Joker: 10 1970s Comic Book Movies DC Should Make Next
8. Wildcat As Rocky
One of the true icons of 1970s cinema, Rocky, like its protagonist, was an underdog that became a runaway success. Made for a budget of just $1 million, it ended up taking well over $200 million en route to becoming that year's biggest movie, picking up a Best Picture Oscar along the way.
Rocky's story of a journeyman boxer getting his shot at the big time is the perfect encapsulation of seventies movies' ability to intermingle a convincing, downbeat blue collar environment with a fairytale narrative, something that makes it a good fit for a more positive spin on a Joker-style DC adaptation.
Fortunately, DC do already have their own blue collar boxer who exists as something of an underdog outside the realm of DC's big name stars: Wildcat.
Ted Grant shares with Rocky struggles with an impoverished background and serious injury (he was paralysed for a while in the comics), a mentor in the form of a down on his luck ex-champ (Rocky's Mickey becoming Ted's Golden Age mentor "Socker" Smith), and colourful rivals who aren't too bothered about doing permanent damage in the ring (for "Clubber" Lang or Ivan Drago read "Crusher" Crock AKA Sportsmaster).
As Joker shows, in a world in which even Spider-Man is the pet project of a billionaire tech guru, there's a demand for more stories of comic book characters who just struggle to make ends meet. A take on Wildcat that incorporated one of cinema's iconic blue collar heroes would do just that.