AdapNation: Spawn Remake

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels, crossovers and remakes.

It really should come as no surprise to anybody that Superheroes have become big business in Hollywood recently.  Movies like Batman and Superman were always hugely successful, but since 2000, the genre has boomed into being one of the blockbuster season's safest bets.  The fact that movies like Days of Future Past, Age of Ultron and Man of Steel are at this point a foregone conclusion.

Since Marvel proved that shared universes are pretty much the only way to go about making superhero movies these days, however, the expanding field of superhero movies has been stuck in a pretty strict binary: Marvel movies and DC movies.  Sure, some (like Fantastic Four and X-Men) have come from different studios, but you never see anything coming from a third party these days.

The last time that we saw Hellboy was in 2008: the same year that Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Sky High was in 2005.  The Crow was in 1994.  And whether people know it or not, Watchmen and Big Hero 6 are directly lifted from the DC and Marvel comics of the same names.

People talk about "the superhero bubble" like it hasn't already burst.  Marvel's been quietly reacquiring its film properties for years now, from Daredevil to Hulk, and now even have Spider-Man back within their fold.  The only holdouts are those owned by Fox, who won't be giving those up anytime soon.  The world went from having nearly a dozen different players in the superhero game to just three, two of which draw from the same batch of comic books.

The problem with this is that there are a lot of great comic properties that don't belong to either company.  There are your Hellboys, sure, but also your Witchblades and Darknesses too.  Spawn is particularly ripe for adaptation at the moment.

This isn't Spawn's first go-around the movie theater, however.  It had its shot in 1997, before Superheroes really broke out cinematically.  While I've always been reasonably happy with it, the sentiment isn't an especially popular one.  The film was clumsily plotted, relied far too heavily on under-developed CGI and never had the brand recognition that similarly dark heroes - like Batman - have always enjoyed.

Sure, it wasn't an abject failure at the box office, but it was a modest box office success at best.  It lost most of its following when it rotated out of theaters and its 19% on Rotten Tomatoes didn't do it any favors in finding an audience on DVD.  The movie never built up enough traction for a sequel, despite Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's best efforts to the contrary.

But a bad first impression shouldn't keep an otherwise goldmine of a property out of the movie business.  If that were the case, we'd never have gotten Hulk in the MCU after that God-awful first movie he was in.  Batman wouldn't have been able to recover from Batman and Robin and Superman wouldn't have been able to recover from The Quest for Peace, and Batman vs Superman is one of next year's most anticipated movies!

Even among the big-hitters, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more visually striking comic character than Spawn.  That's really the first movie's most endearing feature.  CG aside, it looks amazing.  The costume is easily one of the best in its genre and translates perfectly to film (unlike some others that I could mention).

He looks like some kind of demonic Black Panther with a cape straight out of Tim Burton's worst nightmare.  Pair that with a glowing pair of green eyes, and you have a protagonist that you're not likely to forget anytime soon.  And that's what Spawn has over Superman, Thor and even Batman: visual staying power.  Spawn simply leaves one hell of an impression.

His demonic powers are a natural extension of his visually arresting costume.  He can create spikes or chains from his body, fire blasts of necroplasmic energy, create a massive battle axe to fight with and basically anything else that he can imagine.  This is in addition to his lifetime of military and combative training and his unnaturally augmented strength, speed and healing factor.

Like Thor, the most interesting thing about Spawn was his apocalyptic promise.  But while the Thunderer Ragnarok, but Spawn has Armageddon: the final, devastating war between Heaven and Hell.  So if you're going to make a Spawn movie, you might as well make it with that as its end-game.

I'd imagine that the best way to go about the property is to plan it out as a trilogy, gradually expanding upon its universe to the point of Armageddon.  The first movie would detail Spawn's origins and his work as a Hellspawn, eventually breaking free of his dark master's will.  The second would focus on the coming war between Heaven and Hell, which would finally be realized in the final film.

The best part about this is that it could potentially be the first of a shared cinematic universe for Image Comics.  Cogliostro always struck me as being the kind of character that could support his own movie(s) (either prequels or spin offs).  The immeasurably titillating Witchblade would also be included in Image's lineup, herself overdue for a live-action movie.  Savage Dragon would essentially take the Hulk role in an Image Comics universe while Saga would take things cosmic (same as Guardians of the Galaxy).  Invincible, Chew, Outcast and Haunt could likewise round up the roster.

Given how much money superheroes make today without even trying, Image Comics is the most realistic third party contender to Marvel's and DC's stranglehold over the genre.  Marvel's proven time and time again that no-name properties can be the cornerstone of cinematic empires and DC's warming up the public to darker and more mature material.  Spawn is the perfect property to test the waters with.

