What if there was a superhero movie and nobody appeared?
In an extended email conversation I described a sequence in Batman Begins. For some time after the first act, the audience is treated to bits and pieces of the hero costume: bracers, armor, cape. Bruce eventually works his way up the criminal food chain to take out a slew of thugs one evening in a traditionally Bat-y mix of stealth strikes and asskicking martial arts. The sequence is shown from, essentially, the thugs' point of view. Fear takes center stage; Batman is mostly a black blur. The direction was so strong here that when it ended, much like at the end of Alien, I was disappointed by the big costume reveal.
So I was thinking: why show the hero at all? Make a film where the audience never sees the hero, just the effects of his or her actions. Then I thought, has it already been done? A number of films come to mind where the villain doesn't get his or her big reveal until the very end, if at all: the utterly ordinary-looking serial killer in Seven, the caller in Phone Booth, and so on. But has there been a movie in which the story follows those caught up in the wake of events, and the real motive force for good is always one step ahead, just around the next corner, out of sight?
I ought to write up a treatment and give M. Night Shyamalan a call. He could call it Invisible.
So I was thinking: why show the hero at all? Make a film where the audience never sees the hero, just the effects of his or her actions. Then I thought, has it already been done? A number of films come to mind where the villain doesn't get his or her big reveal until the very end, if at all: the utterly ordinary-looking serial killer in Seven, the caller in Phone Booth, and so on. But has there been a movie in which the story follows those caught up in the wake of events, and the real motive force for good is always one step ahead, just around the next corner, out of sight?
I ought to write up a treatment and give M. Night Shyamalan a call. He could call it Invisible.