punisher

I read a news blip about the rights to the Punisher character getting returned to Marvel. They have admitted they want to do another movie after Thor, Captain America and the Avengers. Hopefully they will do the character justice. I have not been impressed by the movies so far. The Punsher could really be an effective blockbuster machine if it was just done right. I mean, think Batman but without the not killing the bad guys thing.

I think it was easier for Marvel to regain the rights because after several attempts to depict Punisher on screen, these movies failed to put the character in the spotlight. In other words, no one (producer and moviegoers alike) wants him. The Punisher though not a villain or bad guy is unpopular because he is an anti-hero. I think for Punisher to be a hit he should work or fight alongside other superheroes like Spiderman.

Thomas Jane was a brilliant Punisher, but they messed up his back story.

Punisher Warzone took huge lumps of action direct from garth Ennis's spell on the Punisher Max series (the best period for the character in comics IMO). Neither were bad films, and neither failed to get the character as depicted in the comics.

The trouble is that, unlike text only books, comics are already a visual medium, yet the pacing and plot progression can afford to be totally different to a movie. This is why film versions of comics are so difficult to get right. I mean, the X-Men has a 30+ year evolution in its comic form, and a 3 movie arc in hollywood. No way can you not make the relationships and characters not feel rushed and forced in relation tot he source material.

Frank Castle is the same to an extent, and also, being so amoral, to imbue the character with the humanity needed to engage a wider cinematic audience, you will always leave the comic book audience feeling let down.

I say they should resign themselves to the fact that the character is just not suited to a medium outside of the printed page and be done with it.

I think the punisher can work, you just need to do it right. Maybe the hollywood types cannot understand the Frank Castle character.

If they did him truly right, then he would not be a hero, and even iconic villains like Darth Vader and Freddy Kruger were doomed to be beaten.

Castle is just another villain, who happens to target villains. He wouldnt save a gangsters wife from a burning building, nor his child for that matter.
That's a tough sell for a film that has to appeal to more than just existing Punisher fans.

The thing about Burton and Nolan's Batman, was that both directors were able to give the character something that appealed beyond the comic book audience, and spoke directly to the cinema audience.

As The Punisher is not even a truly widely popular comic book (many find Castle too one dimensional, and his exploits repetetive), then to transfer him directly to the screen would be financial suicide.

Any film will soften him, or change elements of him to give him humanity, which is, of course, the very thing that Frank lost when he became the punisher.

I have only read a few stories of the punisher but you are probably right if that happened in the comicsc. Of course, it was the writers that kept him from saving the people. What is wrong with them?

In the comic it works really well. He is the personification of vengeance, and reflects Nietzsche's warning "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

The skill in writing such a character, is to still give him that spark of humanity, or 'goodness' that seprates him from those he hunts. But it has to be under the surface, like a shadow of the man he was.

Comic book writers like Garth Ennis can do that, and have the freedom of literally years to develop the depth of the character over a long running series. Hollywood writers are seldom as gifted, and what they do is then tinkered with by producers, directors, and even actors, all with their ideas of the character. This is why it is very rare for adaptations of any literature to be successful. It takes a very strong single vision to make it happen - Jackson with LOTR, Snyder with Watchmen. Sadly, The Punisher has never courted mainstream reverence like these works of fantasy, so the source material is never respected, and the films are made by executive committe's, not artists.

If you havent read much punisher, this would be a great place to start:

http://www.amazon.com/Punisher-MAX-Vol-G...0968&sr=8-1

It is the material that set the tone for the recent movies, yet unlike on screen, Ennis pitches the character to perfection.