So what other superheroes would you like to see get the big-screen treatment?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Guardians of the Force

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels, crossovers and remakes.

I think that it's pretty clear by now - in case it wasn't in years past - that Disney likes making money.  It's a really out-there concept, I know, but it's true.  They love it, in fact.  Why else would they have continued with their essentially money-printing princess movies since the 1930's?  Why else would they have bought out Marvel or Lucasfilm?  It's because with great fandoms come great profit margins.

So far, Papa Disney's been perfectly content with continuing their newly acquired franchises without much meddling (although certainly with more than their fair share of prodding).  It's pretty much been business as usual for the MCU, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  Hammer out roughly half a dozen movies across all of their tributary franchises each year and watch the money roll in.

But while they can pretty much indefinitely maintain this game plan and enjoy the profits that come with it, there's a surprisingly obvious way that they can radically increase their franchises' cash intake with very little in the way of risk.  The answer, of course, is inter-franchise crossovers: applying Marvel's monstrously successful formula to most - if not all - Disney-owned properties.

The beauty of the MCU is that with its rotating roster of franchises, no single hero ever outstays his or her welcome.  You're pretty much guaranteed to see every bankable Avenger going at it in a solo movie once per phase, but never any more than that (Iron Man 2 notwithstanding).

This means that while you only see a Thor or Captain America movie every couple of years, you can still go and see Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man in their down-time.  People who may not really care for The Incredible Hulk will still see his movie in order to be caught up for The Avengers and people who saw Age of Ultron will want to figure out what the Hell happened to S.H.I.E.L.D.  It's a shockingly effective way to keep demand for individual franchises high while cross-promoting the shared universe's other movies.

So why shouldn't this same cross-promotional template apply to other Disney-owned properties as well?  Why not tie Big Hero 6 or The Incredibles or even Indiana Jones to the MCU in a way that would get non-Marvel fans to care about the Avengers or, conversely, to get steadfast Marvel fans to care about these ancillary franchises?  There's an obvious Venn Diagram of crossover interest, but why not broaden their appeal as much as possible?

There's as great a wealth of crossover potential waiting to be tapped into now as there was with The Avengers, and we all know how well that went over with the general public.  More than any other company on the planet, Disney as the means, motive and popular franchises enough to make this plan work.  And the way that I see it, no two franchises have a greater potential to mesh together as Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars.

Think about it.  Between Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel's charged head first into the cosmic side of their stories.  And while Thor is certainly more fantasy-based than anything, Guardians of the Galaxy is pure science fiction.  In fact, in my review of the franchise, I went as far as to say that it's basically Star Wars by way of Indiana Jones.

The technology levels of the two franchises are roughly on par with one another, so there'd be no concerns about needing to nerf or amp up either one of them.  While Guardians may be a bit more comic and Star Wars a bit more epic, they still tonally sync up about as well as could be hoped for (and better than most of the other Marvel properties going into The Avengers).  Both have a wealth of characters and story lines that are left nebulously hanging around between the wholesale abandonment of Star Wars' Expanded Universe and Guardians' radical reimagining from their initial comic run.

Whatever happened to the Lost Tribe of the Sith?  What about the Yuuzhan Vong?  What's going on with Red Harvest or Death Troopers?  What about the Force Witches of Dathomir or the seemingly omnipotent Abeloth?  These are exceptional characters and narratives that have boundless potential in either franchise, but are inherently hampered by how closely tied to the original trilogy's characters they are (given how long a period has elapsed since those first three movies and how old the actors have gotten in the interim).

The thing is, though, that there are pretty solid analogies between the original trilogy's cast of characters and those of Guardians of the Galaxy.  While he might be a touch more immature than Luke, Starlord fills that same youthful, protagonistic role.  Just as Leia was in the first round of movies, Gamora is a tough-as-nails warrior with less incestuously-charged romantic ties to the series' foremost star.  Han and Chewie are represented on the Marvel side of things by foul-mouthed Rocket and the "limitedly vocabulistic" Groot.  Almost everything that you could do with the first set of characters you could similarly do with the second (plus Drax too, I guess).

I've long speculated that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is going to be a big screen adaptation of Planet Hulk, and that would be the perfect place to seed the Star Wars universe into Marvel.  Planet Sakaar features great gladiatorial arenas where prisoners of a thousand species are forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the masses.

Traditionally, this is where Hulk comes in: proving to be the greatest warrior that the planet has ever seen.  In my numerous speculations, this is likewise where the Guardians themselves come into play: Banner's fellow captives that must either fight alongside one another or die as separately.

