Damage to Spider-Man Brand?

36 Comments

1. The Spider-Man movie is not indicative to the success of the Spider-Man brand. It is a filler, extra offering for the character of Spider-Man… what do you honestly think will happen if that movie bombs? Lets look at two possible outcomes and you tell me which one you think is more likely:

   1) The movie tanks and any further movies are put on hold, but the comic remains as well as the shows, toys, games and other extra stuff… or

   2) The movie tanks and any further movies are put on hold as well as the comic being cancelled, the toys being pulled and all the extra stuff goes away… all because of the movie bombing.

   The best case scenario is this movie bombs and Sony lets it go and Marvel/Disney gets the rights back and gets us a movie we’ve actually wanted. If anything, this movie bombing could help Spider-Man in the long run. This movie is not going to end the Spider-Man brand which has been around since the 60s… well before America was oversaturated with below average superhero movies. The only thing it will do is drive away the casual viewer… anybody who is interested in the comic will still read the comic, anybody that wasn’t interested in the comic to begin with, still won’t be.

2. i agree with the article that if the next spidey movie bombs at the box office, spider-man brand will be at risk

3. Two-Bit, Dawn Treader’s situation is very different. How much steam was Dawn Treader riding from other media? Were the chronicles of Narnia popular in books, tv. toys, ect. outside of its failed movie franchise? No, the movie franchise were its sole source of steam. I’m aware the books exist and they probably sell well, but they’re not hot commodities that can carry the Chronicles of Narnia Brand. Instead, only the movies were the brand with a small portion of the brand from the books. That’s different from Spiderman, who has tons of branding in tv, comics, toys, clothes, broadway, video games. . . and you could make arguments that any one of them at one point are the big Brand-carrier at any given time. That’s why just the movie and Broadway show can’t destroy the brand as a whole.

4. Spider-man has been damaged for the last five years or so. I’m mainly a comic fan so I basically apply that success or failure to the franschise. I can’t believe the thing I read not too long ago it seems about Spider-man dying for some reason which I doubt was explained, then he is beaten nearly to death by a generic villian (whose named escapes me) who he intern kills with a spike or something coming out his arm I think. Not only did Spider-man stop being Spider-man around that time they just kept on putting new stuff in there they had little idea what to do with, they never wanted to do anything with it because they wanted him to be single. So they turned Spider-man into a whining loser who would weasel out of anything. He wouldn’t let his mother figure die. Despite the fact that she had already died. Who does that remind me of? Norman Bates or his real life equalivant. The character seems like a joke now, to be quite honest. He gets new costumes ever three months and is in so many books. Spider-Island sounds like a joke, not a story. The stuff with the play is also very depressing. Like I said, I try to avoid Spider-man in comic books these days. Even when he was married there was a sense of ‘stuff could happen’. But now it’s ‘Another new costume’ and ‘Big New Day… again.’

   I wanted to get FF, but then saw Spider-man was in it and just decided to forget it. The character isn’t relatable and he doesn’t seem like a hero at all. A man stands up to adversity and uses his head. Call me old fashioned. A man makes mistakes, but not blatent ones. Oh and a man has to live with the consequences of his action.

   It’s amazing how Ultimate Spider-man seems more accurate despite the troubled world he lives in and that he’s younger, yet he seems more a man than what is supposed to be the ‘real’ Spider-man. I think the real Spider-man died a long time ago in the book.

   They also ruined Doc Ock! Why? He looks like nothing. he looks like Gaunt from the end of the clone saga. Give us Doc Ock back atleast.

5. I don’t know… Anyone remember Voyage of the Dawn Treader? The poor critical reviews of both The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian might have contributed to it bombing.

   All I’m saying is: don’t quickly dismiss poor critical reviews just because the franchise “still makes money” elsewhere.

6. Brian is right on all points. The article was very poorly written. Let’s face it, Disney only wants Spider-man to make money. Even if Turn Off The Dark has bad reviews, even if we don’t like the costume pics, those two points (which was the article’s sole focus) does not mean that Disney will lost money on Spider-man as a brand. There would have to be a string of bad movies and a loss of money on an investment for the Spider-man brand to be a bad investment for Disney. As the article pointed out, Disney did not even put money into TOTD, so if/when it fails completely, that won’t be a lost investment to Disney. Kids will still buy Spiderman lunchboxes and underwear, EVERYONE will continue to go see the movies (even if it’s poorly reviewed), and we’ll still buy the comics.
   Further, as Brian said, the reason Disney will continue to make money on Spider-man is because Spec. Spidey was a good cartoon, Spider-man is still rolling on the steam from the successful movies, his comic sales are still fine, the video games have always been fine in my opinion ad are getting better to everyone. . . In short, it will take MUCH more than a possibly-bad movie and a failed broadway show to destroy the Spider-man brand. = bad article.

