Tuesdays With Tom: A Special 10th Anniversary
The year is 2008. America just elected the first African American president in U.S. history. The economy is in shambles. Eli Manning is a freshly crowned Super Bowl MVP, Pittsburgh Steelers are getting geared up for their sixth Super Bowl title run and Tom Brady is about to have his knee wrecked (I couldn’t resist). I’m getting ready for my driver’s license exam and I’m enjoying my Nextel Sprint phone with walkie-talkie capabilities. It was an important time for our country, for myself and many others. Coming up next, I’ll tell you why two movies that came out in 2008 are two of the most important movies ever made…
Sorry I thought this was a radio show for a second! You didn’t have to wait very long. In a few weeks time, Disney Studios will release a movie called Avengers: Infinity War. Over 67 actors will star or appear in the film and it will likely make a billion dollars within a fortnight or two. Overall since May 2008, superhero franchises have made over $13 billion at the box office and are squarely in the center of the entire entertainment industry at large today. That’s a staggering number that would not have been possible without the successes of the two movies I’ll be writing about today: Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
It seems unthinkable now, but superhero films were not always a blank check to a bank account for movie studios. Unless you had a well-established character like Superman or Spider-Man, the odds of a movie like that succeeding were not great. In the cases of both Iron Man and The Dark Knight, it was a relatively high risk proposition that greatly shaped the landscape of both movie-going and movie making. Marvel Studios finally decided to stop selling off properties like X-Men for cash and get back into the game of producing films when Iron Man was in development. The company laid out an ambitious plan not just for Iron Man, but for several other standalone superhero films like The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America all loosely connected to one another and culminating in a team-up film with all of them together.
One problem: the first movie has to work. Enter Robert Downey, Jr. At the time, he was arguably a riskier bet than the planned franchise itself. In the early 2000s, RDJ was a heroin addict, a prisoner, a rehab patient and in some instances all three at once. He was so toxic that he needed Mel Gibson to vouch for him and pay to have him insured as an actor (yes, that actually happened). Now a major studio was betting on him to carry not only Iron Man, but ostensibly the entire company into a future of major box office income. Iron Man was not a well-known character and the film’s director Jon Favreau was mostly known for his work in the 1996 comedy Swingers. It was an odd couple for such an important movie, but once it finally came out, it took off like wildfire.
Re-watching the movie’s opening sequence is a bit jarring now (there’s a MySpace joke and a flip phone in the first 5 minutes), but Downey’s charisma as Tony Stark is instant and impactful. This is a superhero film that recognizes the fun that comes with having superpowers. I remember walking out of the theater thinking that Tony Stark was the coolest guy alive and I wanted to be him. In addition to making a cool $585 million at the box office, Iron Man became the catalyst for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, spawning two sequels of its own and creating unfathomable value for the company and Downey is the process. Downey himself commanded a $50 million salary for his role in 2012’s The Avengers and he’s become the posterboy for the Hollywood comeback story and the unofficial captain of the movie stars who sign on to work with Marvel Studios. As a movie of its own merit, Iron Man proved that you could make a superhero origin story unique, funny and aligned with contemporary times. Only one movie outperformed this instant classic in 2008: The Dark Knight.
The circumstances for The Dark Knight were entirely different than Iron Man. For one thing, its predecessor Batman Begins had already done the dirty work of digging the Batman movie franchise out of an ugly grave. In the 1980s and 1990s, Batman movies started off as refreshing Tim Burton-led creations that delighted fans and finished with George Clooney wearing batsuits with nipples and collecting a truckload of Razzies for Batman & Robin. It nearly torpedoed Clooney’s movie career and catered Batman as a viable property for many years. Christopher Nolan was eventually brought on to helm a new series of Batman films about the grim, popular comic series The Dark Knight and help bring Warner Brothers back a major studio piece to life. Nolan’s biggest films before this were Memento and Insomnia, two films that wouldn’t be revered or seen by the masses until many years later. With one Batman under his belt, Nolan surely had the confidence to make the sequel that would become The Dark Knight. What he couldn’t have prepared for was a tragedy that would ultimately have a major impact on his movie.
