【新闻周刊 20140530】蜘蛛侠没完没了的回归

满仓

【中文标题】蜘蛛侠没完没了的回归
【原文标题】The Endless Return of Spider-Man
【登载媒体】新闻周刊
【原文作者】Charlotte Eagar
【原文链接】http://www.newsweek.com/endless-return-spiderman-252845



2014年3月19日，彼得•诺伯特（左）和克里斯•汉密尔顿穿着漫画英雄蜘蛛侠的服装，等待为即将上映的新电影《超凡蜘蛛侠2》的促销活动试镜。

戛纳电影节在缤纷绚丽的色彩中闭幕了，今年金棕榈奖的幸运得主（努里•比格•锡兰，土耳其影片《冬眠》的导演）是一个寻梦者。和他一样的数千个寻梦者们年都会来到戛纳的克鲁瓦塞特大道，寻找明星、角色、剧本、制片人、导演、金主，甚至他影片放映的三个多小时，也是这些寻梦者梦寐以求的机会。但是，过去几年里，寻梦者们遭遇到一个邪恶的、穿着红色紧身塑胶衣的人物的阻挠——蜘蛛侠，他把独立电影人踩在穿着蓝色长筒袜的脚下。

英国伊令电影工作室在2004年拍摄了《僵尸肖恩》，2013年拍摄了《一年之痒》，其负责人巴纳比•汤普森说：“统计数据不会说谎，越来越多的票房市场被越来越少的电影把持，小型独立电影越来越难得到关注。”好莱坞的工作室曾经每年发行250部影片，去年的影片数量是120部左右——但这些影片的预算金额惊人。

在电影界，《超凡蜘蛛侠2》依然是正邪争霸的故事情节，这是彼得•派克自2002年索尼第一部蜘蛛侠影片以来的第5部电影。托贝•马奎尔扮演的怪异变种超级英雄历尽艰辛战争了威廉•达福扮演的绿色哥布林，赢得了克尔斯滕•邓斯特扮演的玛丽•简•沃森的芳心。同样的情节在《蜘蛛侠2》（2004年）和《蜘蛛侠3》（2007年）得到延续。马奎尔的蜘蛛侠电影创造了票房纪录，以5.97亿美元的预算到目前为止获得了25亿美元的票房。

索尼本想拍摄《蜘蛛侠4》，但转念一想，“为什么不重新开始一个故事吸引新一代的小孩呢？”于是《超凡蜘蛛侠》诞生了，安德鲁•加菲尔德穿上红色的紧身衣，与艾玛•斯通扮演的格温•史黛西坠入爱河，同时与瑞斯•伊凡斯扮演的柯特•科诺思博士——也就是蜥蜴人——抗衡。

《超凡蜘蛛侠》（2012年）同时上映了IMAX和3D版本，全球票房收入达到7.52亿美元，荣膺史上票房冠军，其制作成本只有2.3亿美元。《超凡蜘蛛侠2》(成本为2.55亿美元)在这个月上映，目前已经取得了5亿票房收入。《蝙蝠侠》、《美国队长》、《钢铁侠》、《雷神托尔》、《超人》等影片也同时焕发出魅力。

在过去十年里，超级英雄类的影片伴随着电脑游戏和塑料玩具，似乎盖过了其它类型电影的风头。财大气粗的好莱坞金主几乎推翻了传统的好莱坞影片成本标准——1500万美元到5000万美元的中等影片预算。《世界银幕》编辑杰弗里•麦克纳博说：“好莱坞似乎已经放弃了中等成本的影片市场。”

劳伦•舒勒•唐纳是《X战警》系列影片的制作人，她以1985年的《七个毕业生》和1986年的《红粉佳人》代表了一代青春影视作品。他后来制作了《电子情书》（梅格•瑞恩和汤姆•汉克斯，1998年）、《雾水总统》（凯文•克莱恩，1993年）和拯救鲸鱼的故事《人鱼童话》，都获得了巨大的成功。2000年，她制作了空前成功的《X战警》，休•杰克曼扮演金刚狼。之后她制作了7部《X战警》据互联网电影资料库的信息，接下来的4部正在制作过程中。

唐纳说：“这仅仅是我运作的诸多项目之一。”她非常喜欢这些超级英雄：“我觉得忍耐这个主体很耐人寻味。它们都是变种人、外来者，每个人在生活中有时候都会感受到这一点。我喜欢视觉效果的挑战，我喜欢制作团队，我们就像一家人。”

