Hollywood adaptations of comic books in a post-9/11 context: the economic and cultural factors

Depuis la sortie de Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) puis celle de Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), l’industrie hollywoodienne s’est surtout concentrée sur la production de blockbusters essentiellement destinés à un jeune public. L’article va d’abord montrer qu’adapter à l’écran les aventures de super-héros américains est une formule très intéressante pour Hollywood car ces aventures semblent faites pour devenir des blockbusters. L’article va ensuite montrer que ces adaptations rencontrent également un certain succès car le contexte s’y prête ; les super-héros, tels qu’ils sont présentés, intéressent en effet les spectateurs dans un contexte post-11 septembre que l’on ne peut ignorer. With the release of Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) and then Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), blockbusters have dominated Hollywood’s way of doing business while they have confirmed the importance of the young audience. The paper will first show that adapting comic books is ideal for the film industry as comic books perfectly fit the blockbusters’ formula. All this explains why American studios have successfully adapted (and/or distributed) many comic books over the past few years. But the paper will also underline that adapting comic books would however be fruitless if the context was not right for their characters. The paper will thus question the timing of these adaptations, and more precisely it will try to show that if comic book superheroes have an important audience in cinemas, it is probably because they are also in tune with the post-9/11 American mood.