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The Spirit and the Graveyard of Failed Superheroes

The Spirit and the Graveyard of Failed Superheroes

Kevin Kelly
By Kevin Kelly posted 10 months ago
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The Spirit drove straight into Tanksville last weekend, earning only $6.5 million dollars. But before we can claim that we saw it coming and gloat over its still-warm corpse, it might just be a sign that old-school comic book / radio / serial heroes just can’t make it with today’s audiences. Why is it that Batman and Superman can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars, but heroes that are arguably just as interesting end up tanking at the box office?

Producers have tried to revive the nostalgic exploits of the cadre of “The” named heroes of yesteryear ranging from The Lone Ranger to The Shadow, but each time the box office take has been far less than the studios had hoped for, and the grand plans for a franchise of movies, action figure tie-ins, and a breakfast cereal get canceled. Below is a list of the high-profile attempts to revive old heroes that have fallen flat on their masked faces.

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Twilight Suddenly Looks Awesome. Clip of the Day

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago
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I knew from the recent Hollywood Reporter feature on Twilight that Summit Entertainment planned to release a new trailer more geared toward a male audience, but I never would have guessed they’d do such a damn good job of it. I’ve been hating on this movie from the beginning, but now part of me is actually thinking I’d like to see it. And I bet a lot of teenage boys will be thinking the same, only more so.

This is pure genius marketing, and it would have been in Summit’s favor to have gone this route all along. What with superheroes so huge right now, why hadn’t they already tried to sell this thing as being like a comic book movie rather than a sappy adaptation of goth chick lit? Wasn’t that bit of dialogue referencing Spider-Man and Superman in the film the whole time? Such a line needs to be exploited, and it’s a shame the fledgling studio took so long to employ it. This trailer is seriously what Summit should have shown at Comic-Con.

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