7. That’s the Washington Times, not the Washington Post. Big difference. You really don’t have to link to the Times. Just look at the other headlines.

   Here they are talking about a broadway play but they fail to mention that 1) it hasn’t officially opened yet and 2) has been a box office success in previews. Then they go on to make claims about reception to a movie that isn’t out yet, and claim that the previous movie from 4 years ago is too recent, and was poorly received, without mentioning that it made hundreds of millions of dollars.

8. @#26

   How’s the rent over there in La La Land? Good rates?

9. @19-Brian Bradley–Thanks. And yes, I too remember a time when McDonlad’s happy meal toys were actually cool.

   @23-alexleg–I didn’t mean to imply that Batman: Arkham Asylum doing better than Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions constitutes failure. And it was well received, so it was not a disaster. However, in terms of video game licensing, Spider-Man video games, by and large, have been a pretty mixed bag (although fortunately no where near as bad as other superhero titles like Superman 64 or Aquaman).

10. I wouldn’t think Disney is particularly worried. The company has all those other properties. I’m sure someone did the numbers and figured Disney could do okay without Spider-man–I’d bet it was decided at the time of buying Marvel, that it would be too much trouble to buy out the holders of the musical rights and the film rights.

    I’d speculate that either they will buy out the rights (and give the musical a mercy killing?) or wait until said rights revert and give Spider-man a rest for awhile. If Disney gives it a couple of year’s rest, Spidey may be popular again. The character’s been around enough years.

    I just think it’s interesting that the comics themselves–except a reference to embarassing moments in them–were not mentioned. Which just goes to suggest the comics are just not seen as profitable. This is unfortunate.

11. I am unashamed to say I liked Spider-Man 3. Everyone else who say it sucks is wrong.

12. @#12

    … haven’t heard of ME doing it, have you?

13. @alexleg – Hence my “dumb casual observer” preface.

14. I dont see people should downplay games and cartoons because it is “kiddie things”?

    There are very popular brands that is cartoon/game based Halo, COD, Warcraft….Ben 10 and Avatar etc. Cartoons are even watched more than the musical. Many spider-man fans started out from cartoons.

    To the article…like i mentioned earlier Spider-man had its one of the best comic cartoons ever only just a past year. Raising the stock of the brand of spider-man. And even more when the ultimate cartoon come with Disney’s marketing/promotion.

    Stillanerd@ Batman:AA>SM:SD doesnt mean failure. In fact SD is the 2nd best solo comic game as of late. Why brand it as a damage and downplay its success?

    And one should look at the merchandise and licensing of spider-man which is also important part of the Brand….its still strong despite not having a movie for the past year.

15. Hey Brian nothing wrong with liking Disney man. I grew up on Disney. Sadly it has somewhat ruined me from things as I want the happy ending both in life and the media I enjoy. The whole Disney buying Marvel, meh, Warner Brothers owns DC and with out that their probably wouldn’t be the awsome Batman Superman and Justice League cartoons.

    And Two-Bit scores some points for being correct that the casual viewer sees videogames and comics and the like as childish things despite the primary user base for both products being skewed a little older.

16. “to the dumb casual observer”… ha, so true. Being a fan of those three kiddie things, I am all too familiar with that stigma. It’s pretty sad when you consider that there are tons of games being made now a days that are soooo much better than the crap they put on the big screen.

    It’s alright though, comics and games aren’t as sophisticated as Jersey Shore or watching a bunch of grown men in pads and helmets playing a grown up version of Smear the Queer… keep it up America, we’re doing well for ourselves.

17. @Brian – There’s still a mentality, to the dumb casual observer, that videogames, cartoons, and comicbooks are “kids stuff” or at the very least irrelevant because they are not “mainstream,” like movies and Broadway plays.

18. @nerd – I appreciate the good back and forth… wish people in my real life liked talking about spider-man as much as i do 🙁 The whole Noir aspect of Shattered Dimensions really bothered me because while it was cool, it was a shameless rip off of Arkham Asylum. The two games should be compared since they are comic book games, and I will admit AA just crushed Shattered Dimensions… stupid Batman. But for the sake of this article I was just trying to focus more on Spider-Man since thats the brand we’re talking about. Without Arkham Asylum there would probably be no Shattered Dimensions so I’m at least thankful for that…. Remember when McDonalds used to actually make cool Happy Meal toys :-/ those were the days.

