Recently, news outlets have been reporting on a leaked email between Sony Studios executive Michael Lynton and Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter which revealed that the resistance against a Black Widow or other female-lead Marvel movies comes from the very top of Marvel itself.
The email is only one part of a larger conversation between Lynton and Perlmutter, but it’s still very strange.
The email in question:
Michael,
As we discussed on the phone, below are just a few examples. There are more.
Thanks,
Ike
1. Electra (Marvel) – Very bad idea and the end result was very, very bad. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=elektra.htm
2. Catwoman (WB/DC) – Catwoman was one of the most important female character within the Batmanfranchise. This film was a disaster. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=catwoman.htm
3. Supergirl – (DC) Supergirl was one of the most important female super hero in Superman franchise. This Movie came out in 1984 and did $14 million total domestic with opening weekend of $5.5 million. Again, another disaster.
Best,
Ike
Perlmutter’s argument is pretty straightforward—the lack of female-lead Marvel movies isn’t about gender or politics—it’s about money, and just about money. (We’re getting a Captain Marvel movie, after all.) But even from that standpoint, don’t Perlmutter’s examples seem…oddly chosen?
I wonder if Layton responded with something like the following:
Ike,
But…
1. The Hunger Games (2012-now) – Very good idea with excellent actors, all posters featuring female lead, that stays true to the themes of the book. $2 billion gross over three films and counting. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=hungergames.htm
2. Divergent (2014-now) – Divergent is one of the most important franchises within the HarperCollins stable. I couldn’t tell you the name of the main character but the series has still grossed over half a billion dollars over two films. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=divergent.htm
3. Lucy (2014) – Lucy is a totally made up story about how Scarlett Johansson got drugged and developed superpowers. It grossed almost half a billion dollars. If only you had its star under some sort of exclusive contract to play a similar character… http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lucy.htm
4. Three words, repeated constantly: Let. It. Go. LET IT GOOO-OHHH. There now it’s in your head, too. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=frozen2013.htm
NOW GIVE ME SPIDER-GWEN.
Best,
Not-Michael
Yes. Give us ALL Spider-Gwen.
I do think it’s probably easier to make money off a male-lead superhero film that a female-led one, but (a big BUT), if the movie’s really good and marketed well, the audience will come (people have such trust for Marvel that they turned out in droves last year for a movie with a talking racoon and tree that only says, “I am Groot.”). The problem with the three examples Perlmutter cites is that they were all AWFUL movies (the most critically well-regarded one is Electra, with a Tomatometer score of 10%…Ouch). Make an actual good female-led superhero movie (like The Hunger Games), and then see if it tanks.
Here’s what I don’t get: the primary demographic for these movies is 18-35 year old males, right? Why, exactly, do so many people seem to think that particular demo will have a problem with two hours of
Scarlett Johansson? Because, as a member of that demographic, well…
Ike is the guy that has everyone at Disney is apparently peeing their pants over because they think he has spies and bugs all their phones:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-marvel-became-envy-scourge-720363
Why does anyone care about a e-mail to a sony exec whose company only handles one property from Marvel Comics ?
@@@@@ templarsteel –
The e-mail in question is from the Marvel CEO. That’s what’s important here, not who it’s to.
Those 3 movies were bad, not because they had female leads, but because they were bad.
Write a good script, get a good director, cast someone better than Helen Slater or Jennifer Garner, and make a GOOD movie. People will pay to see a GOOD movie.
The email feels really out of context to me. We are almost explicitly missing most of the conversation. “Here are just a few examples” of what? It could even be examples of how to make bad adaptations or female characters who have been adapted badly. Perhapse someone suggested a particular strategy for adapting a female character and these were examples of why that strategy is terrible.
Without knowing the rest of the context this snippet is really hard to judge.
Supergirl was almost tolerable, the other two were crap. Female leads were not the reason why.
But what’s with this Spider-Gwen stuff? Bleh….
I would watch the hell out of a good female superhero movie, but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. Any such movie would be RELENTLESSLY scrutinized, and by people who are taken seriously, not small time blogs.
@11, We just had a good female superhero movie.
Plus we got Captain Marvel coming
*crosses finger* Kathryn Winnick Kathryn Winnick Kathryn Winnick
The problem is that they’re defining the terms too narrowly. Superheroes are a subset of action heroes. And some of the top action heroes of the past few decades have included Ripley, Sarah Connor, Lara Croft, and Katniss Everdeen, plus the leads of those Resident Evil and Underworld movies. Some of whom border on being superheroes anyway. We know that movies featuring female action heroes can succeed, so that should be the end of the discussion.
