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  1. #1
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Default Can there be a "Joker" type film based on any Spider-Man character?

    With the critical and financial success of Joker, I'm sure Sony is taking another look at the Spider-Man IPs to see if they can do something similar, a standalone project focusing on a villain's story without Spider-Man.

    Is there any character they could use?

    This is a bit different from Morbius and Venom, which are meant to launch their own franchises and could tie into the Spider-Man films.

    One issue is getting a character with enough of a following who can work in their own project. Joker was the main villain in 2008's most popular movie, so he works in a way Sandman doesn't.

    The Sony hacks revealed talks about a Kraven project, and while you could do a movie about a crazed hunter, he is largely unknown to filmgoers.

    You could do a monster movie about the Lizard, but The Amazing Spider-Man wasn't that successful.

    The Osborns have the highest profile (aside from Venom) but they don't really work without Spider-Man.

    One potential character might be the Hobgoblin. There could be a film about a businessman who discovers the lost technology of Norman Osborn, perhaps in the world of the Raimi films.
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  2. #2
    Loony Scott Taylor's Avatar
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    Joker has to do with mental illness, and I think thats the connection to the general movie-going audience. So any film with a Spider-Man villain will have to seek a similar type of connection.

    The lizard did come to mind, sold as a Jekyll and Hyde movie. Just to bring some familiarity to the overall theme. Green Goblin is likewise a Jekyll and Hyde. Hobgoblin too as well as Venom.

    Maybe someone like Doc Ock? Science is in the news a lot these days and it could be approached from the standpoint of mental illness, similar to how Joker was done. Otto did have a mishap that caused him to lose it a bit, after all. Even though he kept his brilliant mind. He also had an abusive background, depending on what origin story you read.
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  3. #3
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    Venom. His movie already made bank and i happen to think it’s better than Joker. But Venom is an antihero while Joker ends his movie as a pure villain.

    At the same time, while I did think Joker 2019 would make money I didn’t think it would be the thing it has become.

    The only Marvel villains that can carry their own movie are Doom and Magneto imo.

  4. #4
    Extraordinary Member Jman27's Avatar
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    i have a hard time considering joker as a superhero/villian movie mainly due to its realism so if any spidey villian to do something similar would be tough
    "He's pure power and doesn't even know it. He's the best of us."-Matt Murdock

    "I need a reason to take the mask off."-Peter Parker

    "My heart half-breaks at how easy it is to lie to him. It breaks all the way when he believes me without question." Felicia Hardy

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Taylor View Post
    Joker has to do with mental illness, and I think thats the connection to the general movie-going audience. So any film with a Spider-Man villain will have to seek a similar type of connection.

    The lizard did come to mind, sold as a Jekyll and Hyde movie. Just to bring some familiarity to the overall theme. Green Goblin is likewise a Jekyll and Hyde. Hobgoblin too as well as Venom.

    Maybe someone like Doc Ock? Science is in the news a lot these days and it could be approached from the standpoint of mental illness, similar to how Joker was done. Otto did have a mishap that caused him to lose it a bit, after all. Even though he kept his brilliant mind. He also had an abusive background, depending on what origin story you read.
    I agree that Otto is probably the best contender for a Joker style movie. He was abused at home, bullied by his peers, and driven to "madness." Norman is more of a Lex Luthor (when he isn't all Jeckyll and Hyde with the Goblin persona).

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Tiger View Post
    I agree that Otto is probably the best contender for a Joker style movie. He was abused at home, bullied by his peers, and driven to "madness." Norman is more of a Lex Luthor (when he isn't all Jeckyll and Hyde with the Goblin persona).
    Remember that Joker ends his movie as a pure villain. The way they made Otto work as a protagonist is by making him an antihero. To do an octopus movie he needs to end as a villain.

    For a Marvel villain to carry a movie while still being a villain there aren’t any Spider-Man villains that come to mind.

