Monday, June 30, 2008

Superhero Movie

Superhero Movie is a 2008 spoof comedy film that mocks the superhero genre, following in the footsteps of the Scary Movie series of comedies, with which the movie's poster shares a notable resemblance. The film is written and directed by Craig Mazin, and produced by David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss. Production began in September 2007 in New York. The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for crude and sexual content, comic violence, drug references, and language.

Superhero Movie

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Craig Mazin
Produced by David Zucker
Robert K. Weiss
Written by Craig Mazin
Starring Drake Bell
Sara Paxton
Christopher McDonald
Leslie Nielsen
Kevin Hart
Music by James L. Venable
Drake Bell
Cinematography Thomas E. Ackerman
Distributed by The Weinstein Company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Dimension Films
Release date(s) March 28, 2008
Running time 85 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $35 million
Gross revenue $51,954,290

Plot

After being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly, high school loser Rick Riker (Drake Bell) develops superhuman abilities like incredible strength and armored skin. Rick decides to use his new powers for good and becomes a costumed crime fighter known as "The Dragonfly." However, standing in the way of his destiny is the villainous Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald). After an experiment gone wrong, Lou develops the power to steal a person's life force and in a dastardly quest for immortality becomes the supervillain, "The Hourglass."

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

The film, produced by David Zucker (who originally was directing it), was initially slated for theatrical release on February 9, 2007.[3] The film later began production on September 17, 2007 in New York.[1][4] Zucker said the film primarily parodied Spider-Man, but it also spoofed Batman Begins, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Superman. The producer elaborated, "It's a spoof of the whole superhero genre, like we did with the Scary Movies, but this one probably has more of a unified plot, like the Naked Gun had."[2]

Craig Mazin directed and wrote Superhero Movie, which was originally titled 'Superhero!'. Mazin had previously worked with Zucker on Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, co-writing those movies. He claims that some of his "heroes" are David Zucker, Pat Proft, Jim Abrahams, and Robert K. Weiss, whom he worked with on those movies.

Star of the film Drake Bell composed and recorded a song just for the movie entitled "Superhero! Song". In the song he included co-star Sara Paxton on backup vocals. This song can be heard in the credits of the movie. This song was released onto the iTunes Store as a digital downloadable single on April 8th, 2008.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critical response

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. As of April 2, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 15% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 39 reviews. However, most critics preferred this film over previous spoof films, such as 2007's Epic Movie and the recent Meet the Spartans (both directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer), which were critically panned.[5] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 33 out of 100, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally negative reviews". [6]

[edit] Box office performance

On its opening weekend, the film grossed $9,510,297 in 2,960 theaters averaging to about $3,212 per venue and ranked #3 at the box office. As of June 25th it has grossed $25,817,760 in North America, and $31,608,683 overseas for a total of $57,426,443 worldwide.

[edit] Sequel

Craig Mazin has announced that there will be a sequel. Pamela Anderson,Drake Bell and Leslie Nielsen are all contracted for a second film. Craig said he would like to spoof Iron Man and do a little more X-Men.

[edit] Parodies/references

  • Spider-Man[2] - The main parody.
  • Spider-Man 2 - In the movie, Rick tells Jill he doesn't love her like said by Peter to Mary Jane. The villain, Hourglass, has a similar origin compared to Doctor Octavius in Spider-Man 2.
  • Spider-Man 3 - The villain Hourglass dies almost the same way Venom dies in Spider-Man 3.
  • Fantastic Four[2] - The scenes with Invisible Girl and The Human Torch, Rick stops the Truck the same way as The Thing. Also the villain Hourglass's personality, evillness, intentions and sadisticness parodies Doctor Doom.
  • X-Men[2] - The scene where Professor Xavier guides Rick around a school of people with superpowers, showing him people from the film X-Men.
  • Batman Begins[2] - How Rick's parents die is similar to the way Bruce Wayne's parents died when he was young in Batman Begins, except that Rick really DID kill them.
  • Superman[2] - Dragonfly finally getting his flight ability is a parody of Superman's flight superpower.
  • Lord of the Rings - Rick and Trey are sitting on the bus next to each other. Trey points out the groups of different cliques on the bus, one of which is the "FRODOS" - teenagers dressed up as Hobbits, one looking similar to Frodo, the Lord of the Rings character.
  • Fall Out Boy - The part when Rick points out the group of different people and in the emo group, Fall Out Boy (the rock band) was sitting on the bus.
  • Blade - Undertaker throws a knife, he strikes a pose like Blade.
  • Airplane! - Leslie Nielsen's "George Zip" speech is used.
  • Airplane II: The Sequel - scene with Christopher McDonald seeming to be in photo/picture frame, similar to William Shatner who appeared to be in a viewscreen, but actually was seen through a window in a door when he opened and walked in.
  • Disaster! - the character of d-r Hawking bears a strong similarity to the corresponding character from the "Disaster!" cartoon.
  • The Green Hornet
  • The Bucket List - Christopher McDonald coughs blood into a napkin in the same way that Jack Nicholson does.
  • Naked Gun
  • Tom Cruise[7] - Where Tom Cruise is on CruiseTube saying how he is better than the Dragonfly at flying and explaining that the Dragonfly can't even fly.
  • YouTube- Parodying it by calling it CruiseTube
  • T-Mobile - Once Aunt Lucille passed away, Rick removed Jill from his Fave 5
  • MySpace[7]
  • Facebook
  • iPod[7] - In the bus scene, Trey uses various tools supposedly by apple like "iDrink", a juice box and "iPick", a tool used for picking mucus out of the nose.
  • Scarface - Same as the Lord of the Rings parody, but pointing out "Scarface society"
  • iPhone
  • Barry Bonds - showing Barry Bonds taking steroids and shooting laser beams out of his eyes.
  • Hooters
  • Windows - box for villain's Death Machine Maker, Home Version looks similar to Vista software box.
  • Clippit
  • 2girls1cup - When Professor Xavier sends the video to Rick, Xavier says "2 girls... 1 cup... you know what to do."
  • Nissan - When Rick is looking for a car worth $300 on the internet and finds the Nissan Shitbox.
  • Hyundai
  • Craigslist - When Rick points out that Lou has a bruise on his neck and Lou says he met a girl on Craigslist and Rick says he met a boy on Craigslist.
  • Perezhilton.com
  • Google - When Rick looks up dragonfly bite and affordable cars.
  • All Time Low
  • WebMD
  • Men in Black - The metal ball thrown by Rick to Hourglass hits him back.
  • Enron - When Rick's parents tell him to invest their fortune in Enron stock instead of Google

[edit] DVD release

Superhero Movie will be released to DVD on July 8, 2008. It will be released in the rated theatrical version and the unrated extended edition

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