This is the exact same reason as to why Superman has been supplanted as the face of DC in favor of Batman.
Why Does Hollywood always have to F*** it up?
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
Which is funny because Cole proceeded to become even more boring. Cole turned out to be a thoroughly conventional fish out of water sort of character.
Last edited:
More accurately, they give a shit about keeping the focus on wtf the movie is supposed to be about, not filling it with a bunch of shitty human drama. Nobody came here to watch shit they’d find in 99% of other movies.
Funny enough, that is what Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist did. Great movie.
The movie succeeded, and now Capcom can do a SFCU! Aaaaaannnnnddddddd, they fucked it up for no reason!
Last edited:
Oh my god but that blonde dude looks like he's wearing the one of the world's most unconvincing wigs.
Mortal Kombat 2 Will Reportedly Model Johnny Cage After Ryan Reynolds
Whether he ends up playing the role or not, Mortal Kombat 2's Johnny Cage will take many cues from Ryan Reynolds' personality.
wegotthiscovered.com
Why can’t WB afford Ryan Reynolds exactly? The initial movie has a 32% profit margin on theatrical sales let alone whatever the HBO deal adds. IMO they can only go bigger and bolder, which means the same for talent behind and in front of the camera. Using a stand-in will likely flop, which will ultimately be wasted effort.
Because bean counters count beans, and have beans for brains.
And auteurs are notorious for wasting money. Both are needed to successfully make a movie.
To answer the title question: It's because Hollywood doesn't care. So many studios fall upon the old reliable tactic of:
Step 1: Find something popular.
Step 2: Make a half assed movie out of it that has nothing anyone who actually likes the IP likes about it.
Step 3: Get some money off the naive fans who will buy it just because X is in it.
Step 4: Laugh all the way to the bank as the IP crumbles as a direct result and the fans scream bloody murder.
Step 5: Go to Step 1.
Same with IP video games too, it's the reason we haven't had a good Superman game ever. It's not that it's difficult to make a great IP adaption at all, any more than it is to make a great movie to begin with, it's that it's difficult to find a studio that actually cares. Even Marvel coming up with the formula of:
Step 1: Make a great and faithful Superhero movie.
Step 2: Make 50 bajillion buttloads of money.
Step 3: Make more great and faithful Superhero movies.
Step 4: Make even more bajillion buttloads of money than before because people actually trust them to release something worthwhile.
Step 5: Go to Step 3.
Doesn't seem to have stopped this in the least.
Step 1: Find something popular.
Step 2: Make a half assed movie out of it that has nothing anyone who actually likes the IP likes about it.
Step 3: Get some money off the naive fans who will buy it just because X is in it.
Step 4: Laugh all the way to the bank as the IP crumbles as a direct result and the fans scream bloody murder.
Step 5: Go to Step 1.
Same with IP video games too, it's the reason we haven't had a good Superman game ever. It's not that it's difficult to make a great IP adaption at all, any more than it is to make a great movie to begin with, it's that it's difficult to find a studio that actually cares. Even Marvel coming up with the formula of:
Step 1: Make a great and faithful Superhero movie.
Step 2: Make 50 bajillion buttloads of money.
Step 3: Make more great and faithful Superhero movies.
Step 4: Make even more bajillion buttloads of money than before because people actually trust them to release something worthwhile.
Step 5: Go to Step 3.
Doesn't seem to have stopped this in the least.
Last edited:
Would Ryan Reynolds want to do it?
Mortal Kombat 2 would be quite a B-list movie for an A-list actor. It's made a modest profit off a modest budget, probably with low chances of a sequel doing much better.
And whilst I get that actors might have a sense of fun, they often also like to "curate" their roles rather than just take any money thrown at them.
I've always felt it was because by default, Superman is a cheat code, and any real "difficulty" would have to be largely manufactured and contrived, and people buying a Superman game are expecting to BE Superman.
That said, I think a throwaway Superman game wherein you're given proper "God Mode" out the gate could be fun (think Prototype 2's "Excessive Force" DLC which gave the player a maxed out Heller to just fuck shit up around the city,) but no one's gonna waste such an iconic IP to do that.
Ryan Reynolds Teases Mortal Kombat Fans Who Want Him to Play Johnny Cage in a Sequel
Ryan Reynolds hilariously trolled Mortal Kombat fans on Twitter who wanted him to play the character of Johnny Cage in the movie's sequel
…But that’s not to say he hasn’t had bigger duds in the past…
All Ryan Reynolds Movies Ranked by Tomatometer
See what are the best Ryan Reynolds movies (Deadpool, The Voices), and the ones critics didn't love but you did (Smokin' Aces, Hitman's Bodyguard, Safe House).
editorial.rottentomatoes.com
I strongly disagree. Superman The Animated Series regularly showed Superman as weak enough that his enemies could genuinely threaten him personally and it's probably the most well received adaption of all time. Superman doesn't have to be invincible or "god mode" at all to work well, in fact he works a lot better when he isn't.
If I were to make a Superman game I would probably set it at the start of Superman's career as a superhero, when he's inexperienced and probably doesn't even have all his powers yet. In fact, I'd give him super strength, durability, super running speed, and the ability to leap several stories in the air to start with, just like Superman himself started out originally, then have him unlock more powers as a story progresses, not even gaining flight until somewhere at the mid to late game probably. Then with EXP and leveling he gets stronger and more skilled, but not to a significant extent more than he originally was i.e. if he could lift 50 tons at the start he could lift 100 tons by the end of his strength upgrades.
