Wednesday, November 03, 2010

"MegaMind" Genesis

The L.A. Times profiles the creators behind the new DWA release:

Ben Stiller ... didn't need much convincing when two unknown screenwriters pitched a story about a failed villain who faces a midlife crisis after accidentally defeating his nemesis.

"I just thought it was funny to see this super villain have this existential sort of quandary about what his life is all about," Stiller said about Megamind — the blue-headed bad guy at the center of DreamWorks Animation new 3-D film opening Friday. "He's just like a guy who has never stopped asking, 'Why am I doing this? Why am I running on this treadmill?'" ...

The promotion shifts for the movie into high gear as "Megamind" opens day after tomorrow. And the reviews are coming in ...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dreamworks is impervious to bad reviews. Even their stinkers make 450 zillion dollars.

But yeah, looks like the rumors about Megamind being pretty bad might be true.

Anonymous said...

Genesis of megamind: "Let's make a sequel to 'the Incredibles.'"

Anonymous said...

Will every new superhero movie have to be labeled a copy/sequel to THE INCREDIBLES? Incredibles borrowed so much from other sources, it should hardly be a marker for anything.

The Picky Pixie said...

Anybody who draws any similarities between Megamind and The Incredibles other than the fact they're about super heroes is completely ignorant.

Batman Begins is a rip off of Spiderman. When will Warner Bros. Stop ripping off Sony? They'll never be as good!

You guys really need to stop. You don't make any sense. You plain and simply sound idiotic when you say Megamind is a rip off of The Incredibles.

Is Gnomeo and Juliet a rip off of Toy Story because garden gnomes come alive?

Anonymous said...

The Incredible's was simply the high water mark for satirizing the comic book genre. Like Zucker-ish parody films, the sooner they kill this tired approach to film, the better. "Superheros are people, too!" Yes, we get the joke. Tee hee, Ben. I read Mad magazine, too.

Anonymous said...

Somebody's bitter...

Anonymous said...

Megamind is no more a sequel to The Incredibles than the live-action Spider-Man was a sequel to the Christopher Reeves Superman movies.

Of course there will be superficial similarities, just as any comic book fan saw hundreds of similarities in The Incredibles with unrelated comic books and earlier movies.

It's amazing how self-referential animation fans (especially the Pixar/Disney contingent) can be. It's as if literature, film, comics, print cartooning, illustration, children's books, foreign animation, and pulp fiction don't exist, and yet the most superficial similarities between a Pixar film and other animated features is sure evidence of copying. The only fan group that is in more of an echo chamber are Star Wars fans.

Anonymous said...

Disney was stuck in fairy tales, modern animation seems stuck in comic books and all things geek. Where to next? Back to talking animals? Move along already. Yawn .

Floyd Norman said...

Who cares. Whatever works.

Good luck, Jeffrey.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we get the joke. Tee hee, Ben. I read Mad magazine, too.

"Ben" being the key word--
Much as Tropic Thunder had a few good laffs in it too, it suffered from the fact that Ben Stiller is never quite as innovative about his far-reaching pop-culture satire as he would like it to be--His humor always seems just on the edge of hitting some actual incisive barb about pop-culture cliche', and then falls back on his "Night at the Museum" neurotic-frustrated-buffoon act, for which they had to substitute the interchangeable Will Ferrell this time.
(Just as long as Ben doesn't try to put another Eddie Munster joke into this one, too.)

It's pretty clear DW let Ben have a script-project deal on a silver platter to keep him in the family after Madagascar, but basically...Jeff and Ben deserve each other.

Anonymous said...

This is all missing the point that the flood of animated features continues to get more and more formulaic and will, eventually, lead to a backlash.
Without having seen it or hearing anything about it, I'll bet I could write a synopsis of Megamind in my sleep.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:26:00 PM

You raging douche, you have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about.Megamind was created by 2 dreamworks animators and pitched to stiller outside the studio.

Whats your beef with Ben and Jeffery anyway, should they spend more time taking desperate pot shots on Internet forums like you, would the world be a better place then?

Zing!

Anonymous said...

Disney was stuck in fairy tales, modern animation seems stuck in comic books and all things geek. Where to next? Back to talking animals? Move along already. Yawn .

What utter bull. There's been plenty of animation in features, to come and released lately, that is neither from comics or "all things geek". But of course you only see what fits your tired, tired agenda.

Listen: ANY film, live action or animated, can come from any trope or source or anywhere---you must take them on their individual merits and actually watch them first. But that would spoil your fun wouldn't it?

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