  7. #7
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    Maybe Kraven the Hunter or Vermin (sort of)?

    Kraven's Last Hunt could work in such a capacity given its dark ending and subject matter.
    "So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Remember that Joker ends his movie as a pure villain. The way they made Otto work as a protagonist is by making him an antihero. To do an octopus movie he needs to end as a villain.

    For a Marvel villain to carry a movie while still being a villain there aren’t any Spider-Man villains that come to mind.
    You kinda missed the point. Joker (THIS Joker, the one from this film) is not a villain, and neither a hero or an anti-hero. A villain is someone who just wants to watch the world burn. Joker is just a random guy with a miserable life, who's suddenly faced with a series of successive events that make his life more and more miserable, until he's pushed beyond the "despair event horizon" and goes completely nuts. Kinda like the guy in the flashbacks from "the Killing joke". Besides, the main character is a supervillain on paper, but the film is actually devoid of any superhero lore. There is no hero of any kind in that film, nor the typical situations that require a hero to show up and "save the day" (and no, Bruce Wayne is not a hero here, he's just the kid of one of the characters, and he's included merely for fanservice). And yes, there is evil people (or just jerkasses), like those kids that stole the sign, the guys that attacked him in the subway or the guy from TV that wanted to make fun of him, but can we really consider any of them a "supervillain" in the superhero genre style?

    No. If we talk about a "Joker type film", what we are discussing is a film about a regular dude having a miserable life, with no superheroics being involved.


    For example... what about Miles Warren and Gwen Stacy? Make a film about a college teacher having a creepy obsession with one of his students. It can be easily expanded into a dark and "Joker type" kind of story, without needing to feature the Jackal, cloning or Peter Parker in it.

  9. #9
    Astonishing Member CrimsonEchidna's Avatar
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    Actually could see one focused on Harry Osborn.
    The artist formerly known as OrpheusTelos.

  10. #10
    Astonishing Member Vortex85's Avatar
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    I always envisioned a family drama film about Mary Jane growing up in an abusive home, then taking care of her mother and working to support her sister and baby, then having her mother die and finally running away to pursue her dreams arriving at Anna Watson’s front door next door to Peter’s family. Basically a Mary Jane origin story that explains her fake persona and party girl attitude formed from a background of misery and distrust.
    Last edited by Vortex85; 01-24-2020 at 06:48 PM.

  11. #11
    Ultimate Member Riv86672's Avatar
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    As someone who despised the Joker movie, my initial reaction “god I hope not”.
    That said, this suggestion...
    Quote Originally Posted by Celgress View Post
    Maybe Kraven....Kraven's Last Hunt could work in such a capacity given its dark ending and subject matter.
    ...is very intriguing.
    Unlike the Joker movie though, it’d take actual involvement from Spidey and other supporting characters to make it work as intended. If it’s a standalone story it won’t really be The Last Hunt.

  12. #12
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    Can't believe nobody has mentioned this until now, including me,

    but the obvious answer is The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. A Guy Ritchie or Tarantino gangster movie but with super-villains. The stuff writes itself. You just have to introduce Boomerang and others as C-List Spider-Foes, do it exactly like the comic, with an opening shot of Spider-Man (will be CGI/Stunt double so make it the Tobey Suit, Garfield Suit, Holland Suit, Peter B.) punching Boomerang with a voice-over that goes, "This guy, right?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Riv86672 View Post
    As someone who despised the Joker movie, my initial reaction “god I hope not”.
    That said, this suggestion...

    ...is very intriguing.
    Unlike the Joker movie though, it’d take actual involvement from Spidey and other supporting characters to make it work as intended. If it’s a standalone story it won’t really be The Last Hunt.
    I agree. Kraven's Last Hunt is the single best Spider-Man story told from the perspective of a villain, but it is still fundamentally a Spider-Man story. Everything about that story is about Kraven's fixation on Spider-Man, and that meant that the story was about the divide between Spider-Man the hero and Peter Parker the man behind the mask, so ultimately it became a story about Peter Parker. Kraven the Hunter is absolutely fixated on the totem that Spider-Man represents (and I believe the word "totem" was first mentioned in that context in KLH, so this was an inspiration for JMS' run) to the extent that he doesn't care for who Spider-Man really is even if he could easily have unmasked Peter then and there.

