JJ Abrams and son cowriting Spider-Man mini-series; Sara Pichelli on art

[boots]

I think the standard questions about budget don't apply to something that appears to be a sure thing.

sorry mate, i'm still not getting it. but maybe i didn't explain my thoughts well before.

i imagine that devoting a portion of the budget to a "sure thing" would be considered a no brainer in-house and would naturally be prioritised, but it's still a portion of the overall spend allowed for that year. that's money/resources that won't go elsewhere.

so, yes, from a business standpoint we look at that and say "cool". spend that money on the hollywood name rather than the indie creator.

but from an artist's point of view? man, that sucks hard.

(again, provided marvel works in a way similar to the networks or corporations i’m familiar with. they may have a magic money tree for all i know)

Regarding your experiences as a former producer, I'm wondering how easily something similar to this could have happened in your line of work. Did you work in Australian theater? If George Miller wanted to make a play, cowritten by one of his kids, would he be turned down?

i've never worked on the production side of theatre, but i've been involved in the development process.

so, in this hypothetical, george is approached by a premier theatre company MTC or STC. they pay him development costs to write, rewrite, edit and workshop this screenplay for himself and his daughter (who's actually a mate of mine. funnily enough she develops her own projects and has always tried to walk her own path and not use dad's name to open doors).

that means S/MTC devote money, time, their in-house directors and producers and casting agent to this process (workshops and pre reads will be organised with a skeleton cast and crew so the writer can "hear" his screenplay). this is even before the writing is even finished. $$$

after that, the costs of hiring full crew and cast (including casting sessions), advertising/marketing for the upcoming show come into play. all that money will not be going towards developing any other writer's play.

the play is then slotted into the next year's season, which is typically about 10-12 shows in total. there simply isn't time, money or enough people to make more. so, at the end of the day, george's play will take an existing slot. it's not an added extra.

that being said, our theatre companies have allocated budget and quotas aimed at developing new talent, which is essential to ensuring the next generation. so they have a mandate to make sure a certain amount of emerging creatives are nurtured every year.

[Mister Mets]

Peter David thinks this reminds him of when he got into Marvel.

People are complaining because JJ Abrams' son, Henry, has been handed the keys to the kingdom: He's going to be writing Marvel's flagship character with pretty much no experience. Spider-Man, it's being said, is the character that you have to earn your way up to; you don't just get handed him out of the box.

This is a very familiar argument to me. I heard it thirty five years ago when editor Jim Owsley handed an unknown guy in the sales department some fill-in issues of "Amazing Spider-Man" and then the ongoing series "Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man." During which time he wrote stories like "The Commuter Cometh" and "The Death of Jean DeWolff." Indeed, there were some who refused to believe the sales guy was producing stories the fans loved and Owsley was seriously rewriting them.

It's nice to know that people have expanded their attitudes since I first broke in on Spider-Man.

Oh. Wait. They haven't.

PAD

[WebSlingWonder]

Peter David thinks this reminds him of when he got into Marvel.

I completely forgot that Peter David did something similar. Thanks for this!

[Inversed]

This is something that seemed pretty obvious to me I haven't seen anyone mention that could be very possible. What if the reason Henry is involved is because he actually follows and knows more about Marvel then his dad?

He's someone that can offer and contribute to the more modern interpretation of Spider-Man that J.J. is most likely not familiar with and possibly help create a more balanced product.

It's obviously not his complete priority because he will have been working on (and still working on) that ninth Space Battle movie, but I think by having his son work on it rather than any other number of writers on the opposite side of the world, it ensures that the collaboration is much stronger, like Henry writing the initial draft and J.J. editing and re-writing over, etc., whereas the latter situation would feel more akin to J.J. just making a story and then the "traditional comic writer" doing the actual work (like the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner Superman stories that were mentioned earlier)

[Hugo Strange]

Peter David thinks this reminds him of when he got into Marvel.

Peter David forgot that he only managed to take a Spider title after 5 years trying to sell stories to Marvel, during the time he only worked in Marvel Comics' Sales Department.

