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Derek Muthart
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Joined: 10 September 2005
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 5:17am | IP Logged | 1  

I was talking to my LCS manager two weeks ago and I asked him whether or not the latest Iron Man movie had generated any extra traffic through the store.  He said surprisingly Iron Man has generated far more interest and more new customers than the Spider-man, Hulk, Batman or Superman movies.

He told me an interesting story about a promotion they did for the first Spider-man movie.  They handed out a FREE copy of Ultimate Spider-man 1 (FREE comic book day edition) to every person attending the opening day show.  He and his staff went through 1,000 copies.  Unfortunately, a lot of them ended up shredded and torn in the theater and only one person brought in the coupon.

For Iron Man he did zero promotion and he said at least a dozen people have come into store after the movie looking for the comic or TPB's (Essentials, Demon in a Bottle, etc).  Surprisingly, he went on to say even the dreadful Ghost Rider, with no store promotion, generated more store traffic than the latest Spidey, Hulk or Superman movies.

Anyway, I'm kind of curious if this is a local trend or national trend.  If it is a national trend then I'd like to hear theories as to why.  Matt?

  



Edited by Derek Muthart on 13 June 2008 at 5:46am
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 6:02am | IP Logged | 2  
Isn't going from movies to comics an upstream effort for "civilians"? Comics require people to read, to interpret the art. Unlike strips there can be a lot of dialog, so the art and words don't come together as immediately, which can be confusing. Like reading a book, comics require some concentration. In movies, almost everything is done for the audience, to put them into an effortless, trance-like experience.

Perhaps people are seeking out comics now, thinking it's a cheaper entertainment alternative.


Edited by Joe Zhang on 13 June 2008 at 6:02am
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Carmen Bernardo
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 6:11am | IP Logged | 3  

   Could it be that this version of Iron Man is a little more faithful to what many in the audience would consider the "canon" IM comics?  I've heard that, with the exception of the setting of the origin story being changed from Vietnam to Afghanistan, not much has been changed in the nature of the character and his story.  The Spider-Man movies basically tampered with the origin of the character by giving him organic web-shooters (apparently, the writer and producers must've felt that it wasn't "realistic" making Peter Parker a kid genius and science whiz).  The previous Hulk movie (the one with Eric Bana) made Banner's father the main villain of the present time and gave him super-powers (basically made him a gamma radiation-version of Absorbing Man).

   I could take some tweaking of origins in a character's adaptation to movies or television to make him or her fit a contemporary setting, but not enough to make the character unrecognizeable to those familiar with the comics (as had happened to the old TV Incredible Hulk series with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby, for instance)...
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John Byrne
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 6:25am | IP Logged | 4  
Iron Man arrives in theaters with no baggage. He's not Superman, with mountains of history that even civilians are aware of. He's not Batman, with, alas, mountains of negative connotations. He's not Spider-Man, who speaks to civilians of poorly made cartoons and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY. He arrives "clean". Most of the potential audience would not have even heard of him before the trailers arrived on the TV screens.

Also -- and this is significant, I think -- he reads more as science-fiction than superhero. Now, most of us who read comics would say "What's the difference?", but to civilians it's a big one. Superheroes wear gaudy costumes and have weird powers. Remember, critics who sang the praises of Tim Burton's BATMAN often cited the "novelty" of his "vision". That anything he did with the characters might have originated in the comics - ZAP! POW! BAM! -- was a difficult idea for most of them to grasp. Watching the trailers for IRON MAN, most civilians, I suspect, would think ROBOCOP or even STAR WARS before they got to SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN.

Plus -- and this is really important -- it's a really good movie. Very few of my friends have ever read comic books, and the four women with whom I saw the film the second time had never read comics, not even mine (the usual chick excuse -- "They're hard to read."), and they loved it. As a movie, not as a superhero movie.

So, again, IRON MAN has shown how to do it right, especially for a civilian audience -- and if that pays off as more people seeking out their local comic shops, that's great!

(Now, let's imagine the Direct Sales Market did not have a stranglehold on the industry, so people walking out of a showing of IRON MAN could wander into the closest drugstore or newsstand and find the latest issue of the comic. Imagine the impact that would have on sales! Just mad daydreams, I know.)

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Victor Rodgers
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 7:10am | IP Logged | 5  

I suspect, would think ROBOCOP or even STAR WARS before they got to SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN.

*****

My 4 year old nephew saw parts of Robocop on cable (none of the more "colorful" parts) he kept calling him Iron Man. So Iron Man has becaome shorthand for armored characters.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 7:17am | IP Logged | 6  
Logical. RoboCop eclipsed C-3PO as the standard "mechanical man"
reference. Iron Man will in turn be replaced by whatever next seizes the
public's imagination.
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 7:20am | IP Logged | 7  

"My 4 year old nephew saw parts of Robocop on cable (none of the more "colorful" parts) he kept calling him Iron Man. So Iron Man has becaome shorthand for armored characters."

My nephew keeps referring to the Swamp Thing movies as "Hulk" movies. Of course, since he doesn't speak english, there's no real difference. He just watches the movies for the action (they're not dubbed.)

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James Woodcock
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Posted: 13 June 2008 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 8  
IIRC when Robocop first came out he was compared to two comic characters - Judge Dredd and Iron Man. i'm pretty sure I read a few articles that claimed that there was no reason now to create and Iron Man movie. Glad they were wrong.
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