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[Dissy]

With Sony and Fox announcing that their new respective movies Venom and Magneto will begin shooting as early as next year, and with all the hype surrounding WB movie roles of Ledger's Joker, and HP's Young Tom Riddle, is this the beginning of a new trend?  Movies to now focus on the villians?

url=http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/08/03/sunday-discussion-the-villains-reign-supreme-in-hollywood/]This guy seems to think so.[/url]  He also thinks that No Country For Old Men started this theme.

I am not a movie buff, but I do agree with him.  Villians in advertising have taken a central role.  Spidey 3, we were teased wih images of Venom.  TDK's viral campaign was pretty much soley based off of the Joker's character.  Transformers, we had Megatron, and the other Decepticons.

I have seen probably a couple hundred movies in my life thus far.  I do know that No Country did not start this villian theme.  The first movie that I recall really focussing on the villian was a little known 1989 movie called Batman.  Who got the top billing in the movie?  Jack Nicholson got top billing.  He also got the most screentime, he had the most dialogue.  In the 90s, there were few movies that focused on the antagonists.

What are your thoughts on this subject?

[Dimmukane]

With everyone else scrambling for villain roles, maybe Gary Oldman can finally be the hero?

The thing with the Joker/Venom/Chigurh trend isn't that they got the most screentime or top billing, it's that the directors are trying to emphasize that the villains play a role that's as important as the hero's.  In fact, I don't think any of them got top billing or the most screentime in the movie.  Chigurh was the first villain in recent films to get an Oscar, but he's by no means the first, and pretty much everyone involved in that movie gave a damn good performance. 

The reason for Venom and Magneto?  Both have been in a lot of comics and have cool superpowers with which to create special effects for.  As for Young Tom Riddle, it's merely timing that it's happening now.  In the 7th book, he gets much less screentime; it's focused on the journey of Harry, Ron and Hermione, and some of Dumbledore's backstory/general wizarding history.  You could say he's barely going to be featured until somewhere in the second movie when it picks up.

To me there doesn't seem to be much of an upswing in villainy, it's just timing of movie releases.  I don't even know when the Venom and Magneto movies are coming out, anyway, the whole thing will probably have died down by then.

[KvP]

If it's the sort of story to have a villain, that story is only as good as its villain. I'd say this is more true in video games than in movies, but I'm more familiar with them, so.

[Wayfaring Stranger]

I'm pretty sure it's equally true in anything with a story involving a hero.  Who's going to consider him or her a hero if they don't have something truly formidable to overcome?

[Faker]

In a similar theme to having the villain of the piece as the central character  Ridley Scott has a film in production (actually postponed at the moment) called Nottingham, it's basically the Robin Hood story from the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

[Lines]

Awesome.

Personally, I prefer the villains to the heroes unless the hero is more of a Byronic hero. Villains are more fun. I'm kind of excited that Heroes will have an entire chapter on villains, woot.

[Border Reiver]

In order to be a truly great hero, one must have overcome truly great obstacles.  Grendel must be able to destroy any number of mighty champions of Hrothgar at the same time or Beowulf isn't as great as the bards make him out to be. Siegfried must overcome what even the gods fear to do in order to be the greatest.  Batman's antagonists must be able to defeat him, or at least give him a serious workout, or the Bat isn't anything but a costumed bully.

Courage is defeating that which can defeat us. 

No one cares about the guy who is easily able to wipe the floor with his opponents.

[Tom]

This is a perfectlly logical progression:

heroes ---> anti-heroes ---> villians.

[Ozymandias]

It would have been interesting to see if Heath Ledger's role would have been as prominent had he not died. Though I have no doubt he thoroughly owned that role (I haven't seen the movie but everyone says he was amazing in it), I still am under the impression that he got so much screentime and publicity as the villain in part because it was his last role.

Disagreement box:

All of the publicity for the movie was centered around the Joker before Heath even died. The first trailers, the first teaser images, the ARGs about the movie, it was all about the Joker. His death actually killed a lot of the things the ad agencies were doing with the character and the role to promote the movie.

[KharBevNor]

So wait, it's a new trend to have films focused on/advertised by their antagonists?

Dracula anyone? Nightmare on Elm Street? Godzilla?

anyone?

[Border Reiver]

Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera - the hero is a cardboard throw-away.  The female lead isof some interest, but in the "finest" tradition of 19th century literature is also poorly developed.  The only character that is reasonably three dimensional is Eric.  Hardly a new trend, and the movie followed the book reasonably closely.

[Lines]

Dracula anyone?

This was actually my first thought. All of those classic horror movies, i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, etc., all focused more on the villain, because, well, it's who the movie was about. This isn't a new trend at all.

[Dimmukane]

Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins)

He only had 15 minutes of screentime in Silence of the Lambs.  Just pointing that out.

[Lines]

I doubt that, but even if it does total up to 15 minutes, he completely deserves the Oscar he won for that role. (This happens to be one of my favorite movies.) Hopkins was brilliant in Silence of the Lambs.

[Dimmukane]

Seriously, it was only about 15 minutes.

[Faker]

I doubt that, but even if it does total up to 15 minutes, he completely deserves the Oscar he won for that role. (This happens to be one of my favorite movies.) Hopkins was brilliant in Silence of the Lambs.

Yeah but Brain Cox is a much better Lecktor in Manhunter

[Lines]

I haven't seen it.

[Faker]

It has dated, but still think its pretty excellent, and Cox's take on Hannibal is less showy but more intimidating, in my book anyways.

[WriterofAllWrongs]

Oh dude, does this mean that Kevin Spacey is going to be playing an asshole villain every year now?

That would be the best.

[TheFuriousWombat]

You mean becoming the trend like this?

[Ozymandias]

Oh, yeah. I totally forgot the third chapter of Heroes was called Villains.

I am going to be so happy to have full Sylar back. His plotline in season 2 was so aggravating.

[Tom]

Oh, yeah. I totally forgot the third chapter of Heroes was called Villains.

I am going to be so happy to have full Sylar back. His plotline in season 2 was so aggravating.

That is honestly what I initially thought this thread was about.

[Uber Ritter]

I think it's interesting that we make such interesting villains up in fiction, both popular and artistic, when most of the greatest villains of all time were some of the dullest and pettiest people you can imagine.  I think we like to add more romance to evil than it really has.  But then, I guess these villains say more about our temptations and interests than the nature of evil.