过去14年里，《X战警》影片共收入了25亿美元的票房。

唐纳解释到：“这是一个循环。”大约6年前，公司制作了几部中长片的剧本和电影，但表现不佳，于是他们决定改变方向。工作室目前隶属于一个大财团，所以他们必须要有所表现才能生存下去。如果有一部能打出名号的影片，生存的机会就更大。

在伦敦工作的美国独立电影制片人黛安娜•菲利普斯（作品有2007年的《葬礼上的死亡》）说：“独立电影的制作难上加难，艺术没有施展的空间。发行方需要的是那些能让观众购买大杯可乐、大桶爆米花的影片，他们需要《蜘蛛侠4》和《美国队长》。”

我自己也有过亲身经历。四年前，我的丈夫威廉姆•斯特林和我一起制作一部短片浪漫喜剧《摩托车手》，成本1万英镑。让我们意想不到的是，影片竟然进入了戛纳电影节，还在洛杉矶戏剧节获得了最受观众欢迎的奖项。自然而然，好莱坞打来电话，想购买我们的影片。可惜的是，《摩托车手》不是一个超级英雄，只是一个骑摩托车的家伙爱上了一个无法得到的女孩。我们曾经创作了一个相对廉价、古怪的英国版本，预算50万英镑，但是看上我们的独立制作人想要一个成本为1500万美元的版本——在2010年，这是好莱坞的标准预算。直到现在，这部影片也没有制作完成。我们手中其它4部剧本也遭遇了同样的命运。

全球化也是起作用的一个因素。喜剧和一些爱情故事往往有国家的局限性，但是炫目的动作和庞大的场景，对中国偏远山区的吸引力与对芝加哥的吸引力是一样的。

李安颇受争议的影片《断背山》（2005年）里，希斯•莱杰和杰克•吉伦哈尔扮演两名坠入爱河的同性恋牛仔。影片获得了3个奥斯卡奖项，成本加上营销费用只有1900万美元，但是全球票房达到1.78亿美元。然而，这部影片在阿拉伯国家和中国都遭到禁映。而且，如果你是饥渴的股东，或者是为《蜘蛛侠》电影投资的工作室高管，1.78亿美元也无法与《蜘蛛侠》的7.52亿美元相提并论。

唐纳说：“我们的目标是全球观众，这一点很重要。美国文化曾经至高无上——当然现在仍然如此——但是我们更要迎合全球文化。”

营销成本的上升是另外一个因素。汤普森说：“如今发行方的营销成本非常高，他们更愿意推广一些重磅大片，而不愿意冒险去做小成本影片。”

《名利场》在2013年的一篇文章中谴责2007年好莱坞编剧的罢工行为，独立影片数量因此锐减，整个电影产业在6个月的期间都受到影响。玛格丽特•海登瑞说，在那之前，好莱坞工作室的高管都在为每部电影忙着灭火。突然之间，高管们有时间读书了，他们发现不再需要编剧们的原创剧本了，只需要找点人来改编旧电影。文章说：“整个模式一夜之间不复存在，再见，梅格•瑞恩！”

讽刺类的英国杂志《Private Eye》刊登了一副漫画，一个制作人坐在办公桌后面，桌上的文件筐标签上写着“续集”、“前传”和“翻拍”。他说：“原创剧本？我们连多余的文件筐都没有。”

新浪潮影视的英国独立发行商罗伯特•本森说：“当然，如果超级英雄的影片失败，将是工作室的大灾难，但这些影片都算不上金融赌博。只有十分之一的独立电影有机会挣到钱。”

即使看似坚不可摧的欧洲电影市场，在政府补贴和忠实的本土观众拥护下，也开始遭受打击。在佛罗伦萨教授编剧课程的弗朗西斯卡•拉瑞奥说：“每次发行《蝙蝠侠》影片，市场都会呈现一边倒的趋势，而且我们的补贴金额不断减少。西班牙的情况也是一样。只有在意大利，大型的意大利喜剧还占有一定的市场。”本森同意这样的说法，唯一的例外是法国：“严肃电影在法国还有比较大的市场。”

