When it comes to superhero adaptations, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone with more experience in the genre than David S. Goyer, whose credits include Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity, Blade: The Series, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman and the upcoming Constantine TV series. Oh, and there’s also Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the 90s TV movie starring David Hasselhoff. Speaking to Comic Book Resources, Goyer has discussed comic book movie fans, and whether he pays any attention to their expectations when it comes to bringing these characters to the screen…
“You’re dealing with an incredibly vocal but incredibly tiny sort of [group]. That’s a mistake that I think a lot of sometimes networks and movie studios make is sort of listening too much to [them]. I mean, it’s important to listen to the fan chatter but you’re really talking about a tiny, tiny, tiny portion of your audience that may not be representative of what your mainstream audience actually thinks or feels… I’m paraphrasing Steve Jobs, it’s like you don’t give the audience or the consumer what they want, you give them what they don’t even know they want. I mean, being involved in some of these comic book movies and stuff like that, people say, well, this is what they should do. And trust me, if we had just done exactly that I don’t think the audiences would have been completely happy. I mean that’s not to say that filmmakers can’t misfire, but if you try to just do what you think the fan community wants you’ll drive yourself crazy and you won’t actually write anything.”
How do you feel about Goyer’s comments? Let us know your thoughts….
Originally published March 21, 2014. Updated November 28, 2022.
