“This is a cast of superheroes to film critics, at least, who’ve been praising their talent for years,” says Amy Nicholson, movie and TV critic for Rotten Tomatoes. “Whoever put them together seems to be chasing the chance to make a comic book movie with genuinely phenomenal performances. I hope they pull it off, for the actors’ sake.”
In fact, Nicholson argues that perhaps we’ve all grown a little too used to seeing only blockbuster celebrities filling such roles.
“Hollywood has become far too star-dependent,” Nicholson continues. “Lately, nothing over a couple million dollars – let alone a superhero franchise – gets greenlit without big names.”
Those types of casting requirements impede the development of new movie stars in the way Superman launched Christopher Reeve’s career, Nicholson explains. In an ideal world, more producers would head in the same direction as the upcoming Fantastic Four installment, she says.
What’s more, Ben Saunders, a professor of comic and cartoon studies and pop culture at the University of Oregon, who founded the school’s comic studies program, says: If Pascal, who’s had a string of high-profile roles, is not a bona fide A-lister, then who is?
As for the British-leaning cast line-up resuscitating the ailing franchise, that’s not out of the realm of possibility, suggests Saunders.
“It wouldn’t be the first time that British talent has helped to revitalise and reimagine some wonderful pieces of American culture,” observes Saunders. “In the mid-1980s, many of the best British comics creators found themselves working for American publishers and some of the most influential comics of the late 20th century come from that period.”
One need look no further than the two British creators behind Watchmen from U.S.-based DC Comics – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Thanks to the talent of UK-born Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen became one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed graphic novels (and later turned into a film and television series) of the past 50 years, says Saunders.
