Ten years ago, disaster flicks ruled the box office. Michael Bay showed us he was here to stay with Armageddon, and Deep Impact shook the world up a bit. Even Godzilla showed up for some summer popcorn fun (to much disappointment). But one film, based on an obscure Marvel Comics character, showed studio executives that there was a growing market for a feature film based on a comic book - as long as the material was taken seriously.
Reinventing the former yellow-jumpsuit-clad, now black-trenchcoat-wearing Blade was tough. We're still a year away from The Matrix and two years away from Bryan Singer's X-Men. No one really took superhero cinema seriously, yet. Blade went on to gross over $130 million worldwide and proved that there was viable profit in comic book properties. Two years later, Singer reinvented the X-Men for a new audience and a younger generation. Two years after that, Columbia Pictures released Spider-Man. The rest, as they say, is history.
Breaking box office records all around the world, your friendly neighborhood Spide-Man opened the door to the silver screen for myriad comic book characters, but few captured the essence of the source material and fewer could be regarded as a quality film. However, in 2005, the caped crusader was reintroduced in a bold and beautiful way in Batman Begins. The film's psychological and political themes pushed the envelope and gave our pop-culture-frenzied world a real hero to believe in.
Ten years after Blade broke new ground in Hollywood, hordes of fans went with casual moviegoers to see what would become the movie event of the decade. The Dark Knight has become the second-highest grossing film of all time in the states, surpassing Star Wars and trailing only Titanic. It has broken countless records and has reached audiences in every corner of the globe. What's more important to note, however, is that numbers aside, Batman's latest adventure is a true testament to the connection that the world has with the stories of costumed crime fighters. Superheroes have never been more mainstream than today. With a new Punisher film, a little movie called X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the highly anticipated Watchmen on the horizon, it's safe to say that comic book movies have become the focus of the entertainment industry. Here's to the next 10 years of superhero cinema!
In case you still doubt the bankability of movies based on "funny books," here are the top 10 highest grossing comic book movie adaptations. Not coincidently, they are some of the best movies of the past 15 years: 1. The Dark Knight ($504,798, 337 to date) 2. Spiderman ($403,706,375) 3. Spider-Man 2 ($373,585,825) 4. Spider-Man 3 ($336,530,303) 5. Iron Man ($317,847,676) 6. Batman ($251,188,924) 7. Men in Black ($250,690,539) 8. X-Men: The Last Stand ($234,362,462) 9. X2: X-Men United ($214,949,694) 10. 300 ($210,614,939) Source: Boxofficemojo.com
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