The 90s Superhero Movie That Accidentally Created The MCU Out Of Spite
Tim Burton’s Batman set the box office on fire in 1989, setting off a rush by studios to push out the next big superhero film, but unlike the early 2000s, this time, studio executives went back to the pulp heroes of the 1930s. Dick Tracy, The Shadow, and The Phantom hit theaters, bringing classic radio serials and comic books to life, but at the same time, Darkman was released. An original superhero, the bandage-clad Man of a Thousand Faces, exceeded expectations, especially since the film was only made because Sam Raimi wasn’t able to direct The Shadow.
Denied The Shadow, Raimi Turned To Darkman
Sam Raimi was, at the time, coming off Evil Dead 2, still considered by many to be his best movie, and Hollywood studios were starting to take notice of the off-beat filmmaker. Sadly, Universal Pictures, the rights holders to The Shadow, passed on Raimi helming the Alec Baldwin pulp hero film and instead went with Robert Zemeckis, fresh off Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Dejected, Raimi instead wrote a screenplay around the character Darkman, a superhero he created in a short story years earlier, and now he had Universal’s attention.
The Man Who Can Be Anyone Except Himself
Played by Liam Neeson, Darkman begins life as Dr. Peyton Westlake, a scientist working on synthetic skin who becomes disfigured when his lab is ransacked by thugs looking for proof their boss is engaged in white-collar crime. Westlake is left horribly burned, but an experimental surgery gives him superhuman strength, which he puts to use alongside the synthetic skin that lets him disguise himself as anyone, so long as he stays out of the light, to dismantle the criminal network.
It’s a standard superhero revenge story, but Sam Raimi puts focus on Westlake’s changing emotional state as he embraces life as a monster, turning his back on his girlfriend Julie (Frances McDormand in a rare damsel in distress role) after she expresses her love for him. It’s equal parts pulp heroic fisticuffs and gothic tragedy, but it proved Sam Raimi knows what makes a superhero movie work.
A Surprise Box Office Success
Darkman was a box office success in 1990, earning $8 million in its opening weekend, which may not sound like much, but that was good enough for first place and almost covered the entire production budget right there.
In total, the film made almost $50 million and spawned a pair of sequels, none of which were made by Raimi. Instead, 12 years after the surprise success of his superhero film, Raimi changed the world forever with Spider-Man.
Planted The Seeds For Spider-Man
Sony wasn’t interested in Sam Raimi directing Spider-Man, looking first at everyone from Tim Burton to Chris Columbus, but Raimi, a lifelong comic book reader, proved himself to the executives and earned the job. Drawing on his experience with Darkman, Raimi wanted to approach the story of Peter Parker from a different angle, opting to bring in Green Goblin as the villain and embrace the loose father/son dynamic between the two.
Amazingly, you can catch a brief glimpse of Darkman in Spider-Man during Peter’s dream sequence right after he’s been bit.
The Forgotten Movie That Started It At All
If Sam Raimi had been able to direct The Shadow like he wanted, he would have never developed Darkman, and in turn, there’s a very good chance that he then doesn’t make Spider-Man. Without that first film, there’s no Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You can watch Darkman on Amazon Prime to catch the strange, dark, and tragic origin of the modern superhero movie. And then, check out the GenreVision podcast breaking down the film and see if you agree with the hosts.
