WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.038 --> 00:00:05.569
The Hollywood blockbuster season is heating up and so is a series of superhero movies.

2
00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:08.992
And we'll be looking at the superhero trend all this week on CNN.

3
00:00:09.030 --> 00:00:13.469
And first up is the franchise that perhaps started it all -- Superman.

4
00:00:13.824 --> 00:00:18.212
Now, the latest installment, Man of Steel, debuts in New York on Monday.

5
00:00:18.488 --> 00:00:22.001
And Neil Curry looks at why comic book heroes are just so popular.

6
00:00:43.828 --> 00:00:51.136
Comic book heroes, our fascination with them can begin from a very early age and can last a lifetime.

7
00:00:54.042 --> 00:00:58.787
The thing about superhero stories, they're like fairy tales for grown-ups.

8
00:00:59.292 --> 00:01:10.329
Every child loved reading fairy tales when he or she was a child. They were stories about monsters and witches and giants and magicians.

9
00:01:10.977 --> 00:01:18.212
Well, superhero stories have that same flavor, but they're done for adults as well as for children.

10
00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:26.090
The characters he helped to create for Marvel Comics more than half a century ago have stood the test of time.

11
00:01:27.072 --> 00:01:30.586
He's the prime reason this person is dressed like this.

12
00:01:31.023 --> 00:01:33.388
I picked Spider-Man, because I've always been a fan of Spider-Man.

13
00:01:33.469 --> 00:01:37.317
He's a real guy, like, you know, he's got problems like everyone else does.

14
00:01:37.331 --> 00:01:41.634
And, you know, he has to deal with it all and being a superhero at the same time.

15
00:01:42.043 --> 00:01:50.390
If, as has been said, clothes make the man, then presumably superhero clothes make the Superman, or at least the Iron Man.

16
00:01:50.963 --> 00:01:53.039
How long did it take you to do this costume?

17
00:01:53.479 --> 00:01:55.489
About approximately 300 hours added together.

18
00:01:58.322 --> 00:02:00.693
Everything goes beyond just the comic book now,

19
00:02:00.762 --> 00:02:08.382
because it's not just a book, it's a comic book that's tied in with a video game, that's tied in with a movie, and it broadens the reach.

20
00:02:08.867 --> 00:02:15.809
Thousands of people, they are exposed to comic books through movies, as opposed to through comic books to the movies; it's going the other way.

21
00:02:16.123 --> 00:02:18.907
They enjoy the movie, then they get the comic book.

22
00:02:19.758 --> 00:02:24.393
Comic book sales in North America alone were close to half a billion dollars last year.

23
00:02:24.903 --> 00:02:27.994
So far this year, they're up almost 20 percent.

24
00:02:28.268 --> 00:02:30.769
A comic book is essentially a movie with an unlimited budget.

25
00:02:30.818 --> 00:02:34.716
It's a place where you level the playing field, where a creator just with a pencil and pen 

26
00:02:35.033 --> 00:02:40.285
can kind of create worlds imaginable, destroy those worlds and recreate them in three pages.

27
00:02:42.597 --> 00:02:48.375
At the other end of the playing field stand the movie makers, armed with $100 million budgets.

28
00:02:50.163 --> 00:02:54.611
Their pen and pencils replaced by [a] sophisticated team of special effects.

29
00:02:55.049 --> 00:03:01.846
They, too, can create, destroy, and recreate worlds, not in three pages but in 3-D.

30
00:03:01.965 --> 00:03:13.719
I think Marvel Comics in general, you know, they're just... they're telling stories of, you know, kings and betrayal and, you know, they're the grandest soaps there are.

31
00:03:14.043 --> 00:03:18.309
The Avengers is the third-biggest film of all time, $1.5 billion worldwide.

32
00:03:18.623 --> 00:03:25.031
And Iron Man 3 is probably gonna be the fourth-biggest film of all time, around about $1.3 billion worldwide.

33
00:03:25.092 --> 00:03:32.311
And I think Man of Steel has the potential to outdo maybe both of them. I think the saturation point is some way away yet.

34
00:03:32.551 --> 00:03:34.323
It depends on the cleverness of the filmmakers.

35
00:03:34.343 --> 00:03:41.187
I think the innovation that we see and the degree to which people continue to up the stakes, change it up, use different approaches,

36
00:03:41.791 --> 00:03:43.531
there's always going to be another superhero movie.

37
00:03:43.785 --> 00:03:48.177
And he's not wrong. In this case, the superhero in question is this fellow.

38
00:03:54.591 --> 00:03:59.345
My father believed if the world found out who I really was, they'd reject me.

39
00:03:59.416 --> 00:04:07.607
Seventy-five years after D.C. Comics introduced Superman to the world, he's being reintroduced to movie audiences as Man of Steel.

40
00:04:09.721 --> 00:04:13.937
I think the superhero genre is so popular today, because quite simply this is the new mythology for us.

41
00:04:14.004 --> 00:04:18.934
They... these people, superheroes, are our Greek gods, they're our Roman gods. And they're just very, very cool.

42
00:04:19.401 --> 00:04:28.009
So the gods smile, a printing press rolls, and a new superhero adventure will soon be delivered to our doors and comic stores.