you wanna do what now? to whom?

profit.  there are very few aspects of our lives that the impetus to generate profit doesn’t reach.  sometimes, it can lead us to excel and reach for new levels of excellence and achievement for a mutual advancement of all parties concerned, and other times, it can exploit the darkness of mankind and make wretched all the good things that it touches.

DC-Warner Bros. want to “reboot” superman.  i’ve known about this for a few weeks now, and it has been burning at the base of my spine since i found out.  the last movie that Time-Warner released in the superman saga, superman returns,  “underperformed” the expectations that executives had of it.  true, it cost an incredible amount of money to make (e$timated cost - $270 million) and only pulled in about $200 million at the box-office (although it pulled in over $50 million on its opening weekend – and who knows how much overseas and in DVD sales and post-launch revenues and licensing revenue), making it a clear loser when compared on the balance sheet to something like “the dark knight” which cost a paltry $160 million and, with its incredibly long box-office legs, has pulled in over $510 million (with all the same additional revenue streams).  there is no argument that batman supremely kicked superman’s ass where it mattered most (to profiteers) – in ticket sales and entertainment value on the big screen and popularity among the ticket-buying public.

DC executives have decided that superman was not properly “positioned”  in the market and that the approach to presenting superman needs to be reworked.  here is an excerpt that i’ve been reading and re-reading to be sure that i understand what the problem is:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes -- known as "Batman vs. Superman" -- after the $215 million "Superman Returns," which had disappointing box-office returns, didn't please executives. "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Mr. Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned." "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009," he adds. "But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121936107614461929.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news)

so here is my problem.  superman is a character who embodies uniqueness, selflessness, self-sacrifice for the greater good, and a by-design limitless capacity to pursue that purpose.  everyone knows about the infant orphan, launched from his parent’s doomed homeworld in the very last seconds, to arrive on earth and show mankind how to be nice and good and fetch cats from trees and cower at the sight of phosphorescent green rocks.  how do you retool that to make it “darker” or “grittier”?  how do you take an iconic figure who for 70 years, for generations and generations, has inspired people to try and be kinder or stronger or more caring, and make him more “batman-like”?  what is the cost of turning something that you could look up to and admire and seek to emulate, as unattainable as it is by the sheer impossibility of the target, and make more money out of it?  what does it say about the people who make that decision, or the people who would be gratified by that motive?  what does that say about us – the consumers of that entertainment/inspirational commodity?

for me, the impossibility of superman (not unlike the impossibility of any other messianic figure), the constancy of his convictions to do good and what is right, the strength and will to try because he is compelled to do so, even in the most contrived and fictitious way that pulp fiction can allow, the invulnerability of his commitment to behave in a manner that is helpful and just and honourable (and of course, the wicked cool abilities of flight, indestructibility, limitless speed and strength, and most importantly, x-ray vision) – all of these things make the superman myth too compelling an influence to ignore (well, for me anyway).  now, greedy executives and stockholders want to fuck with that paradigm and make him conflicted, challenged, uncertain, and dark.  they want to make him like any other hero – like bruce wayne, tony stark, or logan, or that banner fellow (who has had more “reboots” than anyone in comic history, i think).  i just cringe at the thought.

one more expert opinion should be heard on the subject.  james marsden, who has crossed comic allegiance boundaries and played in both marvel and DC storylines (X-men and Superman), commented on the relative failure of superman and what that would mean to the franchise:

"Honestly, my theory is that the white bread element of Superman or the virtuous element of Superman wasn't that exciting to young people, the videogame generation. You've got to have some edgy, kick-ass dark side to the character to make people want to be him," Marsden said. "There was something old school, virtuous - which I actually loved - and white bread about Superman that didn't resonate so much. I loved the movie that Brian made. But maybe I'm the anomaly and I don't represent what young fans want to see."

In the end, Marsden doesn't think that Warner's decision to go darker is a good one - but a necessary one, he said.

"[Audiences] want to see darkness and Superman doesn't represent that. I like that about him, but honestly that's the reason why," Marsden continued. "Look at 'The Dark Knight' and Christian Bale. He's the hero but there's a kick-ass darkness to him. Or Wolverine and 'X-Men.' Superman was virtuous and the reluctant superhero. He never told a lie. He eats apple pie. I don't know if that's something the young kids want to aspire to. It's kind of sad to me."  (http://www.supermanhomepage.com/news.php?readmore=5488)

i see people on the street everyday who show their superman colours.  t-shirts, bags, tattoos, ok – mostly t-shirts – but all of them indications that the superman mythos means something to them and that they, like the man of steel, believe in unequivocal goodness and a will to see truth and justice prevail.  the thought that the profit motive is the real puppet master in the evolution of that ideal sickens and saddens me.  it might almost be time to think of a new myth to which to adhere and draw inspiration.  maybe it will be ziggy or dilbert.  or maybe i need to make up my own so that i’m not tied to some external influence that will eventually make me sick.  or maybe i need to realize that it’s just a comic.

- g

song of the day for needing to be saved from your own illusions: save me, remy zero