银幕之外的电影市场依然存在，尽管是某种非常规的版本。像《权力游戏》、《绝命毒师》和《唐顿庄园》等电视剧吸引了大批观众，也为投资人带来了丰厚收益。在2010年与西蒙•佩吉合作英国电视剧《布克和海尔》的汤普森说：“聪明的制作人都已经转战电视银幕，《教父》放到现在只能是连续剧。”

迪克纳•胡德导演了获奖影片《第三者》，由克莱尔•福伊和本尼迪克特•康伯巴奇主演。她说：“甚至简•康平（《钢琴课》导演，1993年）也受够了为影片筹集资金的辛劳。于是高高兴兴地去制作高端电视剧，那里也有优秀的演员，让她可以表达自己的思想。”由伊丽莎白•莫斯和荷莉•亨特主演的《谜湖之巅》在美国日舞频道播出，这个频道专门播出独立电影、纪录片、外语电影和短电影。

唐纳在制作《X战警》的同时，也在为HBO制作两部连续剧。“和别人一样，我也为有线电视制作节目，但要看剧本质量。有一天，说不定电影工作室也会突然涌入电视剧市场。我不知道电影如何与电视剧竞争，电视剧毕竟有更广泛的空间来探索人物性格，但肯定不是件好事。70年代和80年代的影片都很优秀。”

除了能让观众有更多的时间来拯救世界，电视剧巨大的技术优势在于他的屏幕尺寸和形状类似于电脑。越来越多的人通过这种媒介寻找娱乐节目，而大型工作室还无法与之匹敌。

汤普森说：“电影总是对科技反应得不够迅速，它们害怕电视、视频、DVD和下载。我的儿子和女儿也会去电影院看某些电影，但他们iPad上看其它电影。一旦这个产业接受这种模式，一切都会发生变化，小型和中型尺寸的屏幕更加有利可图。”

本森正在发行一部巴勒斯坦电视剧《柯曾》，他说：“电影在逐渐通过多种渠道发行，包括网络、付费视频和电影院。电影无论如何不会首先在小屏幕上出现，独立电影更不可能这样。”

唐纳说：“最终，电影就像iTunes一样，付费观看，但我不知道是否有人会投入1000万美元，最终按这种方式发行。这毕竟是一门生意。”

幸运的是，随着数字技术的发展，制作电影的成本在逐渐降低。所以像戛纳、多伦多、日舞这样的电影节就越来越重要。汤普森在戛纳待了5天，他说：“你的电影有机会在这里上映，被别人知道。”

数码影像制作还开启了一种新的方式——纪录片题材影视作品。《完美风暴》的编剧塞巴斯蒂安•荣格尔在2010年凭借《雷斯特雷波》获得奥斯卡奖，这部影片讲述了荣格尔和已故的英国记者蒂姆•赫瑟林顿在阿富汗与美军度过的日子。真人比演员要便宜，有互联网存在，就不需要背景了，而且有更好的机会得到Kickstarter或IndieGoGo的投资（译者注：两家知名民间筹款网站）。



原文：

Peter Norbot (L) and Kris Hamilton, dressed up as fictional comic book superhero Spider-Man, wait for their turn to audition to be a part of a promotional campaign for the upcoming release of the new movie "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" in Chicago March 19, 2014.

The Cannes Film Festival has reached its diamond-wreathed finale. The lucky winner of this year’s Palme d’Or (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, director of the Turkish drama Winter Sleep) was one of thousands of dreamers who storm Cannes’s sea-front Croisette each year, searching for the perfect star, the perfect role, script, producer, director, backer for their movie, and even at three-plus hours his film is heading for the kind of exposure filmmakers dream of. But, for the past few years, the dreamers have been stalked by a menacing, red-latex clad figure: Spider-Man, crushing the independent film-makers beneath his blue stocking-clad feet.

“The statistics don’t lie,” says Barnaby Thompson, the head of the iconic British Ealing Studios, makers of Shaun of the Dead (2004) and I Give It a Year (2013). “A greater proportion of the box office is taken up by fewer films. It’s just harder and harder to get oxygen to smaller films.” Hollywood studios used to release about 250 films a year. Last year it was around 120—but those 120 tended to have enormous budgets.

