Untapped Medium for Marvel Animation - Stop-motion?

[screw on head]

Hey,

With the theatrical success of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Aardman's Wallace and Gromit, stop-motion animation has become a viable contender against computer animated and live action films. I personally love the look of stop-motion, there's nothing quite like it.

Truth be told I doubt Marvel would ever consider doing a theatrically released stop-motion feature based on one of their properties. But what if they did?

Which character or team should be the first to be animated in stop-motion? Would it be a short released before a Marvel live action feature? Should it be an entire feature film? An animated series?

Thoughts?

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

I'd dispute the box office success of Wallace & Gromit. Despite being a wonderful film, DreamWorks has been blaming their losses for about 2 or 3 quarters on disappointing box office and home video sales. If one needed any proof of the general lack of taste among the movie-going public...

But anyway, I digress. Given the limitations of stop-motion and its cinematic history, I'd think that either a robot or a giant monster story would be most appropriate for stop-motion. Unfortunately, I can't think of anybody who's mostly or all-robotic to do it -- perhaps Deathlok, the Vision, or Machine Man.

As for giant monsters, though, there's plenty to choose from. There could be a Fin Fang Foom story, where he subs in for Godzilla as the menace. Otherwise, I think the recent Marvel Monsters Fin Fang Four story would work in stop-motion. The other would be my personal cheesy favorite Devil Dinosaur. Nothing says love quite like a giant red dinosaur with faithful friend and proto-homonid Moon Boy.

-- Ed

[Shantosh9500]

Either Howard the Duck or Spider-Ham

[screw on head]

I'd really love to see either Fantastic Four or Hulk done in this style.

There's something inherently creepy and quirky about stop-motion. I think it'd be really interesting to see the FF brought to screen with that particular edge to it. A theatrical budget would be a must because of The Human Torch and all the other visual effects that would need to be done. I'd love to see Dr. Doom done this way, and as Stu pointed out to be, it'd really neat to see Mole Man, his creatures, and some of Jack Kirby's other wild monsters brought to life.

I think Hulk would be really interesting if set pieces were paired down in favor of some more Frankensetein moments, perhaps in the vein of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Hulk: Gray.

A Steve Ditko style Spider-Man short would be interesting to see as well...