Cuz sexualizing her more would be redundant? The issue I could ever bring w/ the females in the X-Men trilogy (well not anymore...I guess) is that the writing for them has been pretty weak. In fact...all the characters have been weak in there aside from Logan, Xavier, and Magneto. Those are the strongest ones. Anyone else gets their moments but the scripting for them isn't all that great.

I disagree. He didn't sexualize them enough.

I don't think these were ever intended to be jerk flicks.

I didn't have any issues with the women in Singer's X-Men movies. I also disagree that they were weak, as I thought both Rogue (in #1) and Jean (in #2) got decent time in an otherwise Wolverine centric story. Didn't see a need to sexualize any of them, although I would have loved to see a proper incarnation of Psylocke in her costume.

I think that X-Men is why we got so many good comic book movies. Before then, nobody really liked comic book movies except niche genre fans. There was Superman ... in the 70's and 80's. But that's about it.

X-Men came out. It was fun. It had class. The genre was there. But they also spent time on the story and characters.

Agreed. But Hollywood has gone so far since then. The Avengers make X-Men look like a joke... hell, X-Men First Class makes the original X-Men look like a joke.

Did they need to be?

Rogue in X1 was fine. The story sets it up for her to be what she is. X2 didn't do her any favors though.

Burton's Batman in the early 90s and Blade in the late 90s...

It would have been better to. Instead we get a sweaty Wolverine at every turn.

While I do wish there was more a proper dynamic in the team, waaaaay too much Woverine for these team movies, I don't think the sexuality in Singer's films are an issue. Mystique is naked for the love of Jesus titty fuckin' Christ. I think that's enough sexualized females for the films Singer had. Hu was pretty good looking too. Berry...well..that character was boring for sure. And Paquin...had the young girl dynamic..soooo not much to tread there.

They were "sexualized" enough.

Yet neither spawned a trend. Comic book movies were greenlit because of the success of X-Men.

Batman spawned Dick Tracy, The Phantom, and The Shadow. The problem was all of those flopped, killing the trend in its tracks.

X-Men might have kick started the comic book movie trend we've got going right now but I think the big one was really Spider-Man to be honest. That movie seemed like it got huge and afterwards more seemed to follow.

Also the Flash TV series was heavily influenced by Burton's Batman.

To say that Burton's Batman wasn't huge and only loved by a small niche comic group is ignorant. Burton's Batman ignited Batmania in the general population such as hadn't been seen since the 1960s Adam West Batman era.

Blade was also a huge blockbuster. That's where the trend of Marvel movies truly began. Although I guess the problem there is most people probably didn't realize it was a Marvel comic book movie, but rather most people probably just thought of it as a kick ass vampire movie.

This seems like hyperbole. Blade was the 29th highest grossing movie of 1998, making around 70 million. It was certainly a success compared to it's budget and and expectations, but it was by no means a "huge blockbuster."

It made a million more than Lost in Space.

Batman was good, in it's own Tim Burton way. It lead to a trend of trying out a bunch of failed comic book movies (Dick Tracey, The Shadow, The Phantom).

They also tapped into something when they started making these movies take place in a 'real world'. Not to say that they're making things "realistic". But we had X-Men and the political setting, Captain America as a covert WWII hero, Nolan's Batman in a Gothem where the rest of the world exists.

I don't think "real world" has anything to do with it. Personally I think it has to do with treating the material and your audience with respect. Look at Burton's Batmans. Both are fantastical but treat the material seriously. Then look at Schumacher's Batmans. Just as fantastical but makes light of the material and treats the audience like morons.

Perception is a funny thing. Lost in Space was widely considered a bomb, right? Must be a razor thin line if Blade is a "huge blockbuster" right above it.

I know we've had this discussion before (maybe in this thread) but despite it's comic origins(and consternation from comic fans), Blade is a vampire movie not a comic book/superhero movie. Blade is more responsible for spawning Underworld and Twilight than spawning X-Men or Spiderman.

True, all those are easily forgettable. It would have helped if they had picked more modern and recognizable comics to adapt.

Sort of. Spiderman definitely kicked Hollywood into comic book overdrive but wasn't it in development hell for a decade before X-men came along? Spidey doesn't get off the ground without the success of X-men.

Spidey even had a cameo in X-Men.