Dear Marvel,
Please hire the directors that made John Wick to make the Widow movie 90 to 100 minutes of well paced action with a plot. And hire Kennth Brangh again to make the Loki movie. I know you guys look at losses like John Carter but you are partly to blame for it for the marketing on that one. Well, we are going to blame you even more for not listening. You guys were willing to make DC fold with what you did with Cap versus their already over hyped Batman Vs. Superman movie so where is your mojo now that DC is working on Wonder Woman? Being first is important doing things right is more so. I can’t say you will make a fist full of cash but I tend to hope that the movie tickets I buy help support an industry that provides jobs and not just several million dollar pay outs for actors and company men. You’ve been lectured I know so please take a risk and see it pay off.
Sincerely,
A fan
Also, yeah Electra sucked. You know what else sucked? Daredevil.
These were two films that just weren’t very good, regardless of gender.
Up until Iron Man, the majority of superhero movies were a bit crap.
For every Dark Knight, you have a Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.
I’m pretty sure I could cherry pick films to show that men with dark hair make movies flop (example chosen at random, probably not really true).
@19
To each their own. I liked Daredevil (especially the director’s cut) and the first hour of Electra isnt too bad at all (I really liked the OCD’iness of how Garner acted Electra).
I hate this story so much. Mostly because this single email lacks anything resembling a narrative. It’s a list of bad superhero movies starring female characters. It could be the Marvel CEO saying “girl superhero movies are always bad”. It could also be the Marvel CEO saying “studios have done badly by girl superhero movies. Here are some examples of what not to do.”
The lack of context makes this less a discussion about Marvel’s prejudices expressed in this email and more a discussion about the Marvel prejudices that exist in the model in our heads. Which is about as unproductive and inflammatory debate as one can possible have.
@22, This email doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
The problem those movies had were they were FEMALE superhero movies and not female SUPERHERO movies. They spent too much time cramming in tired (even for the time) action-girl cliches and T&A shots instead of working the story. Story first is the lesson they needed. Trouble is that requires looking beyond the obvious, still as long as thhey keep Joss Whedon away from it, a female superhero movie could work.
The email is absolutely right: terrible movies about female superheroes often fail. The public doesn’t have a desire for terrible movies. It would not be hard to make a similar list of terrible movies about male superheroes, or terrible romantic comedies, or terrible movies about anthropomorphized waterfowl.
I think what the fanbase was asking for was a GOOD movie about a female superhero. Like the good movies about male superheroes that have come out lately, but with a woman. Women aren’t actually radically different than men – not in writing, acting, plot, costuming, or any of the other factors that make a movie. Maybe, if he thinks women are totally different than men as the main character of a movie, that’s why he can’t make a good movie about a female superhero.
As for me, I’m the one and only fan at the protest holding a ‘She-hulk’ sign. No one’s ever going to make MY movie. But I’d go see the Black Widow movie, anyway.
Hunger Games, Divergent are YA books that are popular right now with the current youth. Hardly apt comparisons.
This is all meaningless because despite any reservations, they are making a Captain Marvel movie.
Quite apart from the quality of the films, all three of those films seemedto have had troubled development histories. Catwoman and Supergirl both languished in development hell for years, and were produced as Batman and Superman franchises were flagging. I don’t really know what they were thinking with Elektra–Daredevil was sort of a surprise success for a February release, I think, but how ambitious were they really being with Elektra when they gave her 2/3 the budget of Daredevil, and a January release date?
If you set films up to fail they will fail.
Catwoman, Electra, and Supergirl were all BAD movies in their own right, but Hunger Games, Divergent, and Frozen aren’t superhero movies, so I don’t see how they’re very relevant to the discussion.
There’s also a large, demonstrated fanbase for the successful examples cited. Spiderwoman… not so much. Even people that watch and love all the Avengers movies aren’t even aware that there is such a thing as Spiderwoman.
Comic book movies are aimed at comic book nerds, generally speaking. Obviously, with the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy and Batmans, it’s become more accessible, but that’s still the core audience.
Hunger Games, Divergent, Frozen – these stories are aimed at young women including those that aren’t comic book nerds.
Making a comic book movie aimed at young women who aren’t nerds sounds like a dubious proposition. When I think of the many women that I know that loved Hunger Games and other books and movies like that, I don’t imagine them having more than a passing interest in a Spiderwoman movie.
So let’s be clear, Spiderwoman’s target audience would be the small overlap of both audiences, and that’s a small demographic.
Female-led superhero movies are coming, but that’s going to require successful female-led superhero comics and books first, and Spiderwoman just doesn’t have that kind of appeal. These changes are on the way, with the new female Thor and the slow building of a fanbase that enjoys Batgirl and other characters.
