Screw You, Marvel

This is exactly what Marvel is doing to their properties.

All of Marvel’s upcoming movies are going to be trash.

A decade ago, movie adaptations of comic books were a joke. With the exception of the 1989 Batman and 1978 Superman films, they were laughable at best, and huge steaming piles of shit at worst. The problem was that nobody took it seriously, not even the creators. They made them campy and hokey, and self-referentially stupid. They were the lowest common denominator of movies. They became a self-fulfilling prophecy of crappy movie-making. After all, if the filmmakers themselves treated the properties like shit, then the movies would inevitably turn out to be shit. The industry chugged along, and churned out turd after turd with the occasional, anomalous decent movie like Blade in 1998.

Fast forward to 2002, and the release of Spider-Man. Suddenly, we had a GOOD live action version of a comic book movie. How did it turn out good, you ask? Well, let me answer that for you. The simple reason was that the director, Sam Raimi, had been a longtime fan of the comic book series. He wanted to stay as true to the character as possible while adapting him for the more difficult live action film environment. Naturally, certain things needed to be changed, but they were done with as much care as possible. The characters and situations were taken seriously, and given the right amount of gravity with occasional moments of levity thrown in to keep things fun. The script was solid, the actors were well cast and talented, and everything flowed together seamlessly. It just worked. Worldwide, that movie grossed over $800 million. People were screaming about how awesome the movie was, and all of a sudden it wasn’t nerdy to like comics any more.

Marvel’s properties continued to be a hot commodity as other films were big hits including 2003’s X2: X-Men United, 2005’s Fantastic Four, and 2008’s Iron Man. Marvel was on a roll. They could seemingly do no wrong. Of course they had a few fumbles along the way like 2005’s Elektra or 2007’s Ghost Rider, but for the most part they were still kicking all kinds of ass, and every movie studio was clamoring to find the next big comic book property. It didn’t even have to be from Marvel anymore. It could be DC Comics or even other various graphic novels. The trend extended perhaps most prominently with 2008’s The Dark Knight, and 2009’s Watchmen. Suffice it to say, live action movies based on comic books were hot. All they had to do was find a cast and crew that would treat the source material with respect, and the movie was bound to do well.

Fast Forward again to 2010. Iron Man 2 was highly anticipated. I had loved the first movie, and I was eager to watch the sequel. Despite the fact that Iron Man is a second tier comic book character (i.e. not prevalently in the general public’s knowledge like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or Wolverine), the first movie was a hell of a lot of fun. It was sarcastic, action-packed, had a good story, and Robert Downey Jr. played the character of Tony Stark to perfection. I don’t know how much work it took on his part, since being a drunken playboy is sort of his real life character, but I digress… Anyway, I couldn’t wait to see Iron Man 2. I don’t usually go to see new releases as they are a huge fucking rip off. I’m sorry, but $9 per ticket is not worth it considering the quality of the movies Hollywood usually puts out. Nevertheless, I made an exception this time, feeling assured that Iron Man 2 would be every bit as good as the original.

Sadly, I was wrong. Iron Man 2 was yet another Hollywood turd. What the fuck went wrong? Well, too many things to list them all, but here are a few highlights:

1. Recasting Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle. Why the fuck was this necessary? It’s blaringly obvious that Don Cheadle is nothing like Terrance Howard. It was an annoying recast, and it was a terrible idea. It’s like the Hollywood executives thought, “We’ll just replace one black guy with another, the public won’t notice it since they think all black people look the same.” I can only imagine that Terrence Howard took one look at the script and complained that it was terrible, so they gave him the boot. Marvel stated that he was removed because he was “difficult to work with.”
2. They were inconsistent. One of my biggest pet peeves is when filmmakers aren’t consistent from movie to movie. In the first Iron Man I could have sworn that the Arc Reactor in Tony Stark’s chest kept him alive and simultaneously powered the Iron Man suit. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case at all in Iron Man 2. Suddenly, every Iron Man suit has an Arc Reactor installed and anyone (i.e. Cheadle’s character) can jump into any of the suits and start using them. Fucking lame. Why would they change that? Were they just not paying attention? I would think the writer would have kept things consistent since they must have hired the same guy back…
3. Whoops, different screenwriters. The first one was written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. It was a massive hit, so they would naturally hire the same guys back, right? Wrong. Instead of keeping their winning team, they hired Justin Theroux (whose only writing credit was Tropic Thunder) to write the sequel. Um, why? Was the first one too good and they felt the need to shitify things? Were they paying the new guy off for sexual favors? Or maybe the old writers wanted too much money and they therefore became “difficult to work with” just like Terrance Howard. Clearly, Theroux had no fucking idea what he was doing. The writing of Iron Man 2 was all over the place. The action scenes were too few and far between, there were too many disparate plot points (many of which never got resolved), and they could not choose who the main villain was supposed to be. Was it Justin Hammer or was it Ivan Vanko? Hammer couldn’t decide if he wanted automated drones or his own Iron Man suit. And why did Vanko go from wanting revenge so badly, to just toiling away in a lab, to going back to wanting revenge? The reasons are inconsistency and shitty writing.
4. This whole retarded subplot meant to change the circular Arc Reactor into a triangle. Was that really fucking necessary? Jesus tapdancing Christ. They could have just had Tony Stark say, “I made a few adjustments to the Iron Man suit, and now the circle is a triange because I thought it looked cooler.” End of story. But no, they had to make it into this HUGE subplot that ultimately ended with the circle becoming a triangle and saving Tony Stark’s life. After all, everyone knows that triangles have inherent healing powers while circles do not. Fuck you, Marvel.
5. Samuel Jackson and the whole Avengers subplot made me want to gouge my eyes out and stab myself in the ears. Instead of devoting any time to character development, plot advancement, or action sequences, they kept going on this tangent that added nothing of value to the film. This tangent serves no other purpose than to pimp out the inevitable Avengers spin-off movie. I couldn’t stand this shit. If I gave a fuck about the Avengers, I would watch that movie. I don’t want them in Iron Man. I did not pay to watch Samuel Jackson in an eye-patch pretending to have a relevant part in this film. According to CinemaBlend, director Jon Favreau and star Downey Jr. hated this stupid shit, too.

