Auteur Director Failed Pitches for Superhero Films

Wes Anderson – GREEN LANTERN
The film is in the title. It will be a very green film: mint, chartreuse, hunter, and of course brilliant emerald. And our protagonist? A plucky young boy who works at his eccentric uncle’s lantern shop. Without many friends his age he seeks companionship at the town library, which is where he stumbles upon the legend of the green lantern. He and his uncle embark on an adventure to find said lantern which is hidden in 1940’s Austria. The plucky young boy will be played by Tilda Swinton. All other roles will be played by felt puppets.

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PT Anderson – BATMAN
This is a story about a man haunted. Not so much by literal bats or by any desire to fight crime. It’s more the story of a troubled millionaire with agoraphobia. He’s locked himself in his mansion with a trusty and clever butler named Alfred, his only means to the outside world (this is where class commentary comes in). Imagine tight close-ups of Bruce Wayne, intercut with close-ups of Alfred, a haunting, string based score underneath. Do not imagine action, there will be fighting but it will be strictly the verbal kind. The pace? Not fast, but the lighting? Superb.

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Quentin Tarantino – THOR
Okay so Thor is this white guy who comes from his own planet and lands in 1960’s California, in a predominantly black neighborhood. The radio is blasting Fontella Bass, Jefferson Airplane, The Supremes. A foul-mouth dude by the name of Loki (Samuel L Jackson) finds him and they buddy up you see? It’s a revenge film, but with a twist… male friendship. Thor helps Loki get this girl back from her ex, but Thor, in a coke-binge haze, he just goes to town on him with his hammer. His head collapses like an old cantaloupe, and still Thor rags on him. I’m imagining a middle-aged actor you thought was past his prime, but is actually pretty good, for Thor.

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Sofia Coppola – SPIDER-MAN
Mary Jane is a wistful Freshman at Columbia, studying journalism. Sure, it’s not guaranteed to make her money but then again, her wealthy parents don’t seem happy. She’s perched in her dorm window and she thinks, “Can anyone see me in my babydoll dress from here? I mean, really see me?” Her roommate, Claudette, puts on a new album by a French electro band, takes a drag of her cigarette and asks if she has seen the news of this Spiderman hero running around the city. “He seems complicated,” she thinks to herself, or maybe she says it to Claudette. Then, bound by a reckless yet contemplative sense of discovery, she pops whatever pill is on the dresser, grabs her camera (that uses real film) and goes out knowing, just knowing she’ll run into him. She’ll love that her parents will hate him.

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John Waters – WONDER WOMAN
The origin story will remain largely the same, except that Wonder Woman will be played by drag icon Divine. She’s an S&M dominatrix and punishes Nazi’s with her whip and cuffs which are golden Nuvarings. But once she realizes they get pleasure out of it she has to develop another plan. The film will be done with Smell-O-Vision technology so smells of leather, sauerkraut and unshaven armpits will occasionally fill the auditorium. Lorena Bobbet will play her mother and the ruler of a powerful planet of lesbians. Anything less than an NC-17 rating and I refuse to do it.

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