The thing is, however, that they have to fight against somebody.  This role was originally filled by a combination of generic monsters and Marvel cameos (like Beta Ray Bill), but I don't see either of these being especially awesome to the casual observer.  Generic monster men are, well, generic, and Beta Ray Bill is hopelessly obscure from the outside looking in.  I like to think that I'm pretty up to date with most things Marvel, and even I had to do some digging to find out who the horse-faced Thor was.

Why not throw a Sith Saber into the mix: light saber and all? Why not throw in Boba Fett, who in the Expanded Universe escaped the Sarlacc Pitt on Tatooine and reclaimed his role as a big player in future stories?  You can throw in a troop of Wookies or some Twi'lek warriors as subtler nods to a much larger shared universe.  You could even toss in some Storm Troopers for a much less subtle nod to a greater universe being at play.

Just start throwing things at the wall and see what sticks.  If the references are met enthusiastically, then proceed with it.  If they're less unfavorably received, maybe you back down on those plans just a touch.  It's basically what Marvel did with Guardians of the Galaxy: transforming it into a hub for everything cosmic from Thanos to Nova to Howard the Duck.

The other option would be to run with the concept in a much more balls to the wall fashion.  What if instead of threading in a few ideas and then picking them up much further down the line, it's one of the Solo twins that have been tossed into the arena?  Surely the Sword of the Jedi (Jaina) and the future Darth Caidus (Jacen) would make for some good sport against the Hulk and Starlord.

The theory behind the recent changes to the mainstream Marvel universe has been speculated to have just as much to do with upselling the MCU's franchises (and subsequently downplaying those that they don't own the film rights to) as it does with making the comics a test market for future movies.  It's actually pretty brilliant when you stop to think about it; you can test out story lines and ideas that you want to adapt into upcoming movies, gauge the reader's response to figure out what - if anything - needs to be changed and not have to worry about those pesky characters that you don't own the film rights to getting in the way.

Because Disney understandably loves keeping as much in-house as possible, Marvel's gotten the exclusive rights to publish Star Wars comics.  It also bears keeping in mind that Marvel has traditionally incorporated as many of their comics into their mainstream continuity as they could possibly justify, which explains why the Conan the Barbarian comics are a canonical part of Marvel's ancient history.  Why wouldn't they do the same thing to Star Wars?  And if Star Wars does enter into the Marvel fold, who would be better for them to interact and cross over with than the Guardians of the Galaxy?

Maybe the Nova Corps?

If there's money to be made with the idea, Disney'll be sure to look into it.  They're not ones for leaving money on the table, and both Marvel and Star Wars are sure to be their two biggest cash cows.  What do they really have to lose by throwing everything into the mix together?

Would you want to see Star Wars and Marvel combine into an even larger shared universe?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Nightbreed Remake

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

I've always found it unutterably odd that the justification for and against remaking a movie has always been exclusively tied to its past success.  Movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street get remade because the first one was awesome to begin with while movies like Nightbreed get a pass because they tanked.

Shouldn't that be the other way around, though?  I mean, I get why studios would want another pass at making Friday the 13th money - and even why audiences would want another pass at seeing teens get carved up with a machete - but I can't help but feel that this is actually opposite the way that remakes should actually be used.  They shouldn't be used to resuscitate movies that were already great the first time around, but to retool stillborn franchises that, for one reason or another, simply never worked.

Few movies fit this criteria better than Nightbreed, the 1990 adaptation of Clive Barker's novella Cabal.  If you remember this one, I have to imagine that it wasn't fondly.  Nightbreed was supposed to be the first of a trilogy of movies that Barker described as being "the Star Wars of horror movies," but was such a commercial and critical failure that the others were never made.

The idea behind Nightbreed is as darkly imaginative, ambitious and full of horrific potential as any of Barker's other movies.  It could more accurately be described as "the X-Men of horror movies," ditching its grandiose hero narrative for more deformed monsters with awesome superpowers.  Just take stock of the characters that we already have to work with.

We have a woman whose entire body is covered with poisonous quills, which she can launch at people like darts.  There's a woman who can transform into mist, which can be used to enter into peoples body, reform inside of them and kill them.  There's a girl with retrocognition, which can be used to great effect while sleuthing around.  There's a guy with a pair of barbed tentacles that extend from his stomach.  Our protagonist is virtually invulnerable while others feature varying degrees of superhuman strength, claws and fangs.

