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.
Celebrity death cult where were you? Soul Men, featuring the final performance from Bernie Mac, underperformed over the weekend, placing only sixth with $5.6 million. I guess you preferred his other final film, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which achieved the best debut of 2008 for an animated film with $63.5 million. The other big opener was Role Models, which did better than expected with a second-placing $19.3 million. All thanks to Jane Lynch’s bagel dog trick, I’m hoping.
Despite YouTube video being possibly the worst format in which to watch movies online, MGM is licensing some of its titles (no 007 movies, unfortunately) to the site for full-length streaming.
Joe Johnston, who has a Best Visual Effects Oscar for work on Raiders of the Lost Ark, has been hired by Marvel to direct First Avenger: Captain America. And I’m probably the only one who’s now hoping the comic book adaptation is reminiscent of the Johnston-directed The Rocketeer.
I’m pretty sure I am not related to actor Bill Campbell, but I am sure that we think alike, at least when it comes to desires for a Rocketeersequel. Campbell, who starred as the title character in Disney’s 1991 superhero adventure, tells MTV Movies Blog that he’s still interested in the idea of a Rocketeer 2:
“I was talking to [writer] Dave Stevens just the night before last. We always talked about having a sequel,” Campbell confessed. “[Unfortunately] the movie didn’t make as much money as Disney had hoped and that coupled with the acrimonious relationship that the director [Joe Johnston] and the studio had contributed to them not even considering it.”
Yes, like Timothy Dalton in that awesome clip above, The Rocketeer unfortunately crashed and burned. And considering its been almost 17 years since the first film and there’s been nothing to indicate the public is more interested in pulpy period superheroes than they were back then, Rocketeer 2 is never going to happen. Even if now Oscar-winning actors Jennifer Connelly and Alan Arkin and now Emmy-winning actor Terry O’Quinn (John Locke on Lost) wanted to return, I doubt Disney would even discuss the chance. But that’s a shame, because if I remember correctly (and I must admit I haven’t seen the thing since it came out — when I was a just a teen), the original was a blast. Anyway, I’d like the idea to at least be thought about. Hollywood is making another attempt at a Shadow movie after failing back in the ’90s, so why not this ’30s-era tale, too?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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