06 September 2011

Superhero Appreciation 3: Iron Man, X-Men, and Marvel's Box Office Success

      Marvel has been doing exceptionally well at the box office lately. I mean...they've had their share of flops: 2008's The Incredible Hulk hulked away without great success, and while Fantastic Four did pretty well in 2004,  its 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, made significantly less. (An aside: how crazy would it be if the Fantastic Four showed up in The Avengers and Chris Evans had to play Captain America and Johnny Storm?). However, by and large they've managed to do far, far better than DC has in the theater (I say by and large because DC still has one major, major franchise going: the new Batman series. But other than that...I mean, movies like The Green Lantern and The Green Hornet, while monochromatic, weren't big box office or critical successes).
     Iron Man was. Which I think kind of surprised everyone, since before that, Iron Man wasn't too well known -- at least, his name wasn't ubiquitous, like Super-Man or Spider-Man. (Aside in which I give up a significant amount of geek cred: it's hard for me to remember that Iron Man is Marvel sometimes, since he doesn't meet my litmus test for Marvel characters which is: "Did I meet/see this character on Marvel Superhero Island at Islands of Adventure? If not, it's probably DC or some anime nonsense"). The point though, is that Iron-Man is Marvel, and his movie did amazingly, probably due in large part to Robert Downey Jr.'s hilarious yet endearing portrayal of Tony Stark (and I also happen to think Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts is one of the best Marvel women out there, far more likable than Mary Jane and more real than Sue Storm). Iron Man was current, humorous, and action-packed--a perfect summer movie.  The only thing it really lacked, in my opinion, was a completely convincing villain (Jeff Bridges is awesome, but the whole weird robots villain duel thing...not really workin' for me). Iron-Man 2 continued the trend of awesomeness, although now that I think of it, I have next to no memory of it. Did Nick Fury or at least Samuel L. Jackson show up and was there a giant donut involved at some point?? Please, somebody help me, I swear I didn't dream this...).
     The X-Men are another of the jewels in Marvel's box office crown. All the movies so far have made quite a bit of money, and while critics and people in general didn't really care for the sloppy third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, it did better in the box office than any of the other X-Men movies (obviously, since they went on to make two prequels). Interestingly, X-Men: First Class, the most recent movie, was the weakest box office performer. Personally, I enjoy the sequels, but my true devotion is to the first X-Men and is manifested in watching the DVD over and over again. I haven't seen First Class yet, but it comes out on DVD this Friday so I suppose I'll see it at some point here.
    Marvel does character-based superhero movies like nobody else. Think about it: would Iron Man be at all entertaining if Tony Stark acted like Steve Rogers? Would Captain America be anything but cringe-inducing if Chris Rogers acted like Tony Stark? Hypothesis contrary to fact, I know, but the point still remains: these movies are awesome because they have great characters. They don't need to have great stories (although a lot of them-- dare I say even most of them--do). They let us get to know the characters and care about them. Not that they're the only company that does this, of course, every moviemaker tries to employ this strategy. But Marvel has such strong characters already in place that it is easy for them to bring those characters to immediate, believable life on the screen.
    So that's my brief analysis of Marvel and the Box office, one that I am sure does not even begin to scratch the surface of the true reasons these movies have done so well. You of course are welcome to conjecture in your own mind as to what the reason might be. It turns out it's fascinating to compare box office profits. For me of course, probably not you. Since you probably have a 'life' and all that boring stuff.

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