The term “geek” used to be an insult. “Now ‘geek’ is a badge of honor,” says Kerry Conran, director of Paramount’s upcoming “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.”
Conran is a self-confessed geek who has crossed the bridge to become a Hollywood director.
Putting a fanboy in charge of a $70 million movie with 2,100 CGI shots is just one sign of how Hollywood’s going geek and geek is going Hollywood. (For example, the hottest guy on Fox’s “The O.C.” is a Comic-Con attendee.)
As fandom has become fashionable, Hollywood has targeted and wooed geeks. But the mating dance online and in person isn’t an easy one.
When the Internet boomed in the late ’90s, it was touted as a vehicle for democracy: Everyone would get an equal voice. Instead, it’s morphing into a marketing tool.
That makes Hollywood nervous because fan sites are among the few outlets it can’t control — even though it is certainly trying.
While fans love the attention (and the exclusive content it brings), it’s making them anxious: Geeks pride themselves on being maverick outcasts and are wary about becoming mainstream.
The July 22-25 Comic-Con Intl. in San Diego, which drew more than 75,000 attendees, was emblematic of the growing tension. A cavernous new 6,500-seat hall was filled for Hollywood presentations. With the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy’s $2.9 billion global box office and “Spider-Man 2’s” $328 million domestic B.O. fresh on their minds, nearly every major studio showed clips and flew in a bevy of stars from upcoming genre pics — it’s not uncommon for a studio with a large presence to spend $250,000 on the effort.
Meanwhile, comicbook publishers’ panels were relegated to rooms that hold a few hundred people (about the same size as the original Comic-Con 35 years ago, a convocation of 300 comicbook fans).
Hollywood knows that geeks start the Internet buzz, flock to opening weekends and buy the merchandise and DVDs. So the studios flew in Jude Law, Keanu Reeves, the cast of “Fantastic Four,” and faves like Sarah Michelle Gellar and Hayden Christensen.
While thousands of fans shrieked in appreciation, other attendees complained that there’s hardly any room for comicbooks at Comic-Con anymore.
Some in Hollywood feel that showbiz is being homogenized by mega-congloms. Geeks fear the same corporatizing phenom is happening at Comic-Con and, more crucially, online.
Web sites like Joblo.com and Ain’t-It-Cool-News, which were once “renegades,” are now courted heavily by publicists. Some, like reviews site Rotten Tomatoes, have even been acquired by larger media companies.
Fan site editors tell stories of publicists who threaten to withhold access to a junket if they get negative coverage or who call frantically after a studio exec reads an unfavorable item.
In other cases, ‘Netsters have been horrified to find that some “insider tips” and “rave reviews” were actually planted by studio workers to drum up enthusiasm for a project.
As a result, there’s a new generation of online fans that complains the more established sites have “sold out.”
“With the guys at Ain’t-It-Cool-News getting production deals and other sites working so much with publicists, there’s a sense that some of us are becoming tainted and it’s time for a shift,” observes Nick Nunziata, who runs fan site Chud.com.
Courting hardcore fans, it turns out, is a delicate game.
While many are flattered by Hollywood’s attention, they can revolt at efforts that are too heavy-handed or disrespectful of what geeks see as their privileged status as insiders.
Showing a trailer and signing autographs aren’t enough. Online and in person, fans want exclusive clips and interviews with talent and creators who display as much dedication and respect as the fans themselves.
The challenge is for studios to try to control geek buzz without so blatantly co-opting it that fans no longer feel independent.
“There’s a point of diminishing returns,” says genre film marketing consultant Jeff Walker, who helps arrange many of the studios’ presentations at Comic-Con. “While trying to sell their products, film companies have to remember that they’re guests at the fans’ event, not in control.”
That attitude helps to explain why nearly every actor and helmer at Comic-Con had a variation of the same line: “The most important thing is to not let you guys down.”
If Hollywood is a guest, it’s the kind of guest without whom there wouldn’t be much of a party. Fan sites couldn’t survive without the trailers, interviews and junket access provided by studios. Comic-Con would undoubtedly be a mere shell of what it is today without the presence of studios and vidgame companies.
The most talked-about events at the recent convention were the ones where studios pulled out the most stops. Attendees were buzzing about Paramount having given them the ultimate insider treat: the very first screening of “Sky Captain,” to which editors of all the top fan Web sites were invited.
After Warner Bros.’ presentation touting “Batman Begins,” online fans immediately began complaining because it was the only pic currently in production that didn’t deliver any footage.
Many studios treated Comic-Con as a deadline to edit rough clips.
WB’s “Constantine,” Dimension’s “Sin City” and Fox’s “Elektra” all had montages put together especially for the confab. Fox and Marvel showed off the director and key cast members of “Fantastic Four,” even though the film doesn’t begin production until Aug. 23.
“It’s great to have deadlines, and Comic-Con was it for us,” says Marvel Studios topper Avi Arad. “Thanks to the Internet, the fans are our press, and they put their opinion out for everyone to see. That’s why you have to be prepared. If you don’t have the goods, you shouldn’t even show up.”
While fans sat in on the studio panels at the convention center’s biggest meeting rooms, Hollywood was present in other ways. Agents and execs were hunting for new ideas, writers were crossing over from film and TV to comics and vice versa, and some comicbook publishers were focused as much on reaching out to studios as fans.
“The ability to reach out to the more traditional elements of the entertainment industry for business purposes and creative talent has become an integral part of Comic-Con,” notes Quattro Media partner Peter Levin, whose company is working with comic publishers as they license products to studios.
Long-term fans might complain that, thanks to these trends, they’ve been pushed to the sidelines. But if they weren’t on the sidelines, they might not be around at all.
It’s exclusive tips, trailers and interviews that draw heavy traffic to fan sites. It’s “The Lord of the Rings” that gets kids talking about fantasy and sci-fi books. And it’s Hollywood that’s keeping the ailing comicbook publishing biz alive.
“The comicbook industry only exists these days to create loss-leading properties for movies and TV,” notes screenwriter and comicbook scribeMark Evanier. “There’s a faction that may not like it, but Comic-Con represents what the comicbook industry has become.”
