You must have noticed that more and more American movies are based on comic strips (the Superman series, Batman, the upcoming Dick Tracy), or on what might as well be comic strips (the Indiana Jones series, the so far only two Ghostbusters, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and scads more). You will also have noticed how many movies are sequels (the list is endless). What does this mean? It is the sinister confluence of two unwholesome manifestations: rabid nostalgia and a frenzy for playing it safe.
The comic-strip is the epitome of nostalgia, sequels, and playing it close to the vest. The nostalgia is for when one was young and devouring comic strips, sequentiality is built into the daily or weekly comic strip, and what could be financially safer than translation to the big screen—with stars— of a story that delighted fans for decades on end? In the case of Batman, there is also a TV version haunting the collective memory. So the public’s attitude to this one is roughly what the ancient Greeks’ would have been to a movie adaptation of the Odyssey. I have seen people in the Batman line picnicking on the sidewalk while awaiting their spiritual sustenance.
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