The Superhero Death Problem
"Iron Man" inspired me to write a superhero movie. Not because it was so great but rather because it was so capable and that alone made seems to have made it great. Also, I wanted to create some superheroes so that I could overcome the shortcoming that most every superhero movies struggles with: their character's lack of mortality.
That's not to say "Iron Man" is invincible but there's also no way in hell that he's going to die in the first Iron Man film. Or the second. Or the third. The Joker might be one hell of an antagonist but you pretty much know from the get go that his plan "Kill the Bat Man" isn't going to pan out as he hopes. To me, this presents an issue because then any battle becomes more about "How will they get out of this?" rather than "Will they get out of this?" This limits the tension and, unfortunately, the cleverness of the escape usually isn't enough to make up for it. So while a film about a brand new gang of superheroes won't have the all-important marketing tie-in, I think it could have an upper-hand in having disposable superheroes.
That's not to say that you can just off a superhero and live off of the shock value. X3 and Transformers (spoilers ahead) basically taught Hollywood how NOT to kill beloved characters. In X3, Cyclops dies off camera. Professor X's demise comes with a surprising lack of heft, tension, or even interest. Jean Grey's apparent death in X2 was done much better. You saw the struggle, you could sense loss, you felt the death. In X3, you didn't even see one of the major deaths. You just got a pair of suped-up Ray-Bans floating around. Transformers might have actually been worse because a lot of people who saw the film didn't even know Jazz died. The action in that film was so dizzying that when Megatron ripped the Autobot in half, most people weren't aware what was happening. Perhaps the only thing worse than an off-screen death is an on-screen death that doesn't register at all with a surprising portion of the audience.
Theoretically, I should be able to write a script with some more tension because the heroes aren't attached and any of them could get offed at any moment. That can't be the be-all and end-all of the script. Thankfully, a few years ago I wrote a now-lost-in-the-internet ether article about "How to Write a Summer Blockbuster". I think it's about time I put my money-making-talent-that-isn't-making-me-any-money where my mouth (or, in this case, my fingers) is. The plan now is to try to write one scene a week and post them as they go along. Is that a wise move? Not at all. Then again, making a superhero film without any sort of marketing tie-in doesn't make any sense either so let's hope simple mathmatics holds true in Hollywood and two negatives make a positive.
The going odds of me actually keeping up with this are slim-to-none but hopefully it will get writing more often and help me finish some of my other stalled or embryonic projects (of which there are many).
