The Justice

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, a principle Hollywood has most certainly taken to heart. In the 1960s, major hits in the musical genre, like My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, led to a string of lesser knockoff musicals, most of which were expensive disasters like Doctor Dolittle or Camelot. More recently, the commercial and critical success of Gladiator led to a string of mediocre sword-and-sandals epics, from Troy to Alexander. The problem isn't just Hollywood's propensity toward copying success; it's that they tend to be so bad at it.

The latest trend is the superhero genre, which has quickly become Hollywood's most consistent big moneymaker. While it may feel like Hollywood has only recently begun mining comic books for material, the genre dates back to 1978's Richard Donner-directed hit, Superman. Though the one-two punch of Superman 2 and Tim Burton's Batman would both be enormous successes for Hollywood in the 80s, the string of sequels and knockoffs would prove more than disappointing. Superman 3 and 4 are surely among the worst movies you have never seen, and though Batman Returns was a solid sequel, the Joel Schumacher-directed Batman and Robin and Batman Forever proved embarrassing for the franchise. If that weren't enough, a string of attempts to copy Batman and Superman's early successes were mostly failures, including long forgotten films like Supergirl and The Punisher. By the end of the '90s, it seemed as if the superhero genre had died out before it had ever gotten its chance to truly shine.

But a funny thing happened at the turn of the century, when Hollywood began to realize that DC Comics superheroes weren't the only big name in town. Though a Marvel Comics character would make his big screen debut in 1997's critically appreciated though quickly forgotten Spawn, the arrival of X-Men in 2000 would mark a major shift for the superhero genre. Not only did the film's great commercial success (nearly $300 million worldwide) almost single-handedly revitalize the genre, but the fact that a critically acclaimed director like Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil) would take on a comic book franchise helped lead the way for other successful directors to follow. From Sam Raimi doing the Spiderman series to Ang Lee taking on The Hulk, and finally to Guillermo Del Toro manning Hellboy I and II, it has become perfectly acceptable for a critically acclaimed, even Oscar-nominated director to take on a big-budget Hollywood superhero film.

Continued...

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