'The Avengers' Smash in Half-a-Bil!

Just about a week has passed since Joss Whedon and the rest of Marvel Studios/Disney has delivered on hefty expectations of bringing the biggest, baddest Superhero film ever.  And they did it in ways that I think nobody really expected.  First off raking in over half a billion of skrill worldwide ($640 mil to be exact and of that over $220 mil in the US).  Secondly, breaking every damn opening weekend record for any film, be it of the comics-genre or any other for that matter.

When I say that heads were surprised about this-- of course I meant the masses.  Marvel knew that they had put in work to pull off this massive feat.  The last record holder was the Harry Potter franchise-- and that took a decade and 8 films to build the near-cult following, interest and fanbase that made posing with a wand and a scarf...dare I say..cool. 

The Avengers was a fanboys wet dream on the big screen as it brought the monthly serialized comicbook experience to real-life by pulling off the never before continued (well kinda, right?) plotlines through a series of distinct films over the course of 10 years- Hulk 2, Iron Man, Thor, Iron Man 2 and now The Avengers-- with for the most part all of the major talent intact (minus Edward Norton and Terence Howard).  And these films were faithful to the source material-- be it JMS and Coipels new look Thor fitted to the T on Chris Hemsworth or Tony Stark's love for women and flying high (yeah, was smart how they didn't make him a drunk though).

Alright, for those of you that have not yet seen the flick...stop reading now unless you want SPOILERS.

Art by Joey Spiotto featured in Los Angeles Gallery

So now that we are all tuned in what made this film better than the top grossing Marvel Studios film (Iron Man) before it?   The answer is the grand scale that the brand alone that The Avengers brings.

For the same reason The Avengers books are a bigger draw than Iron Man (or any single hero book not named Batman) in the shops.  Where individual titles dissect a single character the team books are where you get the massive, larger than life stories that bring together our fave heroes to take on the crazy badass villians- Loki, Red Skull, Skrull Empire, Ultron, or Thanos (click on the pic --> to take you where I hope The Avengers 3 should take us).

What I loved from the film was a continuance of themes I loved from past films-- Tony Stark in all of his zing! moments, Thor as the ever-loving older bro to poor adopted Loki, Scarlet Johansson jumping around in butt-tight skimpies and Agent Coulsen going out like a champ.  To keep it real, Evans wasn't the best cast teamlead though he improved as a supporting piece in the film vs holding it down as the main guy.  Johansson was fantastic in a scene where she pulls the rug under Loki, but otherwise she needed less dramatic camera time.  Clark Gregg stole most of the show with his lil-bigman approach to things.  There wasn't one moment when I really took myself out of the 2 hour + viewing experience thinking the film wasn't believable, hella cheesy YES.  But totally believable.

The Avengers will not win any Oscars at The Academy Awards or other film awards for that matter but it has proved that this comicbook thang is a serious cashcow in the theatres, licensing and etc cause we all know that the paper doesn't come from the funnybooks.  For those of you that missed Joss Whedon's other bombass masterpiece- Astonising X-Men.  Go read it and you will appreciate this flick so much more for his craftsmanship in balancing out the epic action sequences and ROTFL-copter comedy.

Oh one more thing, bring on the Skrulls vs. Kree then give us more of muthaeffing THANOS.



This post was written by:
big O