Studios need to pick and choose their heroes

Over the past several years we've seen a veritable onslaught of superhero and comic book adaptations on the big screen.

The Spiderman trilogy, Hulk, Batman Begins, Superman Returns. Even ones based on more obscure titles, like the fantastic Sin City and the incredibly overrated-okay, downright terrible-Hellboy.

You'd think by now we'd be overwhelmed by these films. Just when you think flops like The Punisher and Daredevil will kill the genre as badly as Doomsday killed Superman, all of a sudden another sequel or adaptation appears that redeems it.

So I'm rather surprised that two of my most anticipated movies for this year that I mentioned in my last post are both superhero films. Now, "most anticipated" doesn't mean I'll necessarily like them. Just that I'm really interested to see how they turn out.

First off, The Dark Knight. I consider Batman Begins one of the best superhero films ever, if not simply for the fact that it helped erase my memories of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.
When the film ended with the Joker's calling card, I instantly wanted to see the next film. Ever since Heath Ledger was announced as The Joker, I was skeptical as to how well the guy from Knight's Tale could pull off one of the greatest villains ever. Yet ever since the first full trailer, I've been pumped to see him in action.

But then there's Iron Man. Of the pantheon of famous heroes, Iron Man is definitely not one that comes to mind. But I'm interested to see how the big metal guy looks on the big screen.

So there's Iron Man. Then there's also a sequel to Hulk coming out with Edward Norton as the title character. They're even doing a Justice League movie too. And don't even get me started on the announced Spiderman 4.

Every hero ever created has diehard fans lurking around the corner. But that shouldn't mean studios should scour their comic book collections and choose every single guy in tights to star in a film, or to just keep pumping out sequels, exhausting every villain that hero has faced.

There is always a certain amount of excitement surrounding superhero and comic book films. But they'd be even more exciting if studios exercised some discretion in what sequels to make, and what costume-clad vigilantes to adapt for the silver screen.

Posted by Brain McCarthy