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Why can't new superhero movies make their actors into superstars?
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on November 08, 2013, 02:59:39 am ---Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Andrew Garfield, and Henry Cavill - I'm also drawing a complete blank when hearing these names.
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I know Chris Evans mostly from the fantastic Cellular and from this somewhat-less-fantastic but still pretty watchable romcom in which he starred with Anna Faris. I know Andrew Garfield mostly from The Social Network.
--- Quote ---I think superhero movies and with them the actors are a 'victim' of their own success. The oversaturation mentioned in the article.
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Agreed. Over the years, I have enjoyed ones that stood out from the crowd somehow. The early ones like Superman stood out because they were pioneering, Spider Man featured some amazing FX, Tim Burton's Batman and then later Christopher Nolan's Dark Knights (at least the first two) took tone and artistry in new directions, Ironman had Robert Downey Jr., and so on.
But whenever I go to a superhero movie nowadays, even one that's critically acclaimed, I find myself falling asleep. Sustained action sequences bridged with little dialogue or character development just shut off my brain. I slept through the so much of the third Dark Knight I can't even honestly claim to have seen it.
Superhero/comic book movies have become a boring, immature, oversaturated genre that annoys me because their ubiquity implies that, to Hollywood moguls, the tastes of 15-year-old boys trump every other demo's.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 08, 2013, 03:10:09 pm ---Superhero/comic book movies have become a boring, immature, oversaturated genre that annoys me because their ubiquity implies that, to Hollywood moguls, the tastes of 15-year-old boys trump every other demo's.
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It's all about who spends the most money in the theaters.
Monika:
I agree about most superhero movies being pretty bad - and sometimes terrible. With one exception - the Spider Man saga - I like the movies staring Toby McGuire and the latest one with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone (both very good actors. Btw - Andrew Garfield was in The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus) as well. The Spider Man movies are quirky and are as much about Peter Parker as they are about his superhero alter ego.
I find the Christopher Nolan Batman movies....ok. But who really gives a damn about Bruce Wayne/Batman? It´s all about the supporting roles.
As for the recent Superman movies....ouch. Brandon Routh was so bad he has hardly gotten another movie role since, and Henry Caville hardly showed a single emotion.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 08, 2013, 05:15:01 pm ---It's all about who spends the most money in the theaters.
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True, but if that assumption shapes the content, it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it?
It's true older people don't go out to the movies as often as teenagers, and they're less likely to see a movie multiple times. But I have seen figures lately suggesting that boomers, having more diposable income than other age groups, are a more powerful market force than "old people" are usually given credit for.
I should add that I think the actual key demographic isn't even age, it's nationality. The more a movie appeals to/can be understood by people who aren't American and perhaps don't speak English, the better. A superhero movie or action thriller translates better than a quirky little dialogue- and character-driven indie. And it's the global box office that counts, in the end, these days.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 08, 2013, 10:18:07 am ---Nah, I still think you're wrong. They could follow the example of Ryan Gosling, who has never appeared in a superhero blockbuster movie--though I just discovered that he played Hercules as a teenager ( :o ) in a TV show that I never heard of.
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Ryan Gosling from the blockbuster The Notebook? That Ryan Gosling?
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