Olympic Superhero Events

I enjoy hockey every bit as much as comic book. Right now is a fun time because I love Olympic hockey. You start with (most of) the best players in the world. Add in the larger ice (other than in Canada) which allows for faster movement and passing without sacrificing hard checking. Top it all off with the playoff-like atmosphere and every player giving his all playing for his/her country (my use of her is for more than grammar; the women’s USA vs. Canada wars are very fun).

Men’s hockey creates an interesting set of circumstances. From October to February you have NHL players playing with their clubs. They have those teammates, coaches, rivals and sometimes enemies. Then in February they go off to play with an entirely different set of teammates. NHL teammates become international rivals. NHL rivals becomes Olympic teammates. Most of the good teams form cohesive groups during the Olympics and enjoy playing with each other. Once medals are given players head back to North America and return to their NHL dynamics.

(This holds true as well for World Cup soccer/football and, to a lesser extent, international basketball.)

After today’s games my mind began to ruminate on that. Somehow my next thoughts turned to comics books and comic book movies (I can’t remember what started that). And then my mind somehow had the Marvel Movie Rights infographic still in my head when Olympic hockey came back. Like an old Reese’s commercial the two thoughts crashed together.

There’s no way that Fox and Sony are ever going to sell back their respective rights to Disney, I mean Marvel. Not now with comic book movies making many countries’ yearly GNP. 

But what if two big studios actually did get together to make a movie? Why wouldn’t they?
I obviously know why. They’re competitors. They fight for box office, DVD/Blu-ray and digital money. 

And yet, just like Olympic hockey, what if they came together for specific events to team-up characters for movies?

Imagine a Wolverine/Spider-man team-up movie. One starring Hugh Jackman (while he’s still sort of young enough to keep playing the role) and Andrew Garfield. Throw in Emma Stone and maybe a few X-men. Maybe even use a villain or two from each other’s (movie) world. Now just make sure there’s a writing team and director who can create something good and pull this off.

Would you go see that?

How many people would agree with you?

What about a comic book movie menage a trois that creates the New Avengers with Wolverine and Spider-man joining established movie Avengers with new ones like Luke Cage? They could even use one of the Marvel epic themes like Fear Itself or House of M.

Remember that in this scenario then that all three studios would make sure that the movie is scheduled in such a way that it would never compete with anything else. We’d also have all the marketing multiplied by a factor of three.

Wouldn’t that sell? I mean, wouldn’t it at least make back its budget in box office alone? How many days or weeks would it really need to make back that money? 

I know it won’t happen.

But we no longer live in a world where this kind of talk is (just) a fanboy’s wet dream. Comic book movies have not only become mainstream, they’ve conquered pretty much all the other weak mortals that come out every summer. We’re talking about billions of dollars. Billions. 

Sure each individual studio might not make as much on a single joint film as they do with the franchises they run on their own, but they’d still make a good profit. A very good one I’d think.

Michael Corleone would make this happen. It’s just business. And it’s good business.

Even Gordon Gekko knew when to cut his losses or make a deal with Sir Larry Wildman.

We’d have Olympic superhero movies and (unless the movie absolutely sucked) everyone would get gold