comics, merely an occasional one. And a non-comics reader would only recognize him if they managed to remember him from his three or four animated series appearances a decade before. Scarecrow might have been a little more recognizable, but only from the same sparse Batman: the Animated Series appearances, and of course, as “that one guy from Challenge of the Superfriends.” Yet the movie was a critical and commercial success. Christopher Nolan proved that you could take a lesser-known villain and build a great movie with them.

So, with that in mind, I thought I would take a look at Batman villains who have never been part of a live-action film. Those unsung villains who haven’t yet had the chance to put Gotham at their mercy. Because even when the movies to come re-use some of the major villains, if they space them out with some of the more unfamiliar ones, it could lead to Batman truly becoming more like the James Bond franchise, where it doesn’t really have a “dead period”. And new villains can sometimes lead to new story directions. So here, then, are my picks for the Top 10 Unfilmed Batman Villains. Some might work better alongside other villains, but each would potentially provide an interesting film.

The Dark Knight Rises

When I first saw the trailers for Batman Begins, I felt a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. I wanted a new Batman movie, one that would be true to the character as well as being a good movie overall. But there was a risk that a relaunch of the franchise would pander to the worst excesses of Tim Burton’s take on the character; it’s very easy to go overboard on the darkness and grimness with Batman, and the trailers for Batman Begins gave the impression it could happen again. And then the movie came out, and I loved it; it’s one of my favorite films.

When the trailers for The Dark Knight hit, I again felt that same mixture of emotions. Christopher Nolan had delivered a greater movie than I had anticipated before, but I knew from experience that sequels seldom held up to the original. And Heath Ledger didn’t look like what I think of when think of the Joker; in fact, his appearance would have fit in with the macabre and wretched appearance of the Penguin in Batman Returns. I had a legitimate concern that the sophomore effort for the franchise relaunch would fumble the ball. But Ledger turned out to be a fantastic Joker, and the movie was exceptionally good. It also would become one of my favorite films.

Four years later, and it’s 2012; trailers come out for The Dark Knight Rises. And again, the trailers seem a bit off, and don’t seem to generate excitement. (I know people were excited about The Dark Knight Rises, but my honest assessment is that the excitement existed independently of the trailers.) I had learned enough to not lose faith in Nolan, but I also knew it was still possible to flub the third act. And Bane has never been my favorite Bat-villain. But I shouldn’t have worried. Nolan has done it again.