Don’t feed us more Hancock

As a big fan of the superhero genre, it’s my responsibility to lambast movies that should not be made. “Hancock 2” is one of them. 

“Hancock” director Peter Berg has been in the news a lot lately, mostly for his announcement that the sequel to his horribly mediocre superhero with a PR problem movie is moving along quickly.

The plans looked set in stone last month, but last week it was confirmed that the movie will get stars Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman back for round two, to be written by different writers, which might be the only good news in this post. Berg also confirmed that another big name will be added to the cast.

If you didn’t see “Hancock” and don’t want a spoiler, skip ahead. In the last film, we learned – out of nowhere – that Hancock and Theron’s character are superhuman gods that grow weaker when near each other.  Berg told Sci-Fi Wire that this third character will be some kind of evil god and that some origin stuff will be explored as well as the characters’ home world.

This mythology pretty much stunk up what we thought was a disgruntled superhero comedy. You can read my review about it here. Now that we know this, is there anyone that actually wants more of this “mythology”?

Then again, this is all sort of inevitable. The film grossed over $225 million and it cost $150 million. But whose fault is that really? I don’t think I can be blamed for going to see it when I was outright deceived. When a film pitches itself through trailers as something cool and then ends up something awful, there’s a false sense of success. “Hancock 2” can’t go back. We know what it is now. If I had to predict right now, it will probably pull in significantly less money as an August release in 2011 or 2012. Think along the lines of this year’s “G.I. Joe.”

Even with new writers, I don’t think this concept is salvageable. Hancock reformed his drunkard ways and is now a mighty superhero. That was the hook, now it’s gone – concept exhausted. This is a genre at a point where it’s constantly varying itself and meeting much or little success, with no real in-between space. “Hancock” didn’t work critically despite what the numbers say; this is going to be bad from start to finish.

Unfortunately, you and I will get to see numerous “Hancock 2” trailers and popcorn bag advertisements whenever the film takes off.