Although they are wholly different films, there’s no argument that Iron Man and The Dark Knight are primarily driven by the performances of a sole major character. In the case of TDK, it’s Heath Ledger as The Joker. Ledger died of a drug overdose six months before the premiere of the film and a considerable amount of press coverage was devoted to covering how the toll of playing The Joker led to his unfortunate death. An incredible buzz began to build up for the film that may not have existed without this event. Nonetheless, watching Ledger in The Dark Knight is a haunting, breathtaking experience. In many ways, he completely overshadows the movie, which on its own was thrilling and filled with memorable moments. Ledger created arguably the best movie villain of all-time and was forever immortalized after his death in every aspect. He won an Academy Award for his performance posthumously and while the film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, it’s exclusion was so widely criticized that they changed the number of eligible films the following year to rectify any future mistakes. Oh, and it grossed a billion dollars. It’s the most successful film of Nolan’s career to date.
The Dark Knight changed the conversation about superhero films. Nolan’s aesthetic and penchant for dense plots and gritty hard-boiled characters was so widely copied that the term “Nolanizing” became part of the critical lexicon. Try saying “Why so serious?” to someone without instant recognition. Better yet, try picturing someone else playing Tony Stark other than Robert Downey, Jr. The combination of these two films made a long-lasting impact on our pop culture and still resonate with us a decade later. In addition to being two of my favorite movies, there’s no question that both movies are among the most important ones in the 21st century. They’ll be remembered forever and they changed the fortunes and courses of many lives. It may be a different world in 2018, but these still stand the test of time.
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
It’s been a long time since I read a novel, but I got back into the game this past week. I started Drew Magary’s The Hike right as I sent out last week’s newsletter and by Thursday night I was so enthralled that I finished the entire book. I can’t say much of the plot without spoiling it, but this is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. If you like genre-bending stories with a dash of The Odyssey, you’ll love it as much as I did.
Speaking of bending genres, FX’s Atlanta, the brainchild of wunderkind Donald Glover, really went for it with last Thursday’s episode “Teddy Perkins”. In its second season, the show continues to show no fear in abandoning the traditions of cable TV comedy and doing something else entirely. Last year’s “BAN” is a prime example and it looks like this year “Teddy Perkins” will be the spiritual follow-up to that. This is one of the most disturbing and intense horror episodes I’ve ever seen on TV. Just imagine the plot of Get Out and swap in the white villains with a stand-in for Michael Jackson (played inconspicuously by Glover himself). If you think Glover doesn’t see the connection between Lakeith Stanfield’s character in that movie and his character on the show here, wake up. What a strange, thrilling show.
Here’s my last Bulls gripe until the NBA Draft. They’re blowing this tank job for the season. How they can stand by and let anonymous role players win games they should be trying to lose is beyond me. These guys might be part of the present, but they don’t have to ruin the future. I hope that “Fire GarPax” billboard is still up in the West Loop because my thoughts on that haven’t changed one bit this year.
Random thing that made me laugh this week. Why do we often announce that we’re going to say something? I do this all the time and I know others do too. For example, “I’ve got something to say.” Why can’t we just start saying it? Other good ones include “Here’s a thought”, “I’ll tell you one thing”, “Now listen to this”, “Check this out”, “I’ve got something on my mind”. You get the idea. What would happen if we all agreed to stop doing stuff like this and just launched right into the point? I’d be fascinated to find out.
I don’t know why anyone in Chicago considers April to be spring, but it’s time to end that practice. The statistical average temperature for the month is 38 degrees. It snowed last week and it snowed yesterday. It’s not going to be above 50 degrees for most of the month. You still want to call that spring? Go ahead. But this guy is officially deeming November through April winter and that’s the bottom line!