And that's just what we already have to work with.  Given the varied nature of their physiology - and their connection with the horror genre - their power sets could be virtually anything.  What if ol' Quillface's barbs weren't just lethal, but could induce hallucinations, induce vomiting or cause any number of unspecified ailments?  What if other Nightbreed resembled werewolves: all claw and fur and teeth?  What if others were bat-like humanoids, with massive, demonic wings that they could fly with?  What if others possessed pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, aerokinesis, geokinesis or cryokinesis?

Only unlike Marvel's mutants, you can abandon any hope of passing for Human.  The Nightbreed are a horrific menagerie of deformity and grotesquerie. Never mind their peaceful disposition: they would be pegged on sight as inhuman and eradicated with as much prejudice as Humans are capable of.

What's more, is that the base concept of the franchise would fit perfectly into the modern blockbuster business model of shared universes: endless crossovers, spin offs, team ups and square offs among countless sequels.  Some Nightbreed could split off from the main group to get their own solo movies (ie, Wolverine).  Others could stay with the main group and go on their merry way to find a new Midian (ie, X-Men).  There could be prequels exploring the origins of the Nightbreed (ie, X-Men: First Class).

What's more, however, is that they could crossover with the Hellraiser remake that's been in the works for years (even spawning Hellraiser: Revelations in an attempt to retain the film rights to the franchise while they work out the details).  It's even already established in Barker canon, as the Nightbreed (representing chaos) are established in the Hellraiser comics to be the ancestral enemies of the Cenobites (representing a profane sense of order): the obvious parallel here is the X-Men  vs the Brotherhood of Mutants.

So why did the movie fail to find an audience 25 years ago?  Simple.  The movie sucked.  For all of its imagination, ambition and cinematic potential, the movie failed to be anything even resembling good.  Barker is a much better author than he is a director - a fact that was obvious even with Hellraiser - and his frenetic vision for the franchise never coalesced into a single, workable story.

Nightbreed's core conflict was its titular band of freaks against the inhumanity of mankind.  That story, however, was supplanted by some randomly insane psychologist serial killer in a button-eyed mask (as if intolerance against those different from us wasn't interesting enough).  The Nightbreed's own quest for acceptance in a world that both hates and fears them is undercut by the fact that their dungeons overflow with even more greatly deformed creatures (the Berserkers).

Boone's - and others' - connection with Midian was never really explained, and just hung their as some nebulously defined, plot-progressing concept.  The ability to transform Humans into Nightbreed - one of the film's central premises - was a concept that I never really bought in on, preferring status within the Breed to be a matter of birth, rather than fate.

And although the movie's $11 million budget was a massive improvement over Hellraiser's $2 million, it obviously wasn't enough to make the effects as convincing as their scale necessitated them to be.  That doesn't mean that a remake would need an X-Men-sized budget, because it certainly wouldn't be making X-Men-sized profits.  A relatively modest budget, a top-notch team of makeup artists and the right creative talent is all that it would need to be a franchise-spawning success.

Nightbreed has all the makings of late October blockbuster.  Its connection with the horror genre - and yet its status as a pseudo-superhero movie - would give it a seasonal release without much in the way of competition.  Its connection with other Barker-based franchises and its own potential for spin offs gives it the perfect segue into the highly in-demand shared universes framework.  And owing to its predecessor's lack of focus, it comes equipped with recurring villains as part of its narrative DNA: Dr. Decker (the franchise's William Stryker), the Cenobites and mankind itself.

So would you want to watch a remake of Nightbreed?  Would you want to see Doctor Decker as a

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AdapNation: Nova

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

Contrary to popular belief, Marvel hasn't exhausted their bullpen of heroes quite yet.  Even after their ambitious Phase 3 lineup, there are still plenty of untapped franchises waiting for their chance to shine.  The most obvious and exciting of these is Nova.

That's right.  The Nova Corps - the buzz-kills from Guardians of the Galaxy - have their own superheroic champion: Richard Ryder, aka Nova.  And, when all is said and done, he's pretty awesome.

While he unquestionably began as a Marvel-branded attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Green Lantern Corps, there's actually very little tying the two properties together.  While the Green Lanterns use magic rings to create solid light constructs as an act of absolute will and traditionally fight villains who fall along the rest of the emotional spectrum (particularly those representing fear), Nova's power set is far more traditional.  Outside of the "given" superhero power set - super strength / speed / durability, flight and an accelerated healing factor - his only outlying ability it is energy projection (itself not all that uncommon).

His villains, although cosmic, are also more traditional than his DC counterpart.  Some of which - including Thanos and Ronan the Accusor - we've already seen in the MCU.  Others, like Annihilus, we have not.