Let’s not pretend that an amazingly shot, acted, directed, and written Spiderwoman would have even the remotest chance of being as successful as the Hunger Games movies, and let’s also not forget that the job of movie studios is not to please our progressive political views – it’s to make money. That is the bottom line.
Expressing outrage that a movie studio executive accurately (and not even maliciously) cites failed investments similar to one that pleases your political views is short-sighted at the very least.
I would like to think the examples were a reason not to fast track/ blatant money grab with a female lead superhero movie.
Book to movie vrs Comic to movie has a different enough dynamic that prooved that well bought book series, no matter how good those series were, if released while the series is still popular in book form, will sell well at the movies.
Now waiting to have a good script for a female superhero movie and making sure everything is lined up right to make a high quality movie means not only money now, but money on the sequel, and not spoiling the pool for everyone else.
As I said, that’s drawing too sharp a line. Superhero movies are a type of action movie. There’s not such a huge difference that they can be treated as unrelated genres.
That is untrue. Not many people actually read comic books these days, not since the rise of the direct-market system turned them into a specialty product rather than something routinely sold on grocery and drugstore shelves. A best-selling comic today may get around 100,000 readers, more likely tens of thousands. That’s maybe a tenth of a percent of the audience size of a tentpole blockbuster.
The whole reason for doing movies based on comics is to expose the comics characters to a far larger audience than they otherwise would’ve had. If you only wanted to target the existing audience, you’d just keep publishing comics. Mass-media adaptations have always been bigger and more influential than the comics they were based on. That’s why the comics have so routinely changed themselves to be more like their screen and broadcast adaptations. The Superman comics added Jimmy Olsen and Perry White from the radio show, and adopted Superman’s power of flight from radio and theatrical cartoons. Batman comics changed Alfred from a short, fat man to a tall, thin, balding man like the actor who played him in the 1943 serial. Later Batman comics revamped Gotham City to look like Anton Furst’s designs from the Tim Burton movies (actually hiring Furst to do the designs for them), and adopted Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya from Batman: The Animated Series. Now, Marvel has added Phil Coulson and the Agents of SHIELD as comics characters. And DC’s Green Arrow comics have added a version of Felicity Smoak like the one from the show, even though the earlier comics character of that name was almost totally different (and part of Firestorm comics). The comics follow the lead of the screen versions because the screen versions have far, far huger audiences.
So the target audience for superhero movies isn’t just superhero fans — it’s action-movie fans who have the potential to become superhero fans. That’s why so many superhero movies already follow the conventions of action movies — including unfortunate ones like focusing on revenge narratives and having the heroes kill their villains. Certainly the existing superhero fanbase is being catered to more than ever, because their word of mouth can have disproportionate influence, but they’re not the sole audience by a long shot.
This is a false stereotype. There are as many female comic-book fans today as male ones. The industry has habitually ignored and marginalized them, but they are there, and their impact is increasingly being recognized. That’s why comics like Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel and the revamped Batgirl are such hits. A recent survey of comics-based works sold in bookstores (as opposed to the more insular direct market) showed that ones aimed at female or young audiences outsold those aimed at teen/adult men. There’s a huge female fanbase for superheroes that’s just clamoring to be served, and surely the same can be said for the larger action-movie audience.
Besides, look what we have on television. We’ve had Agent Carter, and AKA Jessica Jones is coming to Netflix later this year. Mockingbird from Agents of SHIELD is getting her own spinoff for next season, and Supergirl has just gotten a series order from CBS. Clearly television is ready to embrace female-led superhero shows, so why should movies be any different? (And let’s not forget that The Bionic Woman was a major success in the ’70s, and Wonder Woman did pretty well too.)
I want to see this equivalent conversation between CEOs when talking about black-lead superhero movies. Like, comparing the gross box office of the 3 Blade movies and 2 Men in Black with the movies that were launched at similar dates in the mid-90s and very early-00s. Only Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and the Spider-Man trilogy surpasses them, with the X-men movies tied and all the others (Crow, Judge Dredd, Shadow, the worse Batman movies) being much worse. So why did the CEOs stop doing black-led comic book movies?
Ryamano@31: I’m sure that the equivalent CEO letter would focus on Steel, Hancock, and Spawn.
@31 I guess that’s why they’re taking their sweet time making Black Panther. I just want them to show a proper Wakanda. I know they could, if they set their hearts to it.
