Prime Time Geek

So this year as far as “geek movies” are concerned, the BIG one is, obviously, Watchmen. More than a few people out there are looking forward to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well. Star Trek, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Terminator: Salvation, and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra will get us through the summer months, and in the winter we get Robert Downey, Jr., not as Tony Stark, but as someone with an even more distinguished pedigree, Sherlock Holmes. Not exactly a quiet year, by any means. However, it turns out that 2009 is just the beginning.

Warner Bros. announced their official slate of release dates for 2010 AND 2011, and when blended with the schedule that Marvel Studios has had in place for a while now … well, geez, I hope ticket prices at the box office don’t go any HIGHER. Here’s the rundown for 2010, including both Marvel Studios AND Warner Bros. genre films (thanks to Matt Brady over at www.newsarama.com for compiling all this so neatly):

Iron Man 2: May 7th, 2010
Twilight: Eclipse: June 30th, 2010
Thor: July 16th, 2010
Jonah Hex (based on the Western-style comic from DC, starring Josh Brolin and John Malkovich): August 6th, 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One: November 19th, 2010
Green Lantern: December 17th, 2010

Add to that The First Avenger: Captain America on May 6th, 2011 and BOTH The Avengers AND Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on July 15th, 2011, and you’ve got what amounts to a “golden age of geek” at the movies for the next three years.

I still maintain that the success of Watchmen in a few weeks is CRITICAL to this trend continuing. The buzz from overseas is VERY good – even in its theatrical version, the film is dense, compelling, challenging to viewers, everything that an adaptation of Moore’s work should be (though he himself would never admit it). Fans of the graphic novel should be pleased enough to want to see what the extended versions will have to offer when they come to DVD and Blu-Ray. The questions remain: will the visuals be enough to draw the curious non-Watchmen afficionado to the big screen beyond opening weekend? Will word of mouth after opening weekend draw new and return crowds? If the film is successful on these levels, then we should continue to see Warner and Marvel Studios continue their ambitious plans, because there will be more confidence in the bankability of pursuing less-recognized properties, as they will soon HAVE to do, as most of the “A-List” comic book properties have been done or are in production.

IF Watchmen, for some reason, FAILS to meet the studios expectations, however, then it might signal the beginnings of comic-book-movie burnout among moviewatchers, and having this deluge of genre films bombarding movie going audiences for the next two years may cause a serious backlash.