In Part 4 we lost Batman but got Blade, a second-rate superhero that showed Hollywood how a seriously taken source material and genuinely good movie can turn into a successful property, regardless of how famous it was to begin with. For the first time, you didn’t need Superman or Batman to make a hit.

So Blade turned a lot of heads in 1998 and gave 20th Century Fox the courage to finally shell out $75 million so that X-Men could start filming after years of delays (Bryan Singer signed on to direct the picture way back in 1996). Initially set to open in December 2000, X-Men was moved to July and considering filming just started in September, this was definitely on a very tight schedule. But before we go forward with X-Men, we still got 1999 and 2 superhero movies to talk about.

Black Mask was a movie made way back in 1996 that opened in North America on May 14th 1999 starring Jet Li. The only reason this finally got released is because Jet Li was starting to become popular thanks to his role in Lethal Weapon 4 just a year before. Black Mask only made $12.5 million. A few months later it was time for superhero comedy Mystery Men to bomb at the box office with $29.7 million in North America. Yep, 1999 was not a good year for heroes of the super kind.

X-Men opened on July 14th 2000 with the 5th highest opening weekend at the time, $54.4 million and outstanding reviews and praise from fans alike. This was everything Fox wanted it to be and the franchise potential was enormous. X-Men went on to gross $157.3 million in North America and $296.3 million worldwide. The Marvel revolution was here.

In November 2000 an original superhero created by the mind of M. Night Shyamalan was unleashed in Unbreakable. This was a very different take on the genre but it still received good reviews and great fan appreciation. $95 million in North America and $248.1 million worldwide made Unbreakable one of the bigger hits of that year.

2001 was almost empty with only 1993 Hong Kong movie, Iron Monkey, out in North America grossing just $14.7 million.

2002 was a landmark moment for the superhero genre with Blade returning and Spider-Man finally getting his big screen debut after years of going nowhere. Directed by the now famous Guillermo del Toro, Blade II opened March 22nd with $32.5 million and went on to make $82.3 million in North America and 155 million worldwide. At this point Wesley Snipes and Blade were here to stay, at least until New Line would pull a Superman 3 on it, but more about that at a later time.

Stuck in development hell for over two decades, Sony Pictures finally bought the Spider-Men movie license in 1999 along with a James Cameron original scriptment (he tried to get the project up way back in 1990). After considering directors like Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012), Tim Burton (Batman, Batman Returns), Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) or David Fincher (Alien 3, Fight Club), they finally went with must less famous Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) in 2000, a long time fan of the comics. Filming took place from January to June 2001 and Spider-Men was set to open in February 2002. After previewing an unfinished version of the movie and realizing the huge potential they had with a summer release, Sony moved the date to May 3rd 2002.

May 3rd 2002, the date Spider-Man, arguably one of the big three most popular superheroes in the world (Batman and Superman being the others), finally opened and what an opening that was. $114.8 million, the biggest weekend ever at the time and it would not stop there. Spider-Man became the best reviewed superhero movie ever, considered by both fans and critics the finest flick to ever feature a superhero. Spidey went on to gross 403.7 million in North America (5th highest back then) and $821.7 million worldwide. Sony now had the biggest hero in town and they wanted to milk it to the last drop. A sequel was obviously on the way, but not for another 2 years, in the meantime other studios tried their luck at this hero thing, now more interesting then ever before.

Warner Bros, the studio that managed to ruin both Superman and Batman in little over a decades, released The Powerpuff Girls Movie in 2002. Based on the popular Cartoon Network series, it made $11.4 million. Hard at work on rebooting their then tarnished superheroes, Warner were not out of the game yet.

On February 14th 2003 Fox unleashed another Marvel superhero on the big screen, Daredevil starring Ben Affleck. It turned out a mediocre flick but it did gross 102.5 million in North America and $179.1 million worldwide. Instead of following it with a sequel, Fox were planning to release a spin-off 2 years later, a disaster we’ll talk about in Part 6.

- Superheroes at the box office (Part 1)
- Superheroes at the box office (Part 2)
- Superheroes at the box office (Part 3)
- Superheroes at the box office (Part 4)

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We got news last week that David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) was being lined up by 20th Century Fox to direct their Daredevil reboot. A few days later it was announced that Darren Aronofsky would no longer directing The Wolverine.

Both are somewhat related as Slade was all but signed on to direct The Wolverine before Aronofsky came on-board, so Fox could potentially offer him the chance to work with Hugh Jackman again now there are no Oscar-nominated geniuses in the way. With all this speculation Slade ventured onto Twitter to give us an update.

On Daredevil:

Forgot to look at the internet for a few weeks and its a litany of false (and not so far off) rumours. So without breaking confidentiality, yes Daredevil, we have a great outline for a very strong character driven take on Mr Matt Murdock. It will bare [sic] no relation to the previous Daredevil movie in any way. We are at early planning stages and have not yet discussed any cast.