@29 Yeah, I think that’s actually what this is about. What this particular article doesn’t mention but the Vulture piece does, is that this email was right after Sony announced the female Spider-verse movie. Of the little Perlmutter says about the films, besides being disasters, is that both Supergirl and Catwoman were the ‘most important female characters’ of their franchise. So what I read this as is less “female superhero movies bomb” but more specifically as “female superheroes do not get the automatic benefit of being part of a franchise.” or, in other words, just because you slap “Spider” on a movie, doesn’t mean the Spiderman fans will come, any more than Batman fans automatically showed up to Catwoman. They didn’t. But Batman fans did come to Batman and Robin, regardless of terribleness. (Not all of them, but some cushion). I think that’s why they worked so hard to make it a Marvel franchise, not just, say, Iron Man. So the umbrella protects all the properties, not just concentrates on one.
I don’t know. They made money but I think the concepts of The Hunger Games and Divergent are kind of stupid and derivative (which has nothing to do with the gender of the lead characters). Likewise, the super-hero movies Ike cites sucked for reasons totally unrelated to the gender of the main characters (although let’s face it, picking Halle Berry as a lead guarantees a certain lack of quality to the acting).
I want to see Captain Marvel (especially if it involves her going into space and meeting up with Rocket and the other Guardians!). I also would like to see a Scarlet Witch movie, especially with Olsen playing her. And a Black Widow movie would be great too. Or how about a Darkhold Redeemers film with Victoria Montesi and Louise… uh… I don’t remember her last name off-hand?
Well anything James Bond can do, Natasha can do better, and she’s a name actor in a character that appeared in a Billion dollar franchise, so it makes no sense to me.
I think the Captain Marvel film will really set the bar as to if studios are willing to make a female-led superhero film. If the numbers for Carol are good then you’ll see “The Huntress 2”
@20, phuzz
Natural redhead Mickey Rooney would’ve joyously gone cherry picking with you. (In those two horse movies he was *almost* (just short of) a superhero.)
Female-lead movies aren’t terrible ideas when they’re done right, and the story and characters are respected.
TV series with powerful female leads, in the superhero trope:
Done right: Dark Angel
Done poorly: Birds of Prey
Can’t wait for AKA Jessica Jones. And looking forward to Captain Marvel.
But a well-done Black Widow movie — having her doing undercover James Bond stuff hunting Hydra or investigating reports of a new supervillain or even discovering a Skrull scouting team — would be amazing.
Or, heck, make up an entirely new hero — someone struggling with a new power and trying to figure out what to do with it. They’ve got a good enough universe to build in — let a really good writer go wild without the need to build a character that works in the comic-serial mode.
Comicbookwise — what do Electra, Catwoman, and Supergirl have in common? Each began as a foil for a specific male superhero, rather than as a stand-alone character in her own right, in the world created for that other superhero, rather than for them. Each began as a foil for that superhero, rather than as a stand-alone character in her own right. Of course none of them worked as stand-alone characters in their own movies. They were never built to do that job.
@40/clintack: I have to disagree. Yes, Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl all started out as supporting characters, but all three went on to be the leads of solo comics series of their own. Elektra has mostly had various miniseries, plus a couple of short-lived ongoing titles, but both Supergirl and Catwoman have had long-running solo titles.
Heck, Wolverine was originally a guest character in a Hulk comic, and was then a member of the X-Men for a long time before he got his first solo comic. But he’s been quite successful as a solo character too. Lots of comics characters who started out as supporting players, both male and female, have become successful solo characters. The same goes for other media — they’re called spinoffs, and they happen all the time. The Bionic Woman was originally a love interest for Steve Austin and got killed in her first story, but she was so popular that they brought her back to life and gave her a spinoff series that, for a couple of years, was hugely successful and influential. So the argument in your last paragraph is completely invalid. There is absolutely no reason why a character who starts out as a supporting player cannot be a successful solo lead.
Yes, the only thing stopping supporting characters from being a compelling lead is the writing and the performance. I’m a fan of Lost Girl(two seasons behind though NO SPOILERS) and Kenzi is a far more compelling character than Bo, despite the fact that she’s Bo’s sidekick. Loki is the villain, yet he’s far outstripped Thor.
@42/Aeryl: Yup. There’s also Xena, who started out as a Hercules guest star and made such a strong impression in a single episode that the producers immediately gave her a spinoff that ended up greatly overshadowing and outliving its parent show. There’s Angel spinning off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Frasier spinning off from Cheers, etc. Not to mention cases where an initially supporting character ends up overshadowing the nominal lead and becoming the de facto star, like Dr. Smith in Lost in Space, the Fonz in Happy Days, and surprisingly many comic-strip characters including Popeye (originally just a love interest for Olive Oyl in a strip about her family), Dagwood (originally just one of Blondie’s suitors), Nancy (from Fritzi Ritz), Snuffy Smith (from Barney Google), and Opus (from Bloom County).
For that matter, both Lt. Columbo and Inspector Clouseau were supporting characters in their debut stories, the detective foils for the criminal leads, but ended up overshadowing the nominal stars and getting their own series.