So why would we want a more generic version of the Green Lantern in Marvel's increasingly crowded movie canon?  What exactly does he bring to the table that other heroes - notably the Guardians of the Galaxy - don't?

The Nova Corps are the perfect foils to the crazy, mostly dysfunctional antics of the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy.  While the Guardians' good deeds seem to be more symptomatic of them not being "100% a dick" than they are of them being upstanding citizens with something to prove, the Nova Corps are more in line with a cosmic Captain America: innately good people wanting to give back to the society that gave them so much in the first place.

Like the Stark-funded Avengers, the Nova have immense resources at their disposal: notably vast, space-faring armadas (seen forming a protective shield over Xandar in Guardians of the Galaxy) and backup in the form of other Nova Corps members.  These aren't everybody's favorite rag-tag band of sometimes do-gooders, these are dedicated, professional heroes who make it their mission to protect Xandar on a daily basis.

It's interesting to note that John C. Reily's character in Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't just some random grunt or officer.  He was playing a very specific Nova Corps member: Rhomnan Dey, the man who transformed Richard Ryder into Nova in the comics.  His relationship with Star Lord revealed an affinity for upstart punks with good hearts, even if they often fell on the wrong side of the law.  And given Star Lord's willingness to call him in his time of need, it paints Dey as a kind of father-figure who believes in the innate goodness of people: in short, exactly the kind of man who would recruit from a species whose only interaction with he's had has been with a known felon.

Look ahead into Phase 3 and what do you see?  Infinity War.  Thanos is collecting the Infinity Stones, one of which we know for a fact is held by the Nova Corps on Xandar.  It's a pretty safe bet that he will devastate the Nova in his quest for the stone in their possession.  After all, how else would he make it to Earth for Vision's Mind Stone?

Do you know how Richard Ryder was selected for the Nova corps to begin with?  Rhomann Dey, the last surviving member of the Nova Corps, bestows his powers to him following the destruction of Xandar.  That sure sounds like what I would expect the planet - and Nova Corps - to look like after Thanos gets through with it.  Infinity War would further provide the perfect opportunity to bring Dey to Earth and introduce Ryder as Nova.

A stand-alone Nova movie could then take on any number of different forms.  It could present Nova as a terrestrial-based hero: sticking around the home front and protecting the Earth from Cosmic threats.  It could also send him to the now-ruined planet of Xandar to help reestablish the Nova Corps as protectors of the greater galaxy.  Hell, if I'm right about the Guardians of the Galaxy's role in Infinity War, he might just up and join them.

By now, it's obvious that Marvel's game plan is to rotate franchises in and out of their cinematic lineup, making sure that no one ever overstays its welcome while creating demand for individual franchises that might not have been seen for a while.  Accidentally or not, that's why people are demanding another Hulk movie despite the first's milder than expected reception.

Nova would be a great cosmic alternate - or even companion franchise - for Guardians of the Galaxy, whose unprecedented popularity proved that there's a strong demand for something a bit more "out there" in the MCU.  And with Disney running the show, I can't see Marvel just leaving money on the table like this, at least for too long.

So what other franchises should Marvel explore in Phase 4 and beyond?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Metroid

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

You had to have figured that it was only a matter of time before I returned to potential video game adaptations.  The medium is a vast and virtually untapped source of any number of movie franchises, shied away from by studios because of how God-awful initial attempts at adapting them panned out.  For every somewhat decent Silent Hill or Tombraider, there seem to be a dozen more Super Mario Bros and Resident Evils.

Video games are ripe for adapting right now.  There haven't been any especially good adaptations of them yet, and only a scant handful even worth choking down.  And while several promising projects dangle just beyond the horizon, it's going to be years before the first of them hits theaters, and years more before studio executives catch on that it was more than just a fluke.

Starting in on a big-screen adaptation now would get the franchise in ahead of the curve.  A Metroid movie would face far less competition when it comes out than it likely will in a few years, meaning that it can establish itself as a must-watch franchise long before Halo and Bioshock attempt to do the same

Hell, we're getting an Adam Sandler movie where Pac-Man is a bad guy.  Samus has a far larger profile and fan base than a hungry, hungry hockey puck, especially when you consider that video game nostalgia has already shifted away from arcade gaming and into early console gaming (ie, NES and Super NES).

In a day and age where gender representation is becoming a big enough issue that studio executives are actually willing to greenlight a Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel movie, Metroid would fill a specific demographic need.  And besides, between the Terminator and Alien franchises, science fiction has a long history of badass women shooting scary things.

