10 Ways To Fix The Biggest Superhero Movie Problems

5. Creators With Little Or No Comic Book Backgrounds

burton batman catwoman There was a bit of a Twitter back and forth not long ago between Kevin Smith and Tim Burton. I won€™t go into detail but the final exchange was by far the most telling. Burton: I wouldn€™t be caught dead reading a comic book! Smith: Which totally explains Batman! Not being completely immersed in a medium is one thing, but having utter contempt for it should eliminate someone from being chosen to work on the project. It€™s kind of why they don€™t hire Hockey coaches to manage Baseball teams. The fact that the comic book industry can€™t get a movie by Kevin Smith done (despite the fact that they€™ve hired him to write their comics) further explains the lack of reasonable thinking involved in the business. I was amazed that Joss Whedon actually got to helm The Avengers, after he killed it with his run on Astonishing X-Men. I was convinced that his apparent skill and understanding for the super hero genre would eliminate him as a director, you know because Marvel€™s M.O. is to see what makes sense and then do the opposite. The real problem isn€™t that there aren€™t enough directors and writers with comic book interests or back grounds out there, it€™s just that Marvel ignores them and listens to some guy who looks upon a comic book reader as a disgusting little ATM machine. Look up Kevin Smith€™s version of his time working on a Superman film and you€™ll begin to see what I mean. The irony is that films are largely hit or miss, and typically one movie has to not only make its own money back, but cover the cost of other films made by the studio that tanked. Comic book movies haven€™t been becoming more and more prevalent because of the quality of the stories, but because they can easily be franchised which is where studios make their money (Fast and Furious 7, I rest my case). The guys who get called in because of their €˜Hollywood expertise€™ have seen just as many movies crash and burn under their watch as movies where they€™ve nailed it. They get thrown into the mix because studios are cowards who are hedging their bets. Marvel has put itself in position to stop being €˜Hollywood€™ and just tell their story, Guardians of the Galaxy will let us all know if they€™ve learned anything.
 
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Dante R Maddox got started in writing about pop culture in 2007. He developed his conversational style majoring in English and minoring in speech communication, his desire to write as if he were speaking to the reader face to face was the bane of many professors. An odd blend of geek cred and regular fella chic', you're just as likely to end up talking about baseball or politics as you are about comic books and movies (just don't mention Tucker Carlson, you are addressing the man who will go to jail for assault in the future after all). He wrote a book called The Lineage of Durge that's available on Amazon for a small amount of money, he's writing a second while acting as Editor-in-Stuff over at Saga Online Press, there is a graphic novel expansion of his book series also in the works as well as continued development of his cheesecannon, one day Canada...one day (Seriously, a piece of ham, you slice it up and now it's bacon?!?!? I say thee nay!!!)