Hollywood Execs Go Green Again

I’m going to do Hollywood a favor. I’m going to write a column they will absolutely love. I’m going to do for them what they do to other creators of comic books in this world. I’m going to write something without their consultation and see how they like it.

On the surface it will appear all is fine. It will sound a lot like they offer a service to movie goers. It will champion their methods in order to turn a profit.

Well, here’s goes nothing.

I believe firmly the executives and the head honchos who make movies, especially movies about comic books, know magic. I believe they all grew up fans of David Copperfield or, for you Western Americans, Penn and Teller. They entertain us. They show us everything is fantastic. They make us laugh, think, and sometimes cry in disbelief. They certainly have every right.

They also know how to make money. They make tons of it. My father used to call Hollywood Wall Street West. They certainly have a right to make as much as they can. It is America after all.

They certainly have the right to pick and choose who writes, directs, and stars in their films. After all, they don’t have to know any insiders. They ARE the insiders. They have all the control and they know it.

So, let’s take a hypothetical and turn it into something real. Let’s assume that half of every teenage boy can draw. Let’s also assume the half that can draw have a super duper friend who can write. Let’s say these two characters of wit and awe get together and create some of the best comic books ever seen. If all boys get involved we’d have a TON of good comic books.

This would, in essence, be an oil field for Hollywood. They would sit back, see which oil produces more profitability and then wait for the right moment to buy it cheap. Once they had it under their control, they pretty much turn it into green.

I am absolutely convinced Hollywood execs love the color green more than their own children. I bet they drive green cars, have green walls in their mansions, and probably have one of those old school click pens we used in high school, except all the colors click green. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had green pets.

They are masters of taking this oil and turning it into green. They drill it, cultivate it, and decide where the oil goes. It sounds like hard work. It sounds like they should be able to make as much green as possible for their efforts. All they are missing is the cue of patriotic music and an American flag following them around.

Here’s the problem. This is the part the Hollywood execs will not like. The way they get the oil, the way they use the oil, and the way they make us buy the oil involves a little magic. They are oil magicians so to speak.

How does this work? It’s real easy. They wait until the general public reacts to the top comic books. They wait until the general public identifies with these titles. They wait until the comic book lovers clamor for a movie to be made. Then, they ride in with their oil machines, make deals to the two boys (who have probably become adult males by now) and vow to make their creation larger than life by putting it on the big screen.

Cue the patriotic music again.

Once they have the oil, I mean comic book in their hands, oftentimes a breakdown occurs. This is where we pull back the curtain and see exactly how they turn the titles we love into abhorrent crap for our viewing pleasure.

Slashfilm.com is reporting the upcoming Lobo film, which features heavy hitters Joel Silver (producer) and Guy Ritchie (director) are not going to Lobo’s creators for input on the film. This happens all too often in Hollywood. You take the oil men and they believe they know what we want more than we do. How do they know this? Because some hot chick with a clipboard asks a bunch of comic geeks what they think and they base their films accordingly. The problem is most (ok, all) geeks will tell a hot blonde anything they want to hear. It doesn’t make it accurate.

Now, to hear execs tell it you would think they are the victim. They well state the creators were awarded handsomely for their creation. They will state they are giving the public what they want. They will state anything but the truth!

I have railed many times about Hollywood’s inability to make a good movie about comic book titles. This is a classic example of how to make a scrappy picture. You take the idea on the cheap from the creators, spin it to fit a demographic, and then advertise the hell out of it to make millions. Poof….magic!

Hollywood thinks they are smarter than us. They think we don’t know these things are important. We, as comic book fans, love certain titles because of the creation of the title. We turn the pages to read the words, which tell a story, which makes us fall in love with the book. To suggest that the very people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into this emotion doesn’t know squat about the character a Hollywood Gordon Gecko is about to put on screen is ludicrous.

The bottom line is Hollywood owes the creators more than money. They owe them the common courtesy to ask them for their input about the characters they love. They owe them respect. Artists and writers work on titles for years. They lose sleep over storylines or how something is drawn. They bounce a million ideas off of fans and friends alike to find inspiration. They are the fathers of their creation. To assume they would give that child up for a ransom and never care about the child once it leaves home is flat wrong!

Silver and Ritchie are no Hollywood amateurs. They know how to play the game. They both have made movie after movie about good versus evil. Their movies suggest integrity is more important than money. Perhaps they should walk into a theater, turn on one of their own movies, and listen to their own advice.