Consider the plot of the first game (thin though it is).  A group of alien pirates steal an monstrous-looking bio weapon that is highly intelligent, can reproduce a-sexually, can effortlessly fly and is capable of draining the life force of any living creature within a matter of seconds.  While this could play out like a fairly straight-forward action piece, it doesn't take a lot to imagine it as an action-horror film (like either of the aforementioned series to which I compared it to already).

The Space Pirates themselves are already a pretty gruesome sight: equal parts human and reptile, often colored dark green or red, with toothed pincers for hands that can discharge electric bolts.  The Metroids themselves are even worse: embryonic spheres with rows of gnashing, over-sized teeth.  Going into her mission, Samus is already outnumbered, outgunned and in unfamiliar territory.  All you'd have to do is lower the lighting and show her fear and you'd have moments of drawn out tension punctuated with high-end action.

Besides, look at her power armor.  It would unquestionably be the coolest piece of cinematic hardware since the Iron Man suit: probably even cooler.  Combine that with its wide variety of built-in weapons and Samus' natural combat abilities and you'd have something to write home about.

With action movies increasingly going toward superheroes, a futuristic bounty hunter in deep space would fill a largely unaddressed niche for something different.  Sure, Guardians of the Galaxy kind of struck that nerve already, but that's one franchise out of Marvel's current eleven MCU titles, and DC doesn't have anything even remotely similar lined up.  The market is wide open for what Metroid would be selling.

Then when you consider just how many games there are to adapt (or how amazing the first three in the series really were), you realize that there's an awful lot of potential in the franchise.  After all, "if a raccoon can carry a movie, then [...] maybe even a woman can."

So what would you want to see in a Metroid movie?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Furious 8 - More than Meets the Eye

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

I'll be the first to admit being taken by surprise by the Fast and the Furious franchise.  They somehow went from "Point Break with cars" to being the must-watch high-octane franchise of the summer.  I never really gave the series more than a passing thought before the seventh one hit theaters a few weeks ago.  And being the stickler for continuity that I am, I wasn't about to see the latest movie without seeing the six previous movies.

Having now caught up with the series' weirdly complex canon, it strikes me just how perfect a crossover between The Fast and the Furious and Transformers really is.  In fact, I'm surprised that this isn't officially on the books by now, given the film industry's Avengers-fueled obsession with shared universes.

Think about it.  Marvel changed everything when they proved that not only was shared continuity a viable strategy, but absolutely raked in money hands over fist.  Some prefer Iron Man to Hulk, others prefer Captain America to Thor, but everybody's happy enough to see The Avengers if it means getting another chance to see their favorite characters in action.

After The Avengers, DC quickly followed suit with Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice.  Fox redoubled their efforts for X-Men spinoffs (like Deadpool, Wolverine and Gambit) and a Fantastic Four reboot that would implicitly tie into it.  Before they gave up and merged Spider-Man with the MCU, Sony was planning an all Spider-Man shared universe (which included The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Venom, The Sinister Six and a female-lead spinoff).

Ghostbusters is getting a shared universe, presumably based around the film's original premise of multiple ghostbusting teams.  There's even a shared universe in the works between 21 Jump Street and Men in Black (although I don't even want to try to make sense out of that one).

Not only is there obvious congruity between a franchise about fast cars and a franchise about alien robots that transform into cars, but it fits in weirdly well with the plan that already exists for Transformers.  That's right, Transformers is already getting the shared universe treatment, why not cross it over with another property (especially one that makes more sense that 21 Jump Street)?

There's even a pre-existing storyline that could easily be reworked to put the Furious team into the driver's seats of the Autobots: The Rebirth.  For those of you who aren't familiar with 80's cartoon, this multi-episode arc brought the Autobots and Decepticons to an alien planet ruled by the corrupt Lord Zarek.  In order to combat both this new enemy and the Decepticons, the Autobots invented Headmasters: human partners that would help operate their Autobot while in vehicle mode.

And really, who's more qualified to operate an alien robot car than guys who made being able to drive especially well into a virtual superpower?  It would be an already canon way to merge the two franchises together that would be absurdly fun to watch.  You could even put Deckard Shaw behind the wheel of the recently revamped Galvatron for some stakes-raising villainy.

What's more is that the merger would perfectly shore up either franchise's most crippling weaknesses.  While I was weirdly impressed with just how good Age of Extinction turned out to be, there's no denying that the human half of Transformers has always been the weak link in its blockbuster makeup.  Sam & Co. couldn't have been any less interesting if they'd tried.  While the Yaegers were a massive upgrade from them, they still fell short of being "good."

The Furious movies have characters enough for two franchises to share.  Say what you will about their quality, but the best parts of those movies was how distinctly rendered and unique all of the characters actually were.  Its problem was always finding interesting things for those characters to do (ie, plot), which an intergalactic war between giant, shapeshifting, techno-organic aliens would certainly take care of.