On Wolverine:

WOLVERINE, there have been no discussions about this project to date. Interesting to see what will happen with that as the again excellent script by Chris McQuarrie was set largely in Japan. So that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Last year Slade spoke about almost directing The Wolverine, and he was obviously disappointed about not landing the gig.

I had a great meeting with Hugh Jackman. We were all ready to go and then Darren Aronofsky, who has a great relationship with Hugh, showed up. You kind of feel like: “well, the girlfriend’s come back. I can either put up a fight here or I can just let nature take its course.”

Wolverine is a proven franchise, and will therefore be a bigger priority for 20th Century Fox. There are conflicting reports on what the studio plans to do next considering Japan (where they plan to shoot) is still suffering from the recent earthquake/tsunami, and there are no directors currently lined up to replace Aronofsky. If they do intend to continue with filming later this year (Jackman can’t stay bulked up forever) then they will obviously be looking for potential directors, and Slade could be one of them if Daredevil is still at the outline stage.

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Around this time last year we heard that 20th Century Fox were getting the ball rolling on a Daredevil reboot, having hired screenwriter David Scarpa (The Day The Earth Stood Still) to write the script. Now according to Variety David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) has been hired to direct.

Slade came thisclose to directing The Wolverine for Fox last year, but then Darren Aronofsky got involved and Slade was booted out of the picture. Despite this, it seems the studio is still keen on working with Slade, and have given the director another one of their superhero properties to handle.

Ben Affleck’s Daredevil movie in 2003 failed to set the box office alight so 20th Century Fox decided against a sequel; however they knew that if they wanted to keep the rights to the character they would need to start working on another film at some point. Variety says this new film “will not contain material from the Ben Affleck-toplined version”, so it seems to be a complete reboot.

For those unfamiliar with the character Daredevil (Matthew Michael “Matt” Murdock) lives in New York City and was blinded by a radioactive substance that fell from an oncoming vehicle. While he can no longer see, the radioactive exposure heightens his remaining senses beyond normal human ability.

Are you interested in a Daredevil reboot?

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Since Daredevil didn’t exactly set the box office alight in 2003 20th Century Fox decided against a sequel; however they knew that if they wanted to keep the rights to the character they would need to start working on another film at some point. It’s a similar situation with X-Men, hence all the spin-offs, and Fox are already in the process of rebooting Fantastic Four in order to stop Marvel getting a chance to claim the rights back.

From Deadline Hollywood:

It’s Daredevil, the movie named after the sight-challenged hero played originally by Ben Affleck. Regency is mounting the remake with former News Corp No. 2 Peter Chernin producing. Writing the redo is screenwriter David Scarpa, who scripted The Day The Earth Stood Still for Fox, which will distribute Daredevil 2.0 or whatever it’s going to be called.

I didn’t see the film seven years ago, so I’m not that interested in this reboot. Unless, of course, Fox have learned from their mistakes and don’t screw it up again. They seem to have turned over a new leaf recently, with the hiring of Bryan Singer for X-Men: First Class and getting Oscar winning director Christopher McQuarrie to write Wolverine 2. Maybe they’ve realised it’s better to make good superhero films, instead of making any old turd and marketing the hell out of it for a big opening weekend.

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This was a bad summer for 20th Century Fox, after not one of their movies crossed the $100 million mark. X-Files: I Want to Believe couldn’t compete with The Dark Knight, The Happening opened to bad reviews and Babylon A.D. hasn’t exactly set the box office alight. One reason for this could be that Fox didn’t have a superhero movie to release. In 2006 they had X-Men: The Last Stand and in 2007 we got Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. 2008 was supposed to be Wolverine’s year however filming got pushed back due to Hugh Jackman filming Australia, so we will now be seeing it next year.

With Marvel now making their own movies Fox need to make use of what they already have, and it seems like they are (kinda). From Variety:

Fox will mull the possibility of more “X-Men” spinoffs, including a young-X-Men project as well as “Deadpool,” based on a character played by Ryan Reynolds in “Wolverine.” The studio is even considering reviving the “Daredevil” property.

There has been talk of a young X-Men movie for a while now, with the most recent development being X-Men: First Class appearing in Production Weekly last month. There is a good chance a Deadpool movie could work if he makes a big enough impression in X-Men Origins: Wolverine next May. The only one I am wary of is a Daredevil reboot.

However, at the end of the day this is Fox we’re talking about. They turned the Fantastic Four into popcorn fluff that didn’t garner enough attention for a third film and left X-Men 3 fans disappointed after caring more about getting the Memorial Day release date than making a good movie. If Fox want to get anywhere they need to stop pissing off directors and start taking their superhero properties more seriously by not turning them into hacked-up 90 minute crapfests.

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