    @Gerard – in interest of full disclosure… you’ve figured me out. I actually do own stock in Disney, but only because I had a little stock in Marvel at the time of the purchase (so another reason why the buyout didn’t bother me)… And I swear this is a true story. Back in 2001 I said… ‘I should buy stock in Marvel before this Spider-Man movie comes out because its stock will go through the roof with that film I bet’… It was like 2 bucks a share at that time. I was going to buy 200 bucks worth so like 100 shares and wound up never doing it… next thing I know Marvel’s stock started climbing and was sitting around a nice teen number I’m pretty sure by the time the company was sold… I was so bitter I didn’t initially invest like I wanted to, instead I only have like 1 or 2 shares.

    Even if they never bought Marvel though I would still support Disney. I plan on making any future children I have watch every Disney movie and cartoon I watched as a kid because come on… Darkwing Duck and Rescue Rangers were bad ass.

19. Things I learned from this comment thread: Brian Bradley owns stock in Disney. 😛

20. @15 Brain Bradley–About the upcoming “Ultimate Spider-Man” cartoon, I agree. And for me, it running the same risk as the “Amazing Spider-Man” movie reboot has. In both cases, you essentially have a “reboot” coming shortly on the heels of a popular franchise series. You either get what happened with Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy” in the wake of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher’s Batman films, or you can get what happened with Kid’s WB “The Batman” in the wake of Fox’s “Batman: the Animated Series.”

    As for why I brought up Batman: Arkham Asylum, both it and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension are video game adaptations/platforms based on comic book characters. Heck, in some of the reviews for Shattered Dimensions, direct comparisons were made to Arkham Asylum, specifically the “Noir” levels which relied on stealth tactics involving swing up into the rafters and taking down bad guys without altering the attention of other bad guys. Hope that clears things. As for Edge of Time, I agree, if it turns out to be a rushed product–which some are already accusing the game of before it’s even come out–then that’s bound to be a problem.

    As for the comic books, I’m not trying to lay the blame for the market squarely on Spider-Man’s feet. There are other factors involved, but I do think a large part of the decline, which doesn’t get talked about much, IS the content of those comic books. After all, you have the best looking product in the world at a reasonable price, but if the content sucks then one is less likely to invest in that product. That’s certainly why “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” ended up getting so panned that the director ended up getting fired, a new writer was brought in to clean up the story, and the production has now been put on a month long hiatus. And yes, I agree that the article should have addressed the comic book and your McDonald’s example is a good one. And as you said, stuff like the movies, plays, shows, games, and toys are used to promote the comic. However, it’s also where Marvel now makes the bulk of its money from moreso than the comic. To use your McDonald’s example, it’s the equivalent of making money off the Happy Meal toys moreso than the actual food.

21. Why did they not talk about the Spider-man comics in this article is a mystery to even me. 🙁

22. Valid points. I also really enjoyed the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon and the cancelation of that was unfair and doesn’t look good for the brand, but at least we’re getting something else. I am hopeful it will at least be entertaining. I don’t think we should sell it short just yet. It’s kind of like the whole issue with Spider-Girl… get rid of one in favor of another. Not the best move in the world, but a gamble. Hopefully this one pays off better than the Spider-Girl fiasco.

    As far as video game goes, I think its totally unfair to compare it to Arkham Asylum. That game is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition as far as comic book video game goes. We’re also not talking about the Batman brand right now. We’re talking about Spider-Man and as far as Spider-Man games go, I feel they took a big step forward and thats a positive thing. If Edge of Time fails and turns out to be just a rushed product, then it’ll be a problem. But for now, I don’t think that Spider-Man is failing in the gaming world.

    The comic medium as a whole is suffering and I don’t think that aspect should be held against Spidey. The stories may be at fault for some of the lousy sales, but when the business as a whole is on the decline, you shouldn’t look at final numbers as an indication of whether or not a book is successful, but thats the way business works I guess. But he didn’t talk about comics at all really, and not addressing the comic, which is the mainstream continuity of the Spider-Man brand, is a bad move when you’re trying to discuss the overall world of Spider-Man. It doesn’t matter if the movies and broadway show will be most accessible to everyone… it’s like reviewing McDonalds based on its commercials, product placements or happy meal toys, and not even discussing its food which is what most fans of McDonalds would care about. Everything else is just background noise to promote the main item. The movie, play, shows and toys are just extra crap that is used to promote the Spider-Man comic… and the author of the review did not address that at all. But that wasn’t the point of the article as we said, in which case, I find it a pointless article that holds no water. All it is is just a filler piece for non fans to read and have them take away false information or ideas of Spider-Man. But hey, as they say, bad publicity is good publicity I guess.

