Hollywood’s promising you more superheroes, more crossovers, bigger films - but will they be any good?

It wasn’t so long ago when Hollywood was collectively freaking out, on a daily basis, about the “shrinking theatrical window” and the doomsday-like predictions of “day-and-date” movie distribution. Now that 2008 has seen the revitalizing effects of a few theatrical blockbusters - specifically in Iron Man and The Dark Knight - it looks like Hollywood will instead focus on dragging us back into the multiplexes after all.

But I’d argue that the success of IM and TDK owe as much to a stronger dedication to story and character as they do for their purely visual and aesthetic treats. And I wonder, as I read about recent trends designed to Make! The Movies! Into Events! Again!!, whether future efforts will simply throw story, character and true narrative movie-making back under the bus again.

The surge in recent years of filmmakers utilizing the IMAX format is pretty clear proof of Hollywood’s effort to leverage cinematic content in a way that consumers can’t replicate on their puny 50″ plasma TVs at home. But as we prepare for the sensory bludgeoning that will result from giving Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the IMAX treatment, we have to wonder how much of a good thing we deserve to have. Bay’s action scenes, often incomprehensibly shot and bulldozingly edited, can be overwhelming in the multiplex. Once they’ve been exploded (awesomely!) to IMAX-sized dimensions, can there be any doubt that widespread brain trauma and suicide will follow?

I’m kidding - sort of - but I do believe that blockbuster entertainment needs more than gorgeous explosions and flurrying, swirling cameras to be successful. Simply tossing masturbation humor and slow-motion shots of the American flag onto an IMAX screen does not, I’d suggest, encourage a newfound adoration of the Big Screen Arts.

In their relentless pursuit of our precious dollars, Hollywood will also continue to create (WARNING: MARKETING BUZZ-PHRASE APPROACHING) entertainment synergies between multiple (WARNING: HERE’S ANOTHER ONE) audience touch points. One thing that means for Joe Q. Moviegoer is that he can expect to see more movies based on his favorite comic books and video games - and, in some cases, the other way around.

Comic book movies are nothing new and the trend to capitalize on their success is about as surprising as the phenomenon of disappearing pancakes at a fat guy convention. But as we witness the announcement of a traditional studio like Paramount signing a multi-film, multi-jillion-dollar contract with Marvel, we have to realize that crossovers between disparate entertainment media are only going to grow larger and more far-reaching over time.

But again: will this be at the expense of strong movie stories and characters? Can the backlog of Marvel properties - or any comic properties for that matter - be so deep and rich that the resultant movies will remain fresh over the long term? It’s a similar question as we consider how movies and video games continue to crossover. Now it’s even going in the other direction: video game company Electronic Arts and filmmaker Zack Snyder have struck a deal in which the Watchmen director will develop game content for EA. One might argue that Snyder has already been creating video games, but to me it suggests an uneasy blend of skills that ultimately doesn’t advance what I love about movies. From a marketing standpoint it’s a no-brainer, of course: “A new battle game from the director of 300” and “A new film from the creator of Doom Mario Brothers Quake Halo Hedgehog” or whatever. But how depressing will it be when a movie is marketed as “A Uwe Boll Production of a Zack Snyder Video Game Executive Produced by Electronic Arts and Brought to You by Microsoft“?

Here’s another buzz-phrase, one that is at the heart of my concerns: “branded entertainment”. Essentially what that means is that movie makers are, more than ever before, taking your familiarity with consumer products and logos and will eventually craft whole movies and other blocks of content out of them. Witness the following piece of spin language in which Mary Warlick, CEO of The One Club in New York, tells The Hollywood Reporter about how her company illustrates the difference between “branded entertainment” and its primitive, obsolete forefather, “product placement”:

One Show Entertainment is specifically drawing the distinction between entertainment either in film, gaming or theatrical releases that furthers the position of a brand rather than simply a visual or gratuitous product placement because, let’s face it, the consumer is too sophisticated…There are successful product placements, but branded entertainment is about entertainment that the brand essentially serves as a vehicle for [itself].

Warlick seems concerned about “consumer sophistication”, yet she cites the exciting branding power of TV reality shows, Michael Bay’s Transformers, and has also planned a branded entertainment awards show for which Brett Ratner will serve as a *snicker* judge, all while citing her organization’s involvement with “some of the most creative people in the advertising industry and in the entertainment industry”.

Sorry, but when “creative people” gets translated to “movie makers we handsomely compensate to sell consumer products in disturbingly, increasingly pervasive ways”, it really doesn’t enhance the idea of going out to the movies. IMAX-sized or not, I’ll hold out for films of character, innovation, strong narrative and compelling visual craft instead.