Without knowing the budgets for each, their box office take is irrelevant.

One had much higher expectations than the other. One is a PG-13, expensive Sci-fi flick, the other is an R rated bloody action flick.

I don't know why they thought Lost in Space would benefit from the bloodiness but it was the best feature. To note, Blade had a $45m budget (Amazing that that's only about $18m less than The Matrix and the effects were oh so fucking terrible.) and was release in late August. Lost in Space had an $80m budget, substantially more advertising and an April release date.

Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back was shot in 2001 and there was a comment in that flick about X-men kick starting the whole new trend of Comic Book buy ups. So I'm going to assume it was a thing before Spider-man. (Yes, I'm using a Kevin Smith movie as evidence for something. -Magnolia Fan.)

Blade made minimal impact afaik, since it was more associated with being an R-rated action flick.

X-men was never a particularly great movie but it was solid enough and entertaining, it took the genre a little more seriously and had more than competent acting (despite some terrible dialog in spots). X2 is still the best of that series, with X-men First Class in a distant second.

True, but generally speaking there are still widely used general markers for success regardless of budget. (just tossing out numbers...)$100m = success, $200m blockbuster, $300m+ HUGE Blockbuster.

Blade can be a success based on its budget but based on it's return it was never a blockbuster that made any kind of cultural impact.

Maybe I'm over thinking this.

I'm not sure if it's a case of taking the material seriously or not as simply being a difference between bad and good films. I mean, Men in Black did not take its source material seriously, and was a big hit. And Adam West's Batman series and film didn't take the source material seriously, but was a hit in its time.

Whether a film is a bomb or not is very relative to its budget. Lost In Space made $69 million domestic, on a budget of $80 million. Blade made $70 million domestic, on a budget of $45 million. So Blade likely recouped its budget after factoring in overseas, video, etc. Blade was certainly successful enough to warrant 2 more theatrical sequels.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1998/LOSTI.php
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1998/BLADE.php

I can certainly see a more direct line from Blade to Underworld than from Blade to Spiderman. But while Blade may not have been a traditional superhero movie, It likely lead studios to more seriously consider comic books as sources for movie material.

I just remembered another film from this era, Darkman. Sam Raimi reportedly made this film after failing to secure the rights to The Shadow or Batman. So it seems like film rights for many comics may have been tied up around this time, or simply hard to acquire. There was also the 1990 Captain America film that ended up going straight to video in the US a few years later, and the 1994 Fantastic Four film that was made just to keep the film rights. So potentially more recognizable properties were either tried or in their own versions of development hell.


Spiderman was more a victim of litigation for the decade before it was made than it was of any studio ennui. Considering that Columbia gave up the possibility of mounting its own James Bond series in exchange for the rights to Spiderman in 2000, and attached Sam Raimi to direct in January of 2001, before X-Men premiered, the evidence suggests that Spiderman would've gotten made even without X-Men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-...lm#Development


This page shows the box office of Comic Book films and shows that while X-Men provided a bump in 2000, it wasn't really until 2002, when Spiderman was released, that Comic Book films really took off:
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/so...-Graphic-Novel

Also it wasn't that X-men grossed super high by Blockbuster standards, it's the fact it grossed $54m on it's opening weekend.

Which at the time (2000) was the highest non-sequel opening to date.

The thing that gets ignored though is Spider-man was always expected to be huge, it's Spider-man. X-men isn't considered to be in the same tier as Spider-man, Batman, Superman. With the success of X-men the studios started to pursue "second tier" super heroes for movie adaptations, which is why we ended up with Hulk, Dare Devil, Fantastic Four, etc; X-men got a lot of the movies started well before Spider-man was put in theaters, for better or worse.

Even without X-men, imo, Spider-man/Superman/TDK Trilogy would have still happened. Less likely that we would have had The Avengers, Thor, two Hulk movies, Iron Man, Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four, etc; in their current form.

Actually the Adam West series was very faithful to the comics of the time. The Batman comics of the 50s and 60s were just as cheeseball as the TV series was. It wasn't until the 70s that Denny O'Neil turned Batman into the "Dark Knight Detective" and the comics started taking a more mature turn.

Yep, it always amazes me how many people don't realize that and make fun of the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman series. For the time it was made it's a pretty damn accurate representation of Silver Age Batman comics.