Then I'd make all his regular enemies things like robots, mutants, aliens, demons, that sort of thing, things that could realistically take Superman in a straight fight. The supervillains would be of the same mold but much stronger to the point that Superman is the underdog in the fights against them so that if the player just tries to fly up and start punching Superman will lose. Make him use his powers and environment inventively to damage and make them vulnerable to such. Such as say you fight a villain made of fire, he'll burn you just coming close to him so since you don't have ice breath yet you have to douse him with water to briefly make it possible to directly attack him periodically.
Probably just use a variation on the Batman Arkham combat systems since, you know, everybody does and I honestly can't imagine better really.
The story is probably the difficult part, but I'd probably go with "Clark is a rookie reporter climbing the ladder at the Daily Planet and forming relationships with everybody" as the basis for things and go from there.
Point is, it's not hard to make a Superman game, it's just that nobody who actually cares about Superman has actually made a game of him just yet.
Last edited:
Or, you simply tweak it a little. Introduce Shao Kahn like he's Darkseid.
Picture this: the guy is sending in a practically demonic army through portals, so conventional and even guerrilla warfare simply doesn't work because the guy can literally send what amounts to a platoon of assassins literally anywhere on the planet without any forewarning.
For all intents and purposes, this is a war Earth cannot win and practically already lost. Our enemy is literally based in another dimension, so we cannot go on the offensive unless we figure out how to do that ourselves. This also precludes us gathering reliable intel even on the scope of the enemy's forces, but the simple fact that they employ portals so liberally means that they must be presumed to have a massive technological advantage. That portal 'tech' also means that an effective defense is practically impossible. It all but negates the range advantage of missiles, guns, artillery, etc, eliminates their need for a vulnerable supply line, and makes their troop movements completely unpredictable. They could literally just pop into a barracks and slaughter our troops in their sleep. Never mind the seemingly magical capacities of some of their more prominent war assets. So basically we've got Half-Life's Seven Hour war going on; capitulation is the only obvious option for a chance of survival.
Cue now Shao Kahn calling in to gloat and solidify his victory. By his reckoning, Earth's performance was remarkably humiliating, it's like the world didn't even know how to fight. So in order to completely crush the planet's spirit he's trying a gambit to show its people how absolutely outclassed they are. So he - in his infinite magnanimity - is pulling back his forces and is opting to let the two worlds show their strength with their choice of champions in a tournament with the prize being glory and the planet itself. He expects to be entertained, and will be very disappointed if Earth holds its best in reserve...(at which point he calls out Johnny Cage specifically, having intercepted some video of his films and mistook the actor for a real fighter...whoops).
Et voila. Outworld sends in champions because Shao Kahn is trying to break Earth's will to fight (with a method partially based on him simply operating off a different military paradigm and consequentially not understanding that Earth wasn't holding back but was just outclassed), Earth sends champions from the military (Jax, Sonja Blade, probably Kano in Suicide Squad style parole), Johnny Cage has to attend due to a misunderstanding and not wanting to provoke Kahn, and a few volunteers like Liu Kang because it's the goddamn apocalypse and there will be at least a few good fighters who won't take that lying down.
The idea naturally needs polishing, but the basic framework is certainly workable. You aren't going to win any awards with it, but you can at least get a fun B-movie out of it and avoid the Razzies.
--
Tangent: Raiden does not (explicitly) appear for the Doylist reason that the lore starts getting too dense for one movie and the Watsonian reason (addressed if he appears in a later film) that the Celestial Bureaucracy (yes, I'm using Chinese mythology for this, because this explanation amuses me) is being...well, the DMV. By which I mean they're not present in the movie because the gods are bickering about whether or not the rules allow them to intervene, and the pro-interventionist gods have to get a motion passed and the necessary forms signed in triplicate before they can so much as send down a proper avatar (though Raiden might be exploiting a legal loophole and giving promising champions a bit of a nudge under the radar).
You disagree that I felt a certain way? How dare...
In all seriousness, I never said it was impossible or even implausible to make a good Superman game; I just felt like anyone picking up a Superman man game might find the contrived challenges off-putting, i.e.: I'm not buying a Superman game to only feel like Superman at the very end. Your suggestions are quite logical and feasible, but they work better in games like Prototype or Crackdown where expectations right off the top aren't "I should be invincible because for nigh a century, Superman has been the gold standard for super abilities."
And admittedly, I haven't followed Superman at all, even when I collected comics as a child; I found him boring mostly because he was basically impervious to everything save for a rare green rock that the worst people always somehow managed to get their hands on when it was convenient for "plot," so I don't know what all iterations of him might make for a good game, but I know, speaking for myself, if I pay $60 for a Superman game and it has a limited "flight" meter or dozens of "Kryptonite towers" scattered everywhere (looking at you, Ubisoft) to keep me in underpowered so their game can happen, I'm checked out; that's not Superman.
The weird thing is, this is basically what the mirror universe version of Mortal Kombat Annihilation would have been. I also dig it.
I recommend you all watch this if you got the time. I'll see it another time.
Damn I’ll need to pencil in some time for that, like it’s literally a movie length critique itself.
Mortal Kombat exceeds expectations on HBO Max
New Mortal Kombat film does a Fatality on HBO Max's expectations!
www.joblo.com