![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficI'd have to start talking to girls!
The Punisher
The Punisher's a bit of a weird case, because what made him such a popular character in comics -- he's a grim, gritty character who speaks in monosyllables and kills people -- makes him a film character who was only in every other movie in the 80s. And yet people keep trying to make movies about him, even though every possible thing that can be cinematically said about the character has already been said by Charles Bronson. And while it's been game of modern-day filmmakers to try to adapt Ennis' comi-tragic run, they usually just wind up with an action movie that undercuts itself by being really silly. "Scene four - Frank Castle's wife and kid are brutally gunned down. Scene forty-five - Castle fights Kevin Nash while a fat man sings opera and cooks."
What I think is, the Punisher would work best in opposition to a more conventional hero, preferably Daredevil. Daredevil doesn't have many quality antagonists outside Kingpin/Elektra/Bullseye anyway. As long as we're doing wish-fulfillment, a Daredevil movie that's a callback to the Michael Mann era, a la Drive, would be gangbusters better than "Ben Affleck Listens To Soft Rock." And if Castle is a side character, we don't have to make him young, right? I think the character loses something if you take him away from the madness of Vietnam. So an older Punisher... hmm...
Then I think--Kurt Russell. I mean, we can all agree that doing a third Snake Plisken movie would probably result in ass, just like Indiana Jones 4, but Snake as a war journal-loving Vietnam vet? Yes. Fuck yes.
Kingpin
Speaking of Kingpin, one of the many failings of the Daredevil movie was to take a Machiavellian plotter with the muscle to back it up from the comics and turn him into a thug. A big scary black thug. Who was introduced with gangsta rap music.
For the longest time (since Mission Impossible 3) I've thought Philip Seymour Hoffman would make a great Kingpin, since that was basically who he was playing in MI3. The man convinced you he could beat Tom Cruise to a pulp with sheer force of acting. But for Wilson Fisk, you might need someone a little more imposing. More intimidating. More "wrath of God on a Paula Deen diet."
Enter John Goodman. If you've ever watched a Coen Brothers movie, or the season premiere of Community, this is where you're nodding. Imagine Fisk not just tossing Hornhead around like a ragdoll, but ranting at the top of his lungs that "A MAN WITHOUT FEAR IS A MAN WITHOUT HOPE!" F'n awesome.
Black Cat
Okay, we're not going into the typical fan-casting of females trap where we're just saying who would look good in what costume. Megan Fox would look good in anything other than DCnU Harley Quinn's costume, because no one's looking good in that thing. And Paul Walker would look good in a Captain America costume, but would anyone want to watch two hours of that?
But Felicia Hardy is actually a pretty great character when she's not being mishandled or given a gratuitous rape backstory, Kevin Smith, which is why I don't see why the Spider-Man reboot isn't including her. I mean, Raimi!MJ was half Gwen Stacy anyway, so you're not changing anything by making the love interest Gwen Stacy, you're just making things blonder. But I digress... what's cool about Black Cat is her attitude. She's hilariously snarky, so anytime she and Spidey get together it's like a buddy movie with a lot of sexual tension. Something like 2 Fast 2 Furious with heterosexuals.
So I was thinking, who could pull that off. Forget the boobs, she looks better with her costume zipped up anyway.
Mila Kunis, maybe? Only she can't do action. Leighton Meester? Maybe. Then it hit me. You can get the snark and the boobs at the same place.
If the movie was called "The Amazing Spider-Man" and it was all about Kat Dennings!Black Cat (it's almost a palindrome), my only complaint would be that the title sequence wasn't about Kat!Cat.
The Punisher
The Punisher's a bit of a weird case, because what made him such a popular character in comics -- he's a grim, gritty character who speaks in monosyllables and kills people -- makes him a film character who was only in every other movie in the 80s. And yet people keep trying to make movies about him, even though every possible thing that can be cinematically said about the character has already been said by Charles Bronson. And while it's been game of modern-day filmmakers to try to adapt Ennis' comi-tragic run, they usually just wind up with an action movie that undercuts itself by being really silly. "Scene four - Frank Castle's wife and kid are brutally gunned down. Scene forty-five - Castle fights Kevin Nash while a fat man sings opera and cooks."
What I think is, the Punisher would work best in opposition to a more conventional hero, preferably Daredevil. Daredevil doesn't have many quality antagonists outside Kingpin/Elektra/Bullseye anyway. As long as we're doing wish-fulfillment, a Daredevil movie that's a callback to the Michael Mann era, a la Drive, would be gangbusters better than "Ben Affleck Listens To Soft Rock." And if Castle is a side character, we don't have to make him young, right? I think the character loses something if you take him away from the madness of Vietnam. So an older Punisher... hmm...
Then I think--Kurt Russell. I mean, we can all agree that doing a third Snake Plisken movie would probably result in ass, just like Indiana Jones 4, but Snake as a war journal-loving Vietnam vet? Yes. Fuck yes.
Kingpin
Speaking of Kingpin, one of the many failings of the Daredevil movie was to take a Machiavellian plotter with the muscle to back it up from the comics and turn him into a thug. A big scary black thug. Who was introduced with gangsta rap music.
For the longest time (since Mission Impossible 3) I've thought Philip Seymour Hoffman would make a great Kingpin, since that was basically who he was playing in MI3. The man convinced you he could beat Tom Cruise to a pulp with sheer force of acting. But for Wilson Fisk, you might need someone a little more imposing. More intimidating. More "wrath of God on a Paula Deen diet."
Enter John Goodman. If you've ever watched a Coen Brothers movie, or the season premiere of Community, this is where you're nodding. Imagine Fisk not just tossing Hornhead around like a ragdoll, but ranting at the top of his lungs that "A MAN WITHOUT FEAR IS A MAN WITHOUT HOPE!" F'n awesome.
Black Cat
Okay, we're not going into the typical fan-casting of females trap where we're just saying who would look good in what costume. Megan Fox would look good in anything other than DCnU Harley Quinn's costume, because no one's looking good in that thing. And Paul Walker would look good in a Captain America costume, but would anyone want to watch two hours of that?
But Felicia Hardy is actually a pretty great character when she's not being mishandled or given a gratuitous rape backstory, Kevin Smith, which is why I don't see why the Spider-Man reboot isn't including her. I mean, Raimi!MJ was half Gwen Stacy anyway, so you're not changing anything by making the love interest Gwen Stacy, you're just making things blonder. But I digress... what's cool about Black Cat is her attitude. She's hilariously snarky, so anytime she and Spidey get together it's like a buddy movie with a lot of sexual tension. Something like 2 Fast 2 Furious with heterosexuals.
So I was thinking, who could pull that off. Forget the boobs, she looks better with her costume zipped up anyway.
Mila Kunis, maybe? Only she can't do action. Leighton Meester? Maybe. Then it hit me. You can get the snark and the boobs at the same place.
If the movie was called "The Amazing Spider-Man" and it was all about Kat Dennings!Black Cat (it's almost a palindrome), my only complaint would be that the title sequence wasn't about Kat!Cat.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-10-07 06:00 pm (UTC)And it was Chuck Dixon, all the way back in the late '90s, who noticed the same thing you did — sales on the Punisher's solo title(s) were going down the toilet, and yet, any time he guest-starred in any other character's title, the sales went through the roof. The conclusion he came to?
"I finally realized that the Punisher was the villain in his own book."
Because yeah, Ennis aside, the only real resonance that the Punisher has, even within the comics, is as an opponent for other characters.