    If you remove Spider-Man, you need to put something in place that would drive Kraven to that suicidal fixation and obsession. In theory, it can be done. The question is, should it?

    The other thing also to remember is, that Joker 2019 was a movie about a villain that audiences had already been introduced to, and had come to know multiple times. People know Joker from Cesar Romero in the 1966 show, from Jack Nicholson, to Heath Ledger, the animated cartoons, and the Arkham games. Whereas making a solo Kraven movie which is to be the first introduction of the character to many people is going to be impossible to do. KLH has another difficulty in that it's very hard to make it a "first Kraven story" when a movie adaptation that does Kraven is gonna want to do that story and distill all that stuff into a single narrative. Doable but does need a bit of skill and finesse.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ultimate Captain America View Post
    You kinda missed the point. Joker (THIS Joker, the one from this film) is not a villain, and neither a hero or an anti-hero.
    Joker ends the movie killing an innocent man on stage, and the final shot with the blood-stained footprints confirms he killed that psychologist at Arkham too. The man ends up murdering innocent people and however unlikable they are, they do not deserve to die. That makes him a villain, pure and simple.

    Joker is just a random guy with a miserable life, who's suddenly faced with a series of successive events that make his life more and more miserable, until he's pushed beyond the "despair event horizon" and goes completely nuts.
    Which is a standard narrative about a protagonist's journey to villain. A similar story arc exists for Anakin Skywalker in the prequels. And many other stories about people who slowly "go postal".

    Kinda like the guy in the flashbacks from "the Killing joke".
    Joker is the villain in that story too. Having a sympathetic motivation doesn't negate the fact that the character in that story, and in Joker 2019, is a villain. For comparison, Ruben Fleischer's Venom 2019 is not a villain because he doesn't kill or attack innocent people.

    Besides, the main character is a supervillain on paper, but the film is actually devoid of any superhero lore.
    The crime alley scene with the pearls and the dead parents belies that. I mean that moment is the worst part of that movie and obviously was shoehorned in but it's presence doesn't mean that the movie "has no superhero lore".

    For example... what about Miles Warren and Gwen Stacy?
    No one would pay to see that kind of movie. Miles Warren and Jackal has always been an embarrassing character in the comics and believe me he's quite behind the line of Spider-Man villains people want to introduce on screen.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vortex85 View Post
    I always envisioned a family drama film about Mary Jane growing up in an abusive home, then taking care of her mother and working to support her sister and baby, then having her mother die and finally running away to pursue her dreams arriving at Anna Watson’s front door next door to Peter’s family. Basically a Mary Jane origin story that explains her fake persona and party girl attitude formed from a background of misery and distrust.
    That might work, it might work in the sense of a superhero story from the perspective of civilians and love interests, and MJ can certainly carry a movie but it'd be tough to sell that as a superhero adjacent movie, since there needs to be some amount of action and tension.

  13. #13
    Astonishing Member boots's Avatar
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    uhmmmmmmmm...

    "jonah"
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by boots View Post
    uhmmmmmmmm...

    "jonah"
    Might work. But Jonah isn't a villain, and again if you do a Jonah story without Spider-Man, without superheroes and so on, and just have him as a straight no-nonsense hard-edged crusading editor and journalist, will people come?

  15. #15
    Astonishing Member boots's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Might work. But Jonah isn't a villain, and again if you do a Jonah story without Spider-Man, without superheroes and so on, and just have him as a straight no-nonsense hard-edged crusading editor and journalist, will people come?

    i just said it cos it rhymed
    troo fan or death

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