[Alan2099]

Peter David forgot that he only managed to take a Spider title after 5 years trying to sell stories to Marvel, during the time he only worked in Marvel Comics' Sales Department.

I'm not seeing your point here. Are you saying Abrams shouldn't get the role because he wasn't turned down enough times first?

[Hugo Strange]

I'm saying that this kind of opportunity does not come on a silver platter for anyone. Normal people need to insist and fight for it, even if it takes years to achieve it (and usually takes that time).

Peter David had a great opportunity, but he did not have it easily.

[blackspidey2099]

This is utterly uninteresting. I was hoping for something cool with Spider-Man and the F4. smh

[WebLurker]

I'm saying that this kind of opportunity does not come on a silver platter for anyone. Normal people need to insist and fight for it, even if it takes years to achieve it (and usually takes that time).

Peter David had a great opportunity, but he did not have it easily.

Funny how the man himself, who actually experienced it firsthand, doesn't seem to be agreeing with you.

This is utterly uninteresting. I was hoping for something cool with Spider-Man and the F4. smh

Fair enough, but I guess it shows how we all have different opinions; IMHO, a Spider-Man/F4 story would've been the lamest and most uninteresting possibility of all.

[jyamen]

I'm saying that this kind of opportunity does not come on a silver platter for anyone. Normal people need to insist and fight for it, even if it takes years to achieve it (and usually takes that time).

Peter David had a great opportunity, but he did not have it easily.

There also wasn't some big 4 day long announcement before he got in the door.

[boots]

Funny how the man himself, who actually experienced it firsthand, doesn't seem to be agreeing with you.

different times, different culture, different opportunities, different people.

in film and tv, a lot has been discussed recently on how classist the opportunities have become. it's much much harder for a working class artist to have a sustained career these days than it was in michael caine's day. that seems to be a depressing trend across the entertainment sector.

PAD is right that just because someone lacks credentials or experience, that doesn't mean they're automatically going to suck. i'm all for giving abrams jr a fair go. but his situation and abram's aren't completely equivalent.

[Mister Mets]

Yes, anger sells comics (Dan Slott proved that). Unfortunately it only works with the old public, because possible new readers don't have that twisted sense of loyalty that makes them buy any bad comic book thinking that the publisher will do something good if what is bad is already selling. Even a child is smart enough not to spend money on something they do not like.

About FNSM, how can I say that without being offensive?... FNSP isn't a good comic book. The dialogues are okay, but the plot is is predictable, weak and even plagiarized from other stories. That explains why people don't buy FNSP.



That's exactly what I'm suggesting.



Unless your father is someone important in the company.



Here we have another problem: no matter you bring in new potential readers if you give them bad stuff. They probably won't give another chance, they'll learn with their mistake.

It's the same thing that happens with Marvel's re-releases: the issue 1 is the only one whar sells, so the following issues continue to fall in sales as if nothing had ever happened.

In the end you just lose a new audience... maybe forever.



This's business. Everybody does it for the money. It's naïve to thing he's not getting a lot of money to sign his name on this comic books.

We might be looking at this from slightly different frames of reference.

I think quality matters, and that there is the potential risk of the mini-series being bad enough that it hurts Spider-Man's brand. But we don't yet know whether this will be good or bad.

I really don't think Marvel should make hiring decisions based on who deserves it the most (IE- who has worked the most; who is the best human being.) The opportunities come if there's a sense you can sell copies of something, or that you can tll good stories. Often that will be because of luck (IE- someone did a mini-series that fit a particular trend at the right time and sold copies that way; Someone has friends in the New York theater company and can use that material for a good MJ pitch.)

I really don't think JJ Abrams is cowriting a comic book for the money.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/17/1...streaming-wars

sorry mate, i'm still not getting it. but maybe i didn't explain my thoughts well before.

i imagine that devoting a portion of the budget to a "sure thing" would be considered a no brainer in-house and would naturally be prioritised, but it's still a portion of the overall spend allowed for that year. that's money/resources that won't go elsewhere.

so, yes, from a business standpoint we look at that and say "cool". spend that money on the hollywood name rather than the indie creator.

but from an artist's point of view? man, that sucks hard.