This is the kind of crossover that just makes sense.  It's not trying to force anything that wasn't there already (I'm looking at you, 21 Jump Street / Men in Black).  Not only are both franchise's essentially about the same thing, but any potential crossover would inherently make for a far more robust and entertaining movie than either franchise could produce on its own.  And with Paul Walker decidedly out of the picture, the Furious movies will be hurting to make up for his absence in one way or another.

So what other movie crossovers would you be excited to see happen?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Live-Action Aladdin Remake

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

When Disney first started their big push to remake their animated classics in live-action, I figured that I had a good long while to string along the inevitable ones: Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin.  But as the projects proved to be increasingly profitable, the potential window to talk about any one of them is rapidly shrinking.  They've not only announced Beauty and the Beast and Mulan already, but have even gone so far as Dumbo and Winnie the Pooh.  At this rate, all I'll be left to talk about is Oliver & Company.

If you ask anybody what their favorite Disney movie is, chances are that they'll name one of the "Big Four:" The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin.  There are exceptions, of course, but those have historically been the four to beat, and it's really no wonder why.

The Little Mermaid is every little girl's fantasy about proving her parents wrong, winning the love of her life and living happily ever after.  There are great musical numbers, a titanic villain and some of the best action scenes that Disney's ever animated.  The Lion King, which is essentially Disney-branded Hamlet, is easily the company's most riveting coming of age story.  Beauty and the Beast is that perfect combination of fantasy and romance that appeals equally to boys and girls.

Aladdin, however, more than any of them, has the potential to really shine in live-action.  It wouldn't be as all-consumingly computer generated as The Lion King would inevitably be, not even as much as The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast.  All that you'd have to worry about is a genie, a carpet, a monkey and a parrot (and the latter two are even up for debate).

Like Cinderella, there's a lot of historical context for a live-action movie to explore that would make it fundamentally different from the 1992 fairy tale.  The inherent class and wealth disparity of having protagonists from the slums and the palace is only the start of it.

While Cinderella's subplot of a kingdom in desperate need of an heir was a fairly dramatic reimagining of the animated king's desire to have grandchildren before he died, stately matters of succession were always at the forefront of Aladdin's narrative.  Jasmine is the sultan's only daughter, and thus unable to sit the throne herself.  The aging sultan is well aware that the kingdom will devolve into absolute chaos without a successor: thus his consuming need to marry off Jasmine.

Aladdin, though, could easily add a sexualized concern to the question of a royal wedding.  Whereas Cinderella's prince was unwilling to marry because of his romantic nature, Jasmine has far more practical concerns on her mind: unwilling to reduced to a marital prisoner "gloating at the opulence of her cage."  She wants love, yes, but more than that she wants freedom: freedom to choose who to be with and freedom from spousal tyranny.

Jafar's attempted coup of the sultanate is as potentially rife with political intrigue as A Game of Thrones' dispatchment of Robert Baratheon.  He's an ambitious, conniving snake in a position of profound political power within the kingdom.  He is a trusted official who not only commands the attention of the sultan, but directly controls the palace guards.

A live action Aladdin wouldn't even need to make use of his hypnotic staff.  He's charismatic and trusted enough to trick the sultan into policies that directly favor himself.  It wouldn't surprise me to find out that most, if not all, of the marital candidates put forward to the princess were young men who were firmly in his control.  And when the third-party Prince Ali actually does win her heart, he has influence enough over the king - and reasonable enough doubts of the unknown prince - to tarnish his nascent reputation without magic, and position enough within the palace to put himself forward as a viable candidate for her hand.

Aladdin has far greater cinematic potential than either Cinderella or Maleficent, and both of those movies were amazing.  It wouldn't surprise me if Disney announces plans to move forward with a live-action Aladdin long before we get out first glimpses of Beauty and the Beast.  It's going to happen sooner or later, and I can only hope that they take the same measured, differential approach to it that made Cinderella such a delight to watch.

So what direction do you want Disney to take with a live-action Aladdin remake?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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AdapNation: Iron Man 4: Demon in a Bottle

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels and remakes.

While I'm still fine without getting an Iron Man 4, I won't deny that it's an incredibly appealing option for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Tony Stark is, for better or for worse, the meta-franchise's flagship character.  Years after launching the MCU, the character has continued to rake in money hand over fist, even with "bad" sequels.  He offers a rock star persona to an eclectic cast of characters that might otherwise take themselves just a little too seriously and his own slice of the MCU is fraught with dramatic potential.

