|
In an industry where tastes are constantly changing; where nothing is a guaranteed blockbuster; where everything is up for grabs — one thing has become abundantly clear: Superheroes are currently big-assed business. In the past year alone, the hugest blockbusters have been geek-related, and the majority of these tied to comic books. Spider-Man broke every box office record available to break last year. X-Men and X-Men 2 both enjoyed box office returns in the double digits. Even Daredevil — a blind superhero — managed to crank out a solild six-figure return, despite the presence of jockey short-irritant Ben Affleck.
As I've had him explained to me, the Punisher's this guy who watched his family get gunned down by the mob. That's really it. As origin stories go, it's fairly rote, and ground well covered by Batman, who has a cooler car. Where Punisher differs significantly from other heroes, however, is with the particular brand of vengeance he's opted to dish out. Most superheroes take their scarring childhoods as an impetus to fight crime. Punisher, conversely, takes his scarring incident as a motivation to kill the shit out of people. Often. Usually indiscriminately. And that's about it, as I understand it. He hops into a suit with a skull on it, runs out the front door, and just kills and kills and kills criminals until his trigger finger cramps. The man is a Republican's wet dream. The teaser trailer for his 2004 feature film debut (not counting the 1989 Dolph Lundgren version) hit the internet this week, and already the geek underground is alive with the news. Sure, you could go to Harry "I Ain't Even Remotely Cool" Knowles — but let's be perfectly frank, would you trust a fat virgin on anything entertainment-related? I offer you an alternative: this past weekend, I went deep into the geeky underbelly of the comic book-reading populace to uncover the deep and dirty facts on the upcoming Punisher flick. These are the opinions they don't want you to hear. These are also the opinons you probably don't care about hearing. Nonetheless, here they are anyway, in the Trailer Trash's scathing expose on next Summer's big comic book movie... The Punisher.
Where Angels Dare: One Journalist's Online Hunt For the Truth My first attempt to uncover the underground opinion on The Punisher took me to that most unwatched, unregulated bastion of impurity in the United States of America: the internet chatroom. Needless to say, I bathed thoroughly beforehand and afterwards, and followed each with generous amounts of drink to calm my senses. My intent was to choose a disguise that would let me blend in among these strange people — to report their opinions, pull their quotes, and yet escape from the dark, sweaty bowels of their online nerd-orgies unmolested. I boldly went with the pseudonym "Star Trek", so that I might blend among them unnoticed. Sadly, as it turned out, "Star Trek" was taken. I tried the abbreviated "STRTRK". It too was taken. The bastards. The website membership program suggested I try the name STRTRK544, as it was not yet vouched for. This struck me as good news, as it meant 543 people had already chosen my geeky name before me. My instincts had been right on target. I would blend in unmolested. Within seconds I was online in a chatroom called "The Comic Book Den". I poured myself a scotch and waited for inspiration to strike. What would my opening gambit be to earn their trust? How best to ingratiate myself to these strange folk, that they might accept me for one of their own? I read the conversational threads, and waited like a coiled panther for the opening STRTRK544 might take:
Flawless. I sat back and waited, pen hovering over a pad of paper, for the opinions that would no doubt pour forth like aged wine. Seconds ticked by.
This was unacceptable. I went back to the keyboard to ingratiate myself further into their trust.
I waited. No answer. More finesse might be needed.
At this point I was accosted by some joker calling himself a "Moderator" who booted me out of the chathouse before I could harvest the facts. Kids today are the enemy of responsible journalism, I tell you that now. I decided to take a different approach. What I needed were real live nerds with real live, not virtual, opinions — opinions I could force out of them through real live threats of violence, without getting booted offline. NEXT ---> |
If
Hollywood is good at one thing, it's finding something that's remotely
popular and bleeding it dry. Thus, get ready to see every superhero
in existence up on the silver screen within the next two years. And
of the many many superheroes in line for their Hollywood treatment,
one of the most enduringly popular is surely the Punisher.