Anghus Houvouras on the rules of the reboot….
So many comic books are being brought to the big screen that it feels almost critical that they evolve beyond origin stories and break free from the tyranny of their genre. The danger of all these comic book films has always been a vicious cycle of release, relapse, and reboot. Allow me to explain.
RELEASE
The cycle starts with the release of a comic book film. In the past, fans had waited 10, 20, 30 years or more for their favorite characters to get the big screen treatment. There was a ridiculous amount of goodwill stored up and fans were extremely forgiving. Just seeing the comic book icons of their youth on the big screen was a thrill they never thought they would achieve.
RELAPSE
The comic book movie is a hit. Now the studio rolls a sequel into production. More often than not, the stakes are raised and everything is amplified to a ridiculous degree. Multiple story lines and characters are strip mined to cobbled together to try and create something epic. Most of the time the second film takes the best parts of the original and tries to build on them. If the second film is still a bankable proposition, the studio doubles down and brings us a third installment.
More often than not, the third film ends up trying to pack even more in. Shoehorn in more story lines and characters to the point that the fans are bored and creatively the series has nowhere left to go. Which leaves studios with only one option:
REBOOT
It’s amazing that you only have to back less than 20 years to find a time when comic book movies were sparsely released and not dominant on the cinematic landscape. It really wasn’t until X-Men and Spider-Man in the early 2000’s that this modern surge began. I say ‘amazing’ because within that 20 year period we’ve already established the rules for rebooting a series, and the window is a remarkably short 10 years.
You could say the reboot window was already established by the original Batman films which were a pop culture phenomenon in 1989 and was creatively out of steam in 1997. Spider-Man took the same route with three hugely successful installments launching in 2002 before director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire parted ways with the webslinger. In 2012 we got The Amazing Spider-Man reboot via Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield. This 10 year reboot cycle (give or take) seems pretty consistent.
Batman Begins: 2004 / Batman vs. Superman: 2015
X-Men: 2000 / X-Men: First Class: 2011
Fantastic Four: 2004 / The Fantastic Four (Take 2): 2015
Superman Returns: 2006 / Man of Steel: 2013
By this logic, expect new versions of Thor, Captain America and Iron Man right around 2018, whether you want it or not.
The rules are becoming clearly defined. You get a ten year window for a comic book character. After that, the reset button is hit and you start over again. Whether the property is successful or not. That’s the most troubling part of this new paradigm. Even if it works, even if all the cylinders are firing, there’s still a life cycle.
There are exceptions both ways. The Hulk was rebooted a handful of years after Ang Lee’s perplexing take on the character. On the other end of the cycle, Fox has been wringing every last drop of sweat out of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine who seems appropriately unkillable. With the announcement of The Wolverine 2 (which is actually the third solo Wolverine movie), Jackman could manage to outlive the cycle, or wear out his welcome depending in your point of view.
Maybe the 10 year cycle isn’t such a bad thing. It brings in new perspectives and gives filmmakers opportunities to tell new stories. We got Burton’s take on Batman, then Schumacher’s. The window closes, and Christopher Nolan comes in to reopen it with his own take on the character. Certainly for fans of all the different and unique stories, the 10 year cycle allows for these stories to be told outside the constraints of prior continuity.
It’s a little too early to tell if the cycle is a good thing or a bad thing. We’re still in the formative years of these franchises, but im curious to see if this trend continues. It seems like every 10 years we’ll get a new Batman, Spider-Man, and The Avengers.
How do we feel about that?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon.
Originally published March 26, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
