If Sly Stallone and Julia Roberts were among Scott Pilgrim’s evil exes they’d be kicking his butt right about now. Game over, plot pulverized, movie mauled.
Young hipsters everywhere know that things are bad when Julia’s chick flick, Eat Pray Love, averages $2701 per screen on Friday-Saturday, putting Pilgrim’s $1423 to shame. Stallone’s The Expendables dwarfed “Mr. Pilgrim!” by an even larger margin. Take that you 20-something upstarts!
And yet, Edgar Wright made a good film, one that’s visually intriguing, a live action piece that effectively mimics comic books and video games, while moving at a pulse-quickening pace, with crackling dialogue, sharp characters and solid action sequences. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a movie tailor-made for the Comic-Con crowd, a wet dream for techno-nerds, a fanboy’s delight.
And yes, a giant commercial failure. Sent packing by a has been action star who’s 64, and a one time movie queen who’s 42.
Seems fitting in a way. Hollywood has been suckling at the feet of the comic-book crowd for several years without remorse. Most studios act as if the #1 place to find movie material is whatever the over-consuming, media savvy 20-something and younger crowd happens to love. Of course, flicks based on comics have done well. Witness Iron Man. But that classic multi-panel epic has a long history. Even old dudes who wear toupees and work in office cubicles used to read Iron Man when they were kids. Dare I mention that Robert Downey Jr. is 45 years old?
Scotty Pilgrim is a different breed, a newer creation. And while that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be commercially successful, the lesson here is that over-consuming media savvy teens and 20-somethings aren’t enough to make a film a hit (even if the movie is well made). That’s my take-away.
So you better wake up Mr. and Ms. Movie Exec, and smell the colored ink before it’s too late. We’ve got Thor and The Avengers on the way, not to mention Green Lantern and a slew of others in the pipeline, with Nemesis, Last Man Standing and more to follow. If you want to renew that Benz lease, maybe upgrade, if your career plans involve sitting in that corner office your douchebag of a boss now occupies, if you dream of shepharding giant films through the system, flicks that bring big bucks and personal glory, you best remember that Harry Knowles and his legions are important but they’re only a starting point.
Forget the rest of us at your peril.
Rooney Mara’s Screen Test As Lisbeth Salander Is The Hottest Piece Of Film In Hollywood
See Also:
 Men In Black III Global Dates By Country |
 Blue Pill Or Red Pilll Your Choice |
 Art House Spotlight: Drexel Theatre Columbus, OH |
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
One does wonder if somewhere down the track there might be a “saturation point” for the various Marvel and DC comic book heroes invading the big screen.
I guess the short answer is, no one knows.
With the upcoming Thor, Captain America, and, probably the big one, the Avengers, I have a sense of an interest out there well beyond the traditional comic book fan base.
Thor, in particular, seems to offer something different from the ordinary comic book hero.
As an Aussie science fiction writer I’ve been a Marvel Thor fan since the original Journey into Mystery of August 1962.
If you get a chance check out some of my Marvel (mainly Thor) fan fiction. Just scroll down below my author profile and you will see over 40 fan fiction stories here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1276881/David_Scholes
Maybe also check out my new novella. Only just released as an e-book on Xlibris and also now available in Kindle edition on Amazon:
http://www.xlibris.com/SoldieroftheBrell.html
Cheers
{ 1 trackback }