One of the things that we’re hoping to do more in the future with PJ Lifestlye and PJ Tatler is to use the shorter blog format to develop ideas that will then be polished up for longer, full-length PJM articles. We’re going to look to PJM’s commenters to provide arguments that will help shape the direction the PJM articles ultimately take. In this way the blog medium can be taken to an even more explicit level of reader-writer collaboration as we all work together to make sense of the world.
I’d like to begin this New Media experiment with a lighthearted subject appropriate for the middle of the Summer season: a discussion of the comic book blockbusters. Each year more seem to be released, and maybe it’s just me but is the level of quality rising? One can only imagine how the third Batman film will be in Summer 2012…
As the genre moves forward it’s worth thinking about what comic properties Hollywood has yet to touch that they should. So here’s my first guesses as to an attempt at ranking the 10 comics that I think would make successful, provocative summer blockbusters. This list is a work in progress. I hope that PJM readers will be able correct my mistakes and offer up better suggestions or a more accurate order. I’ll be laying out 4 parts today, 4 parts tomorrow, and the last 2 on Monday — each post scheduled throughout the day.
Initial thoughts on the comic and the film will be short and basic — the titles decided on for the final PJM article will be longer and more in depth with sharper arguments enhanced by the credited thoughts of PJM’s best commenters.
What I most want to figure out is: which titles have the potential to become the most satisfying, effective films? The ultimate ranking will be based on that criterion, not necessarily which comic is “better” than the other. Suggestions of which actors, screenwriters, and directors would be most appropriate for each film would be appreciated.
So let’s begin:
10. Doctor Doom
This metal-masked sorcerer, dictator, and technological master was featured in the first Fantastic Four movie BY NAME but the character had nothing to do with the actual arch villain featured in the comics. The REAL Doctor Doom — who is a much more intimidating, powerful, threatening character — should be explored in his own film and fought perhaps by the Avengers.
There’s the potential here for whoever the actor is who plays Doom to really deliver a major career performance the way Robert Downey Jr. and Christian Bale have. And the creation of the Doom character would combine the technological elements of Iron Man with the magical reality of Thor.The storytelling potentials here are many.
What actor would do a good job as the character and who should direct the film?
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