23. @ #13 Brain Bradley–I do agree that this piece did accentuate the negative–which is par for the course for journalism regardless of whatever the topic is–and that he did leave some aspects of the Spider-Man brand out. There, I agree, that if the author of the piece, if he wanted to do a complete examination of the Spider-Man franchise, he should have looked at the franchise as a whole and not just the ones which had the most popular exposure. However, even looking at those markets, there’s still some cause for concern

    Sure, you have upcoming “Ultimate Spider-Man” cartoon and how there are high hopes for it. But remember, in the minds of some fans, there already WAS a excellent Spider-Man cartoon: Greg Weisman’s “Spectacular Spider-Man,” which was both critically acclaimed and popular with audiences, and considered to be one the best animated adaptations of Spider-Man ever made, on par with “Batman: The Animated Series.” And to those fans of the series, they feel that that cartoon got royally screwed over in favor of a new series which may or may not deliver the goods.

    The video game “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions” which did get favorable reviews. However, look at how it compared to some other games, including another game based on a comic book franchise, “Batman: Arkham Asylum.” http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/44317/spider-man-shattered-dimensions And don’t forget there was that statement from one the developers of the Spider-Man video games who said that they all pretty much sucked, if I remember correctly, hence why for Shattered Dimensions and the upcoming Edge of Time they went with Beenox as a co-developer.

    And then we have the comic books. If the article talked about that, likely covering Spidey’s current status quo in “Big Time,” being part of the FF, and “Spider Island,” the subject of “One More Day” would no doubt also come pop up and make mention about how Peter and MJ sold their marriage to Marvel’s devil proxy, Mephisto–a subject which is STILL a divisive topic among comic fans to this day. Not only that, even though Amazing Spider-Man is frequently in the top 20 in terms of comics, it’s doing so in a market that is in decline based upon direct market sales, in which even the number one comic is now not even likely to get above 100,000 copies.

    Yes, I know these are examples of “accentuating the negative” as well, but the point is if the video games, cartoons, and comics were covered along with the musical and the upcoming movie, the picture the article painted could have easily looked worse by comparison.

24. The main point of the article may have been to talk about the reboot and the broadway play, but as far as pure jounalistic integrity goes, this guy completely dropped the ball. He focuses only on the negative. While the article may be intended for the nonhardcore fans who will only see the play or movie, its doing a great disservice to everything else in the “Spider-Man brand.” Now, any of the common, non comic fans out there will read this article and agree with it because that is all they are presented with. If the article was called something like “Is the Spider-Man reboot and play hurting the brand” instead of making it seem like the whole brand is in trouble that would have been better. Less focus on Disney would have been fine too since they knew when they signed the deal that these two things were in progress and they didn’t have anything to do with them. I’m sure Disney is just waiting for the time when they can get these rights back and give it back to Marvel Studios. In the meantime theres not much else they can do.

    You can’t talk about the “brand” of a character and only focus on two poor aspects of it. If the brand is hurting, it’s because stuff like this where only the negative things are presented. Its like saying “The Boston Red Sox’s season is finished because they sucked the first two weeks” and disregarding the fact that theres a whole rest of the season to play. The writer should have made it a point to acknowledge how popular and well Spider-Man is doing in other mediums and not just how bad two particular projects are doing, no matter how big they are. The ironic thing is, this article and its poor reporting do just as much harm to the brand because people will see this and say “oh, spider-man must suck, i have no need to buy a comic or see that movie.” Personally, that doesn’t bother me, because the less non-knowledgeable fans in the theater with me, the less likely it is that I have to hear some asshat talk about how he wishes “Steve Carnage” was in the movies. For real, some guy thought the character of Carnage’s real name was Steve Carnage, I almost cried.

25. @Enigma – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that they’ve drop a book only to pick it back up a few months down the road.