At cinemas worldwide, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is battling evil—again. This is Peter Parker’s fifth big screen outing since 2002, when Spider-Man was first made for the big screen by Sony Pictures. Then Toby Maguire’s geek-turned-superhero struggled to defeat Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and win the hand of Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson over the movie and its two sequels, Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). The Maguire Spider-Man movies set box office records—made for a total budget of $597 million they have grossed more than $2.5 billion so far.

Sony was about to make Spider-Man 4, when suddenly they thought, “Why not start the whole story again for the next load of kids?” So The Amazing Spider-Man was born, featuring Andrew Garfield in scarlet spandex, in love with Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy, and fighting Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors, a.k.a. the Lizard.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), released simultaneously on IMAX and 3-D, grossed more than $752 million worldwide, the highest grossing reboot of all time. It cost $230 million to make. Amazing Spider-Man 2 (which cost $255 million) was released this month and has taken more than $500 million already. Batman, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Superman, are all simultaneously being reincarnated.

Over the past decade, these superhero movies, with their attendant computer games and plastic toys, seem to have eclipsed human stories. The vast Hollywood blockbuster franchises have almost destroyed what was once the standard fare of most Hollywood studios—the $15 million-to-$50 million medium-budget films. “Hollywood seems to have vacated the midrange film,” says Geoffrey Macnab, a writer for Screen International.

Lauren Shuler Donner is the producer behind the X-Men franchise. She spoke for a generation with the Brat Pack dramas St Elmo’s Fire (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986). She made You’ve Got Mail (with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, 1998), Dave (with Kevin Kline, 1993) and the Free Willy, free-the-whale series—all great successes. And then in 2000 she made the fantastically successful X-Men, with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Since then she has made seven X-Men movies, and has another four in the pipeline, according to IMDB.

“It was one of the many projects I was developing," says Donner, talking with great fondness of her superheroes. “I found the theme of tolerance interesting. They are mutants, outsiders; everyone feels like that at some points in life. There are powerful women as part of the franchise. I loved the challenge of the visual effects, I love the cast. We are like a family.”

Over the past 14 years, the X-Men films have reportedly taken over $2.5 billion at the box office.

"It’s a bit of a cycle," Donner explains. "About six years ago, the studios made some mid-range dramas and thrillers that did not do well. So they decided they would not do them anymore. The studios are now owned by conglomerates, so they answer to corporations and they have to show a bottom line. When they have a tent pole movie, the chances are higher.”

“It’s exponentially harder to make independent movies,” says Diana Phillips, a London-based American independent film producer (Death at a Funeral, 2007). “There is no theatrical space. The distribution world needs to bring in the audience who buy Coke and giant popcorn. They need Spider-Man 4 and Captain America.”

I also have some firsthand knowledge of this. Four years ago my husband William Stirling and I co-wrote and co-produced a short rom-com, Scooterman, for £10,000. Rather to our amazement, it got into Cannes, and then won audience-rated best of the fest at the L.A. Comedy Festival. And of course, Hollywood came calling and optioned our feature version. Sadly for us, Scooterman is not a superhero, but a guy on a monkey-bike in love with a girl he can’t get. We had written a cheapie, quirky British feature-length version with a £500,000 budget, but the independent producer who picked us up wanted to make a $15 million version—in 2010, that was standard Hollywood fare. And yet, four years later, that mid-range feature film has not been made. And it’s the same story with our four other, all respectably optioned, mid-range budget scripts.

Globalization is a factor in this stopped-pipeline scenario. Comedies—and some love stories—tend to be nation-specific, but whiz-bang, crash stuff plays as effectively in the remote mountains of China as it does in Chicago.

Ang Lee’s controversial Brokeback Mountain (2005), the gay love story starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two cowboys, won three Oscars, cost just $19 million to make and market, and grossed over $178 million worldwide. But it was banned in much of the Arab world and never shown in China. And $178 million doesn’t compare to Spider-Man’s $752 million if you are a hungry shareholder or studio executive on a percentage of Spider-Man’s budget.

“Our audience is global and we have to be aware of that. It used to be American culture that sold—and it still sells—but now we are embracing a global culture,” said Donner.

The rising cost of marketing is another culprit. “It costs distributors so much to market movies these days, they are much happier marketing blockbusters than risk non-brand films,” says Thompson.

