Stan Lee: "Not the least bit coherent." - Sony Pictures Blunt Assessment
Half the planet must have visited the
Sony Studios Wikileaks site over the past few days going on the sheer amount of
material that is surfacing. There’s
gigabytes of material to wade through, the bulk of it is utterly mundane,
boring run of the mill exchanges between people, revealing nothing of any great
note, but in amongst it all is correspondence that helps explain a lot. Such as the fact that a major film studio,
which handles The Amazing Spider-Man and works with Marvel a lot, has no real
idea, or respect, for the true creators of the characters they exploit and make
billions from.
Here’s what we know. At the end of January, 2014, then Sony Vice
Chairman Jeff Blake fired an email off to a group of senior Sony exes,
including then Chairperson Amy Pascal, about his dinner with former Disney
executive and now a director at legendary Films Dick Cook who apparently had
just optioned, “the entire works of Jack Kirby, an animator you might know, I
don't.” That’s right, Jack ‘King’ Kirby,
a mere animator. But it got worse. The
next day, Chief Executive Michael Lynton, who clearly prides himself on his
knowledge of all things comic book related, fired this pearler off to a group
of Sony execs, “jack kirby a big
deal, true creator of marvel along with mike ditko (sic)”. And yes, you’ve read that right – ‘Mike Ditko’,
who Lynton probably thinks created Spider-Man.
Not Steve Ditko, but the previously unknown Mike.
Incoherent |
The lack of respect for those in the comic book
world was perfectly illustrated in a November, 2014 exchange between Studio 8’s
Jeff Robinov and Amy Pascal. After
batting ideas back and forth about potential directors for future movies,
including Sam Rami, who is dismissed as having, “…gone a little Joel Schumacher,”
with the third Spider-Man movie, the discussion then moved to the deal that is
now in place between Marvel and Sony for the use of Spider-Man. Here’s where things get interesting. As of November, 2014, Marvel’s plans were,
and presumably still are, for Spider-Man to be a major player in the third
Captain America film, which is clearly a frustration to Sony as they have no
other Marvel characters, outside of the Spider-Man universe, to play with,
which means no similar superhero blockbuster for them. Then the killer blow comes with this Jeff
Robin question, “Is Stan lee still coherent?
Can he add another character to spider world to Kosher it.”
Two minutes later came the reply from Amy
Pascal, “Not the least bit coherent.”
Sony has been dealing with Stan Lee for decades
now. He’s appeared in every Spider-Man
movie and is listed as an executive producer.
But, in the halls of Sony, he’s just a senile old man.
And speaking of superhero team-ups, the plan,
according to X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, as relayed to the Sony executives,
is for an eventual X-Men/Fantastic Four film, with the forthcoming Fantastic
Four movie and the next X-Men film, The Age Of Apocalypse, both laying the
groundwork for that epic.
For a lighter chuckle, here’s the top brass at Sony
discussing the most recent Warner Brothers Studio Superman movie, Man Of Steel.
-----------------
From: Pascal, Amy
To: O'Connor, Rachel; Minghella, Hannah; Belgrad,
Doug
Subject:
This superman movie is really bad
From O'Connor,
Rachel
To Pascal,
Amy
Re:
Man of steel?
Yeh. I thought that the zak snyder photographed
superman in a very iconic way that they were able to turn into an epic and kind
of evocative marketing campaign. But it is humorless and long and jumbled. The
final action is ridiculous -- more people were probably killed by collateral
damage cause by superman than he saved. Daily planet tag reminds you that the
best part of dick donner movie was him having to pretend that he was doofus.
From: Pascal, Amy
To: O'Connor, Rachel
Subject: Re:
Stupid planet is awful
On Nov 23, 2013, at 2:59 PM, "O'Connor,
Rachel"wrote:
Oh ur just at the beginning!
From: Pascal, Amy
To: O'Connor, Rachel
Re:
They keep going back there
And ny looks like the same color scheme
I'm getting sick of theses movies
--------------
That’s as good a review as you’re likely to see.
So, next time you see a superhero movie, or read an interview and wonder why the original creators are being ignored and shut out, now you know. It's nothing personal, the executives most likely don't know, nor do they care to know.
Comments
(For those of you not into American football, Mike Ditka is a U.S.-famous football player and coach, and the likely source of confusion here.)
The main aspect of the post was to illustrate the utter lack of respect that movie executives have for old school comic book creators. These guys, Jack Kirby, Stan, Steve Ditko and more, created the characters that people are now making billions from. But they can't remember their names (Mike Ditko), can't remember what they did (Jack Kirby was a bit more than a mere 'animator') and insult them outright (Stan Lee).
What does Stan do? Like it or not, he is the public face of Marvel. He deserves a bit of respect.
Neal was likely exaggerating for comedic effect though.