Jessica Jones: 10 Reasons Why Marvel's Films Simply Can't Compete
5. The Format Works Better For Adapting Source Material
Adapting a six-issue mini series may be doable on film, but anything longer and stuff will have to be sacrificed to fit into that two hour running time. Logic then dictates that TV shows are the best place for comics to be, even if it does come at the expense of a blockbuster budget and all the considerable press that's commonplace for summer cinema releases. Take this year's Daredevil for example - the series managed to include influences from multiple comics storylines that spanned hundreds of issues, decades and creative teams. Consolidating all this into a film would manage to catch some of the magic that made these stories great, but having it all take place in a TV show would (and does) include so much more of what makes the medium so special. TV is such a fantastic format for Comic Books to get adapted to because not only are the hours longer, there's less studio interference too. Nowhere in Jessica Jones will you see a forced cameo from The Falcon or a director parting ways over 'creative differences' as a result of studio interference, and that's just the way it should be.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
