2. Balance As Well As Broaden Your Appeal
Comics fans wont make a movie a monster hit on their own theyll buy umpteen tickets, but there just arent enough of them. Ten years ago in December 2005 (before Marvel made successful films that would increase their comics sales), Marvels New Avengers #14 was the number three selling comic in the world, and sold 124,301 issues. This years Avengers: Age Of Ultron has made $1.4billion worldwide in ticket sales alone, meaning that Marvels tapped into the mainstream audience that was essential to see these incredibly expensive films make a profit. And theyve done it without ignoring or talking down to the fans of the comics that theyve adapted to the big screen. Sure, not every Avengers fan is over the moon with how things have gone, but weve seen bad comics adaptations, and Marvel dont do them. Green Lantern, Batman & Robin, The Spirit 2004s horrible Catwoman film even ignored the comics and her relationship with Batman to bring to the screen a completely different character. WWE want to appeal to casual fans of their particular sports entertainment brand of professional wrestling, as well as the hardcore fans. The idea is that if the product is family friendly, thats two or three or more tickets sold per household. If the kids love WWE, the dads get them the pay-per-views and buy them t-shirts, toys and DVDs. They also have highly lucrative licensing deals with Mattel, the toy manufacturer. The upshot of all this is that WWEs appeal, like Marvels appeal, needs to be broad in order for the company to continue making good money when wrestling was no longer in a boom period. The difference is that Marvel don't talk down to the rabid fans. Marvel at least pay lip service to respecting our opinions. Marvel don't encourage their executives and biggest stars to run interviews where they express contempt for us and belittle our views. And, of course, there comes a point where homogenising your product removes everything that was cool about it in the first place and thats when the casual fans begin to lose interest. Marvel has proven that theres room for casual moviegoers and hardcore comics fans to enjoy the same superhero movies - theyre quality popcorn flicks that dont screw over the source material. WWE are currently experiencing some of the lowest weekly television ratings in years, and Paul Triple H Levesque recently confirmed in a conference call that theyre not sure how to fix whats wrong with the product. Youre making Green Lantern, Haitch. Stop, before you slide into Halle Berry territory.
Jack Morrell
Contributor
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
See more from
Jack