Budget vs Content

When did it become mandatory to blow hundreds of millions of dollars to make a 'good' movie? I distinctly remember many good movies that did not have the price tag of most summer blockbusters under today's standards. Great acting, great dialogue, and great camera angles, and the ability to build suspense and characters that you have an invested interest in outweigh the mysterious wizardry of CGI. When did 3-D movies instantly mean 'great' movie? When did rebooting old ideas instantly mean blockbuster? When did sequels instantly mean we would be rushing out to watch and purchase tickets the opening weekend?

Hollywood has a new gimmick, and its mining our treasured childhoods and 'holy' hobbies. Things we love are being made into movies at increasing rates. Like most of us we look at the fact that they're making movies out of some of the things we love as a GREAT thing, but sadly that is not always the case. I love comics, even though I am not as 'religious' as others, and I pop when I hear news of a new movie. But look at what has come out of some of these.

Electra, awful.
The Hulk, please shoot me, please.
Fantastic Four 2 : Rise of the Silver Surfer, made me pray to Odin that the REAL Galactus would visit Hollywood and that Thor would appear to beat the awful film from my memory (I am willing to accept the brain trauma and disfiguration for freedom from the film).
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, why oh why did I PAY to go to the theater?!?!
Superman Returns, made me want him to go back to Krypton for a longer hiatus.
Blade 2. Agggghhhh!
Blade Trinity. NNNNOOOOOOO!
Spiderman 3, what the hell . . .
X-men 3: The Last Stand . . . Cyke, Professor X, Jean, Angel (Yeah he was in it even though we thought he would be in more of the movie!) I wish I was swatted by frikin' Juggernaut aka Vinnie Jones!
Punisher, the Travolta/Jane tragedy!!!
Just to name a few.

When it comes down to it we are short changed quality films that we hold in reverence just so they can make a quick buck! It’s not like each and every one of these franchise's do not have a plethora of quality to delve from. Is it bad that it seems like the recent line of animated films have actually been light years ahead of the live action films? And even fanfics, whether they are stories or even a few home made movies are worthy to be listed as official canon over the copyright carrying, studio approved 'films' that we are given.

What’s worse is that the plundering does not stop with our comics but delves into classic TV. series, novels, video games, etc. Please, for the sake, nay, for the sanity of these genre's cult fans, regular fans, and occasional fans, please take the time to make quality work that will not cannibalize our hearts and turn our favorite character's into whores for your respective studios.


Here is a fan made video that many of you have probably seen already. It was made by a movie special effects master who had worked on Jurassic Park and Predator. He reportedly spent $30,000 on the nearly nine minute short, which included the outfits (which he made for the short film) and cameras. More money then I can spend on a short fan fic but if you say he spent 30 thousand on each ten minutes of film it would cost them less then $600,000. I know there would be several million dollars more spent but watch the clip and tell me that it is not a small bit of quality that could rival some of the 'wonderful' examples above.