“Part of the problem was the movie seemed wrapped around an odd, Avengers-focused, subplot which never really fit into the story. Jon Favreau may not have liked it any more than you or I do.

Our source says Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie Jon Favreau wanted to make. Marvel interfered heavily with his work on the movie and turned the project into an infomercial for The Avengers. Favreau felt the movie was rushed into production (and if you followed the development process you know it was) and they pushed him into making it without a fully realized script. Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie he wanted to make and because of that, if there’s an Iron Man 3, there’s every reason to think he won’t be back. Marvel doesn’t want to pay him and Favreau may not want to deal with more Marvel interference.

Favreau wasn’t the only one unhappy with Iron Man 2. Robert Downey Jr. saw those same problems and according to our source, ‘While he’s locked for Iron Man 3, chances are, that will be his last movie.’ In the meantime, Downey will get (and probably deserves) top billing in The Avengers.”

So Marvel pushed Iron Man 2 into production without a “fully realized script.” Well, no fucking surprise there. It’s also no shocker that everybody in the cast and crew hated it, as well. It’s no wonder that Favreau won’t be coming back for Iron Man 3 or to direct The Avengers. Just like Terrance Howard, he is too expensive and complained about a shitty script, and is therefore, “difficult to work with.” Hey, you know who else had the same problem? Edward Norton, who played the title character in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Apparently, he noticed that the script was a steaming pile of shit, and wanted to personally rewrite it. He was allowed to do it, did so, and then starred in the film, which was decent enough. But guess what? Norton will not reprise his role in The Avengers, instead being replaced by Mark Ruffalo. Again, he was deemed to be “difficult to work with.” I’m starting to see a pattern here. Basically, an actor/director complains that Marvel’s script is a piece of shit, they are deemed “difficult to work with,” and they are replaced for the sequel. Way to go Marvel. Keep on replacing all your actors. Have a revolving door, so there will be no consistency at all between any of your movies.

Essentially, Marvel cannot be trusted. They have no fucking clue what they are doing. Initially, when they gave their blessing to Sam Raimi to make a good Spider-Man movie, he did just that. Then, when they gave their blessing to Jon Favreau to make a good Iron Man movie, he did just that, as well. But when things started to make a shitload of money, Marvel, just like any other corrupt Hollywood company, had to start calling the shots themselves. After all, who better to make film-making decisions than a bunch of business executives who have no film-making experience? And I’m fairly certain most of this is not due to Disney’s purchase of Marvel on December 31, 2009. Iron Man 2 started filming in April 2009, and this Avengers shit was clearly planned before that as Samuel Jackson appeared in the first Iron Man movie. Actually, Samuel Jackson is profiting off of Marvel’s ineptitude with a sweet deal. He signed up for a nine-picture contract (!!!) in which he will play Nick Fury in Iron Man 2, Captain America, The Avengers, and other various sequels. Kudos to him for getting as much money as possible out of those stupid fuckos.

When Marvel sunk their dirty little claws into Iron Man 2, look at what a piece of shit it turned out to be. They dropped a coherent storyline in favor of HURRRRR! LOOK THERE IS NICK FURY AND HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE AVENGERS, AND LOOK TONY STARK’S DAD MADE CAPTAIN AMERICA’S SHIELD DUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRP! Now that Marvel is hellbent on this Avenger’s bullshit, pretty much all of their upcoming movies will be like Iron Man 2. Therefore, pretty much all of their upcoming movies will suck ass. Maybe if they learned their lesson from Iron Man 2 (which they didn’t because it made a lot of money), they could stop this bullshit and improve their movies.

Here is a sampling of Marvel’s upcoming slate of releases: (2011) Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class, (2012) The Avengers, Untitled Spider-Man Reboot.

What? Spider-Man Reboot? What happened to Spider-Man 4? Oh, after a quick check online, I found that instead of making another Spider-Man movie with Sam Raimi, they decided to fire everyone, hire an entirely new cast and crew, and start over from the beginning. I guess that Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and everyone else were probably “difficult to work with,” huh? It makes total sense to take your biggest franchise, one that everyone loves and makes over $800 million per film, and completely scrap it and start over. Ugh. Fuck you, Marvel.

Marvel has no goddamn clue what they are doing. They are becoming the new Fox or MGM. Companies so inept that either every movie they put out is fucking terrible, or they run themselves into the ground because of mismanagement. Marvel is currently on track to put the comic book movie back where it started, as no more than a laughable side-show. Some day soon, this age of good comic book adaptations will be over, and all that will be left will be shit. But Marvel got to make their fucking Avengers movie. Way to go, assholes.