JK Simmons as J Jonah Jameson in 2019-2021, and JK Simmons as J Jonah Jameson in 2002-2007
That this era of pop culture is just one endless churn of adaptations, sequels, prequels, reboots, and remakes is a road with deep ruts in it. The numbers really don’t lie. Vanishingly few of the top box office earners in the last two decades were developed wholly originally (or were adapted from less widely known novels, comic books, foreign films, etc). Quite a lot of pixels have been dedicated to bemoaning this fact on websites by and for white people. It is a problem but it does not appear constantly complaining about it is making any difference. It’s not like Disney says “Hey, you know that Slate writer really ripped us a new asshole. Let’s scrap Avengers 5 and the live action Pocahontas remake and start developing something new and original.” They’ll keep cranking out the same characters over and over and over again until the demand from audiences changes.
They’re probably not going to change. Even more resistant to change are the people who we can generally describe as the involuntarily celibate fanboy members of the audience, those very vocal men who just really, really get upset whenever additions or changes are made to beloved characters and properties to make them more inclusive and modern. Here’s a few comments from the other site (which are just barely scratching the surface of the fanboys’ venom – if we pulled comments from actual geek entertainment sites this would take countless hours to curate):
LogicIsHard • 2 years ago
️Now let’s cast a white chick as the main character in Mulan and see how that goes.
Tue, 7/9/2019 10:21 AM on ‘Disney network defends casting black actress in ‘Little Mermaid’ after backlash’
Bosda, The Raccoon Philosopher • 2 years ago
️Look, if you want a charming, Black character—CREATE ONE!
But don’t rewrite existing works! Instead, create!
Tue, 7/9/2019 10:04 AM on ‘Disney network defends casting black actress in ‘Little Mermaid’ after backlash’
Embrace Your Privilege • 3 years ago
️I stood in line for it, but bailed when I saw that the other people in line weren’t diverse enough.
Mon, 4/29/2019 9:45 PM on ‘Captain Marvel becomes highest domestic grossing movie with a woman director’
DEMENTIA WON BY FRAUD • 3 years ago
️NO WONDER IT WAS SO BAD.THAT UGLY LEAD WITH THE BAD BODY DID NOT HELP.
Mon, 4/29/2019 9:31 PM on ‘Captain Marvel becomes highest domestic grossing movie with a woman director’
Lie Detector • 3 years ago
️Do you hear that sound?………….that’s the sound a movie makes when it flops.
Wed, 2/27/2019 8:53 PM on ‘Fundraiser to hold free ‘Captain Marvel’ screenings for girls hits $60K’
For all Hollywood (and Disney in particular) have done to piss fanboys off with adding new characters and recasting old ones to be more diverse, ironically there’s one casting non-change that’s probably pissed them off the most. Long and complicated story as short as possible: JK Simmons played Daily Bugle editor J Jonah Jameson in the original three Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Jameson was a cranky reactionary and a craven asshole of a 20th Century newspaperman, calling Spider-Man a “menace” and paying Peter jack shit for well-staged photos of himself wearing the tights.
Simmons, Maguire, and everyone else in the first three films were gone when the series was rebooted as The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 and its sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. They weren’t terrible, but they weren’t great either, and in 2015, Sony Pictures, the rights-holder for all on-screen depictions of Spider-Man, inked a deal with Disney to start all over again. Tom Holland, an actual teenager at the time, was cast to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who was at first more of a Robin to Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark/Iron Man than his own leading man until Spider-Man: Far From Home.
And after a very brief stint playing a different iconic comic book side character (Gotham City’s Commissioner Gordon in Zack Snyder’s Justice League) JK Simmons was back as Jameson.
The Daily Bugle, was different however…
It was only a brief cameo at the end of Far From Home (the above video wasn’t in it, just viral marketing for that film’s home video release) but the implication of who he was satirizing was beyond obvious. And if it wasn’t obvious enough, in his larger role in Spider-Man: No Way Home which hit theaters just a few days ago, Jameson ends one of his segments ranting about Spider-Man by saying “Daily Bugle supplements. The only other daily fix you need!”
Is it a devastating pwn? No, not really. It’s pretty mild. But that Sony and Disney feel confident that enough of the audience is going to get the joke at all shows there’s an increasing awareness of MAGA conspiracy bullshit. To have so blatant a satire of right wing media in a movie that’s now the second largest box office opening of all time is impressive. As we wrote, of course politics is infused in the way these movies are made and who makes them. But this is an escalation, even if it’s a gentle one. It’s not enough for the studios to roll their eyes and laugh when the fanboys freak out over a half-Black girlfriend for Peter Parker. Now they’re kind of trolling them too.
plastic_jeezus • 10 months ago
️…but is she happy to be an emotionally tortured unemployed jedi responsible for playing the suckiest character since jar jar binks?
Thu, 2/25/2021 11:07 AM on ‘Daisy Ridley responds to Cruz: ‘Happy to be an emotionally tortured Jedi who doesn’t leave their state when it’s having a terrible time”