(again, provided marvel works in a way similar to the networks or corporations i’m familiar with. they may have a magic money tree for all i know)




i've never worked on the production side of theatre, but i've been involved in the development process.

so, in this hypothetical, george is approached by a premier theatre company MTC or STC. they pay him development costs to write, rewrite, edit and workshop this screenplay for himself and his daughter (who's actually a mate of mine. funnily enough she develops her own projects and has always tried to walk her own path and not use dad's name to open doors).

that means S/MTC devote money, time, their in-house directors and producers and casting agent to this process (workshops and pre reads will be organised with a skeleton cast and crew so the writer can "hear" his screenplay). this is even before the writing is even finished. $$$

after that, the costs of hiring full crew and cast (including casting sessions), advertising/marketing for the upcoming show come into play. all that money will not be going towards developing any other writer's play.

the play is then slotted into the next year's season, which is typically about 10-12 shows in total. there simply isn't time, money or enough people to make more. so, at the end of the day, george's play will take an existing slot. it's not an added extra.

that being said, our theatre companies have allocated budget and quotas aimed at developing new talent, which is essential to ensuring the next generation. so they have a mandate to make sure a certain amount of emerging creatives are nurtured every year.

A look at Marvel's decision is mainly going to be about the business side of things.

My George Miller analogy took a turn.

Comics might be a bit different from theater in that theater has more fixed costs and restrictions. There is a finite number of theaters available, and each of those has a finite number of seats to sell on a given night.

Marvel has greater flexibility to add a mini-series to the line-up than a theater company has to add something new to the schedule.

This is something that seemed pretty obvious to me I haven't seen anyone mention that could be very possible. What if the reason Henry is involved is because he actually follows and knows more about Marvel then his dad?

He's someone that can offer and contribute to the more modern interpretation of Spider-Man that J.J. is most likely not familiar with and possibly help create a more balanced product.

It's obviously not his complete priority because he will have been working on (and still working on) that ninth Space Battle movie, but I think by having his son work on it rather than any other number of writers on the opposite side of the world, it ensures that the collaboration is much stronger, like Henry writing the initial draft and J.J. editing and re-writing over, etc., whereas the latter situation would feel more akin to J.J. just making a story and then the "traditional comic writer" doing the actual work (like the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner Superman stories that were mentioned earlier)

It does seem pretty clear that this project is only happening because Henry Abrams is interested.

There also wasn't some big 4 day long announcement before he got in the door.

The announcement was about JJ Abrams' involvement.

If Peter David came in with Steven Spielberg as co-writer, you can bet there would have been a massive announcement.

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm saying that this kind of opportunity does not come on a silver platter for anyone. Normal people need to insist and fight for it, even if it takes years to achieve it (and usually takes that time).

Peter David had a great opportunity, but he did not have it easily.

Not to mention that it wasn't a potential landmine to reject his ideas because his dad didn't know the CEO of Disney.

[boots]

A look at Marvel's decision is mainly going to be about the business side of things.

is it though? i'll always consider and side with the artists and people over a corporation, personally. especially while they're still key to its success

companies can and do follow practices to avoid this sort of thing.

saying "it's about the dollars" is probably true, but ironically, feels like such a bankrupt way of looking at the situation.

Marvel has greater flexibility to add a mini-series to the line-up than a theater company has to add something new to the schedule.

the question is what is the extent of that flexibility? marvel comic's resources are still finite. if stan lee and kirby pitched them a new title via ouija board, would they be able to greenlight it on the spot?

my partner, who manages one of the biggest and most powerful beauty brands in the world, often can't hire an influencer or put on an event that she knows will make bank because the budget for that quarter is already allocated elsewhere. and she's the brand manager for the entire asia pacific region. this is a zillion dollar empire, but if the money is not there...it's not there.

love to find out more. marvel may have a pre-allocated funding purely to be spent on big names/events which means that money was never going to go to an indie first timer or the mail room intern. different content creation streams, more or less.