The Other Comic Book Movies

I don’t know about you, but when I think about movies based on comic books or graphic novels, I quickly think of those ending in the word “Man” or “Men” be it Super, Bat, Spider, Iron, X, or Watch.

The comic book movie is a genre mostly associated with the last 35 years, starting in 1978 with the release of Superman with Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman. This was really the first-time a comic book property got the proper big-screen treatment, with a well-known director (Richard Donner, coming off 1976’s The Omen) and big stars. The film would not, however, open the floodgates to other comic book properties except for its own sequels (which got continually worse with each entry).

In 1989, the next massive comic book adaptation would come: Tim Burton’s Batman, starring Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, and Kim Basinger… and a funky soundtrack from Prince. For those who weren’t born or were too young, Batman was unquestionably one of the most anticipated movies of all time upon its release. The marketing team behind the film in particular did an amazing job with its promotion. There were kids getting the Batman signal shaved into the backs of their head, for goodness sake. Batman would spawn three sequels, like Superman. And they also got pretty bad (culminating with the embarrassing Batman and Robin in 1997).

It really wasn’t until 2000 with the release of Bryan Singer’s X-Men that the studios realized that there were a LOT of comic book properties that could made into films. One could make the argument that 1998’s Blade really started the trend.

Either way, in the last twelve years, we’ve seen a ton of comic book movies. Most of them were successful: the X-Men series, the Spiderman series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Iron Man and its sequel, The Avengers, Thor, Captain America, and Hellboy and its sequel. Some were met with mixed results: Watchmen, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four movies, and Hulk and The Incredible Hulk all performed pretty well at the box office, but were met with mixed critical and audience reaction. And there was the occasional bomb: Green Hornet with Ryan Reynolds. From a box office standpoint, if you look at the Top 50 Movie Openings of All Time, nearly a fourth (12) are based on comic books or graphic novels.

The movies mentioned above are all examples of ones that may immediately spring to mind if I say “comic book movie”. But if you take a closer look, there are several movies based on either comic books or graphic novels that you might not know were. Here’s some examples:

2002’s Road to Perdition, with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig, is based on a graphic novel.

So is 2001’s From Hell, starring Johnny Depp which focuses on the hunt for Jack the Ripper.

How about 2008’s Wanted with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy? It is too.

I certainly wouldn’t have known David Cronenberg’s top-notch thriller A History of Violence comes from a graphic novel.

And here’s two Bruce Willis flicks based on comic book/graphic novel properties: 2009’s Surrogates and 2010’s Red.

Going back quite a bit further, 1985’s guilty pleasure comedy Weird Science comes from the pages of a comic book.

So does the notoriously bad 1986 film Howard the Duck.

Others include 2007’s hit 300, the successful Men in Black films, Jean Claudde Van Damme’s 1994 action flick Timecop, and last year’s Cowboys and Aliens. 

It’s clear to see the influence of comic books and graphic novels on film has been much more than heroes in capes, even though that’s what we think of first.