Tuesday 28 August 2012

Hollywood Babble On & On #946: Comic Book Kisses & Musical Numbers

OH, SUPERMAN!

The comics fan community is all aflutter about DC Comics. Right after launching their most recent reboot of their comic book universe with the "New 52" they're shaking it to the core once again because...

It's probably inevitable, since Wonder Woman's one of the few women in the DC Universe who could probably survive the rigors of making sexy-times with a hopped up Kryptonian. (Just ask Ma & Pa Kent about the holes that started appearing in the ceiling in Clark's room when he hit puberty.)

However, this whole thing just reeks of yet another pointless publicity stunt on the part of DC Comics.

I can remember the 1990s. The collector's market had exploded and the comics industry felt that every frigging thing they put out had to have some sort of "collectible" status. In every issue someone had to be killed, married, crippled, or otherwise drastically and irrevocably changed, and then they changed everything back as soon as frigging possible.

DC's gonna grab some headlines, then they're going to let it fade away because the odds are pretty good that they don't know what to do with it after the initial consummation.

Much ado about nothing folks.

WILL FAME FLY AGAIN?

MGM-TV has inked a deal with TV talent show maven Nigel Lythgoe to produce a TV series revival of MGM's franchise Fame.

In case you don't know Fame is about the students and staff at New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music, Art, & the Performing Arts. They're all singers, dancers, musicians, and actors and all are looking for a shot at... FAME!

 The franchise started in 1980 as a movie directed by Alan Parker, that was followed by an NBC TV series starring some of of the movie's original cast. The NBC show didn't do very well in the ratings and was cancelled during its second season. However, it was the show that would not die, at least for a while, and went into first run syndication for four more seasons.

MGM did a movie remake in 2009, and while the film did turn a modest profit, mostly because of its small budget, even the few people who saw it, don't really remember it.

But that's not the reason why I'm feeling iffy about this project.

You see MGM is hot to get this off the ground because they think they can cash in on the popularity of shows like Glee and American Idol

Now here's the problem.

American Idol is on a ratings slide, and can't keep their celebrity judges for love or money.

Then there's Glee.

If your twitter feed contains more than one twenty-something to thirty-something female you can get an interesting sample of the Glee audience and how they feel about the show. They talk about how much they love the songs, but hate the story-lines, the characters, and just about everything else about the show.

I don't see Glee hanging on after its last contractually obligated season, and I don't see people rushing to see a Glee clone, even if it was inspired by a movie made over 30 years ago.

Personally, I think MGM should look a little deeper if they want to turn one of their old library titles into a TV series.

2 comments:

  1. The obvious problem is the fanbase for musical heavy shows seems to be women who enjoy singing (which means a heavy dose of women who go to church as that's one of the best places for most people to perform), but the people who want to produce musically themed shows want to use them to preach from a very different gospel.

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  2. Furious,

    About Supes and WW, it's been done in Kingdom Come probably the best comic ever. Any chance of DC not ruining their next tv or movie project. Green Arrow could be good tv or a movie. Any buzz yet on Arrow?

    Rainforest Giant

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