26. I think the point some are missing about this article is that the reason why it concentrates on “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark” and the upcoming “Amazing Spider-Man” reboot film is because, for the average consumer, those two things will be the main, first, and perhaps only exposure to Spider-Man. Like it or not, the musical and the films are what get the most media exposure and coverage because they know that more people are likely going to go the movies or the theater based on a comic book character than they are going to buy a video game, watch a cartoon, or read a comic book about that character. That’s primarily why Disney bought Marvel and why Sony is desperate to hold onto their rights to Spider-Man–because when it comes to film and television, that’s where the real money is. Besides, if one has been watching the comic book publishing market as of late on websites like IcV2, they’ll see that sales for all comics and graphic novels are down by close to 10% for the first quarter compared to this time last year. Not exactly a sign of a robust and healthy market.

27. We’re fickle?

    And while I may have reservations against a reboot, how is 5 years too soon? That’s a large chunk of time in my opinion…

28. I thought the article hit all the right notes. The other day I asked K-Box if it was true the general audience outside of comic fandom thought a Spider-man reboot was dumb. He produced some proof that they did.

29. I just finished reading that article.. What a terrible example of ‘reporting’.. he focuses on two main things, the play and the movie reboot. Ofcourse those are going to be bad, but most real Spidey fans just look past those cause they know they’re nothing more than an attempt to cash in on such a popular character. Those will come out, maybe not impress as much, but it’ll still keep Spider-Man relevant. Most people should expect any comic movie not made by Marvel Studios, or featuring Batman, to fail now a days. Like many have already said, this article overlooks games, merchandise, tv shows and oh yeah, the freaking comics where Spider-Man is still so popular hes in at least half a dozen different titles a month. Anybody reading the Washington Post for their Spidey news (as opposed to this wonderful website) is wasting their time.

    This really is a poorly written article and just one journalists attempt to hop on the “bash spider-man” bandwagon. Furthermore, who did he interview that has any credible credentials to speak on the Spider-Man brand? Do we know if any of those industry experts have any sort of insight to the character? I thought this was supposed to be from the Washington Post, not the Daily Bugle.

30. while i agree there are some setbacks(turn off and amazing)…it is not beyond repair.

    Plus we dont know what the future holds for those projects yet Amazing still gets lots of news compared to most Comicbook movie projects

    the article doest not detail the whole Brand picture

    1. Spider-man Shattered Dimensions and Spec SM were financial and commercial successful. Lots of good rating/sales and reviews. Edge of Time is coming up.

    2. There is a lot of Buzz in the Ultimate Cartoon which is groomed by Disney XD as their premiere show next year.

    3. Merchandise of spider-man are still doing well.

31. I don’t dislike Disney, it’s marvel I dislike!
    As I said elsewhere, too – it’s not fickle
    fans that have already abandoned Spidey.

32. I still like Spider-Man 3 quite a bit! Is it perfect? No, far from it and it’s too bad Raimi and Co. aren’t getting a shot at redemption/last hurrah. I don’t think most movie goers are going to be too upset about the costume departure for The Amazing Spider-Man. If anything, they might be tired if we get another origin movie 10 years after the first one.
    As for me personally, OMD and how Marvel staff carry themselves online and at conventions has led me to NOT buying pretty much anything Marvel for my two kids, which is helped out by the fact that DC is stepping up their merchandising game a bit.

33. “When people think of Spider-Man,” said Mr. Contrino, “the first thing that pops into their head is, ‘Why are they rebooting the movie?’ Then the second thought is, ‘That play is a freaking mess on Broadway.’”

    Really? That’s what people think? I have a hard time believing that, I doubt too many people honestly care about the musical and the movie is still a ways away from even coming out…..and I gaurantee it sells a ton of tickets when it comes out…..if anything hurt the Spider-man brand it was Spider-man 3 and OMD in the comics…..this is a pretty bad article IMO.

34. Seriously, people need to get over the fact that Disney owns Marvel now. They have nothing to do with the licensing rights that were given out before they bought the company. I’m sure Marvel would love nothing more than to get these rights back and let Marvel Studios make the movie we’ve all been waiting for. Disney has the money and resources to help promote Marvel and keep it from going under like it did a few years back. It’s not like Disney is writing the stories now either. And why do people dislike Disney so much anyways? Are people forgetting about all the classic movies, characters and memories that the company has giving millions of kids and families over the past decades. They are not the devil and not the reason Spidey is getting so messed up. That article is dumb and just pointing out obvious things that most Spider-Man fans already know.

35. Anyone else find it funny that this is about damage to the brand and then right underneath this topic is how Spider-man should never be married. I wonder if theres a connection in there somewhere.

36. ‘Brand New Damage?’ Heh. The damage to this brand started way before Disney bought Marvel.