Iron Man's most iconic story is 1979's Demon in a Bottle.  In it, Tony Stark's omnipresent alcoholism spirals increasingly out of control following his part in the death of a foreign ambassador.  Although the story is a bit "comicky" by today's standards and elements from it were already used in the underwhelming Iron Man 2, the narrative core of the story - Stark's struggle with guilt and addiction - are the perfect follow up to the promised events of Marvel's Phase 3.

Stark's alcoholism isn't just established within the MCU, but is easily one of his most prominent features.  When asked about adapting this exact story, actor-director Jon Favreau stated that "Stark has issues with booze.  That's part of who he is."  Forget that actual plot of Iron Man 2: Demon in a Bottle would essentially be a tonally darker version of Stark's personal struggles from that film - a natural progression of that seedy aspect of his character.

Think about what complications Age of Ultron and especially Civil War will bring to Tony's personal narrative.  We already know that he and Hulk will duke it out.  Hell, that was the biggest moment of all four of the movie's trailers.

A point that I've already speculated on was that Stark is going to be responsible for launching Banner into space as the MCU's segue into a big screen adaptation of Planet Hulk.  After all, it's "a perfectly natural progression of Tony's commitment to protecting his country from all threats - foreign and domestic - to sacrifice his well-intentioned friend for the good of the entire planet."

Civil War will see him take that commitment one step further: facing down the literal embodiment of his father's America and grappling with it for supremacy.  His obstinate commitment to the Superhero Registration Act will tear the Avengers down around him: make enemies from hard-earned friends and weighing heavily on his conscious, no matter how adamantly he believes in the Machiavellian necessity of his course of action.

How's that for a trigger for his already barely checked alcoholism?  There wouldn't even be much need for the typical superheroic window dressings - action, villains, damsels in distress - because the core story elements would provide more than enough material to see the movie through to its conclusion.

Where does Pepper stand with the events of Civil War?  What about Happy?  What about Rhodey (invariably on Stark's side, I'd have to imagine)?  All three of these Iron Man specific characters would add an interesting wrinkle into Stark's largely internalized conflict: not only the necessity and costs of Civil War, but to Tony's increasingly self-destructive habits in their wake.

But of course there would have to be a physical villain for him to fight - not just to for the expected fireworks of an Iron Man movie, but as a means of him to physically come to grips with his internal struggle.  Justin Hammer, who bankrolled Whiplash's schemes in Iron Man 2, has already been introduced in the MCU and has a substantive grudge against Stark (being thrown into prison at the end of the second film).  He was the chief antagonist from Demon in a Bottle, having found a way to hack into Stark's armor, and could easily redeem his live-action portrayal if given the chance.

Another option would be a return of The Mandarin, last seen on the big screen in Iron Man 3.  Although many fans were upset about the character's surprise twist in the film, the short "All Hail the King" established that there is an actual, factual, magical Mandarin in the MCU: one that was very eager to speak to Slattery about his portrayal of the character during the events of that film.  We could either bring the more mystically-bent version of the character out of hiding, or redefine the charlatan who portrayed him, having been trained to replace the fantastical antagonist between the Marvel One-Shot and the events of Demon in a Bottle.

In fact, the disparity between the character's first and second portrayal could be an interesting point of contention with the increasingly troubled Stark.  He might initially pass the resurfaced character off as an especially menacing pink elephant, or severely underestimate his now vastly more formidable foe.  Either way, it would be an exceedingly interesting turn of events for the mostly science-centered film franchise.

The other option, of course, is to introduce a new villain, good versions of which Iron Man is sorely lacking.  There could be some iteration of the Crimson Dynamo - a magnetically-themed version of Iron Man who looks like a mechanized cross between Colossus and Omega Red.  Another option could be Madame Masque - a femme fatale and former Stark love interest - which could play interestingly off of his somewhat stable relationship with Pepper Potts (especially if Potts finds herself largely at odds with Tony's alcoholism and opposition to civil liberties).

Regardless of how they dress the story up, it's almost as good as leaving money on the table if Marvel (and by extension Disney) opt to pass over their arguably most popular character's keystone narrative.  While Disney allegedly rejected Demon in a Bottle for Iron Man 3 due to concerns of their largely teenaged audience, they need to realize that their demographic is generally older and more encompassing than high school students with money to spare.  And with as much as Stark appears to be in Phase 3 (Civil War, The Spectacular Spider-Man and two Infinity Wars), I find it hard to believe that Marvel wouldn't give him another solo outing in Phase 4.

So how should Marvel go about adapting Demon in a Bottle?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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