A 2013 article in Vanity Fair blamed the 2007 Hollywood writer’s strike, which held up the supply of independent screenplays, and thus film production, for more than six months. Until then, author Margaret Heidenry argued, Hollywood studio executives were too busy fire-fighting each production. Suddenly, the executives had time to go through the books. They realized they didn’t need the original product of writers’ imaginations; they could hire people to rewrite old movies instead. “Whole genres died overnight,” said the piece. “Bye-Bye, Meg Ryan!”

The satirical British magazine, Private Eye, ran a cartoon of a producer at his desk, with in-trays marked “sequel,” “prequel” and “reboot” before him. “Original screenplays?” he says. “We don’t even have an in tray for that anymore.”

“Of course, if the superhero films come unstuck, then it’s a total disaster for the studio,” says U.K. independent film distributor, Robert Beeson of New Wave Films. “But they are less of a financial gamble. Only one in 10 of the mid-range films made any money.”

Even the apparently impregnable European film industry, with its state subsidies and loyal homegrown audiences, is starting to suffer. “Every time we get Batman, it crushes the market,” says Francesca Riario, who lectures on screenplay writing in Florence. “Also our subsidies have been cut. They have the same problem in Spain. The only thing that really works now in Italy is a huge Italian comedy.” Beeson agrees, with one exception: “In France there’s still a bigger market for serious movies.”

There is still light coming from the silver screen, albeit in digitally mutated versions. Dramas like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Downton Abbey are capturing huge audiences and making fortunes for their creators. “The smart drama has migrated to TV,” says Thompson, who made the British TV series Burke and Hare with Simon Pegg, in 2010. “The Godfather would now be a TV series.”

“Even Jane Campion (director of The Piano, 1993) got fed up of trying to finance her features,” agrees independent film director, Dictynna Hood, who made the award-winning Wreckers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. “She’s happily making really high-end TV series with fantastic actors where she can extend her vision.” Top of the Lake, starring Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men and Holly Hunter, who worked with Campion on The Piano, was aired in the U.S. on the Sundance Channel, the TV offshoot of the Sundance festival, dedicated to showing indie feature films, documentaries, foreign language films and short films.

Donner herself is now developing two dramas for HBO as well producing the X-Men movies. “Just like everyone else, I’ve turned to cable to make drama. But it also really depends on the script. One day, you never know, studios may suddenly jump in and develop dramas again.”

She says, then adds: “I don’t know whether movies will ever be able to complete with TV for drama again. You have so much more space to explore the characters. But it’s too bad. In the '70s and '80s movies were so good!”

As well as giving the viewers time to savor a new world, TV’s huge technical advantage is that its screen is the same size and shape as a computer. This is the medium through which ever-increasing numbers receive their entertainment— something that the big studios have yet to come to terms with.

“Cinema has always been slow to respond to technology,” says Thompson. “They were terrified of TV, of video, DVD, downloading; but my son and daughter will watch certain movies at the cinema, but others they’ll watch on an iPad. The moment the business accepts that, everything will change, and the smaller and medium-sized can have profitable lives.”

“Increasingly, films are being distributed simultaneously online, video-on-demand and the cinema,” says Beeson, who is releasing the Palestinian drama, When I Saw You, through Curzon. “Films won’t be able to play at the multiplexes if you do that, but most of the indie films can’t do that anyway.”

“Eventually, we will be like iTunes,” said Donner. “It will be pay on demand, but I don’t know if one could afford to make a $10 million movie and distribute it that way. It is a business.”

Luckily, also thanks to digital technology, never been cheaper to make a film. So festivals like Cannes, Toronto and Sundance have become even more important. “They’re your chance of getting your film seen and heard,” says Thompson, who was at Cannes for five days this year.

Digital filmmaking has also opened up a whole new genre—the documentary feature. Sebastian Junger, writer of The Perfect Storm, directed the 2010 Oscar-winning Restrepo, which explores the year that Junger and late British-American journalist Tim Hetherington spent in Afghanistan embedded with the U.S. Army. Real people are much cheaper to film than actors. There are no sets and, because of the Internet again, there is a good chance of getting funding on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo.

Again, our experience has mirrored the industry: Scooterman producers now want our cheap £500,000 version of Scooterman; and we’re on track to shoot our super-indie £500,000 art-house modern adaption of Ancient Greek Euripides’s great anti-war tragedy, The Trojan Women, updated to a modern war. Euripides’s gods, however, may be flawed but they don’t save the day. There’s not much room for Spider-Man there.

易八泰

没玩没了