And the fan-boys are revolting.

Both in the sense that they go ape-shit over the least deviation from their beloved version of a character, and in the sense that many of them look like Comic-book Guy and smell, that is.

But this post isn't about fan-boys being so anal and pedantic about characters who by their very definition as comic-book characters cannot have a definitive version. Not per se. It's more about the crazy things that movie studios do to evoke such backlash, mostly internet-based as they rise up and arm themselves with keyboards, memes and abbreviations which only they understand. It's the antagonism of the studios in releasing a saturation of preview material for their films which I wish to pick a bone with.

Today, for example, the first official picture of Anne Hathaway (smoking hot) as Catwoman (smoking hot and sultry) was released. And the fans went wild. Not with congratulations or positivity, mind, but with a sort of collective "eh...". Apart from the small percentage that, first, moaned "ungh..." after some brief one-armed exercise and who subseqeuntly had a lie down. They'll get around to the "eh..." reaction later.

The reason? Christopher Nolan has decided that she should look suitably gritty and realistic in the film, as he decided with all the character including Batman himself, and has therefore done away with the cat-ears. In this photo, anyway, which appears to be a single frame from a film which will undoubtedly have a running time pushing two and a half hours.



This comes just a day after the first official look at the new Superman, Henry Cavill, in the new Superman suit. It has a texture to it reminiscent of fish-scales and the recently announced new Spider-Man suit with a basketball bobble texture, and there are camps around both suits calling them awful and grabbing their torches and pitchforks.

Then there's casting announcements, where just this week Perry White was announced as the not white actor Laurence Fishburne, cueing many pun-based headlines. And the shit-storm around the announcement casting Idris Elba, who many people know I really like, as "the whitest of the gods" Heimdall or Heimdallr in Thor was huge enough to make it onto proper news at six.



I'm using comic book films here as they are the most volatile in terms of changing anything, no matter how insignificant. There will always be someone who preferred the 1992 Bob Bobberson art for The Flash where he had three stripes of yellow on each boot toe rather than two, and will cry blasphemy if it doesn't make the cut. But the root of the problem, and indeed the outcry at such announcements, aren't genre-exclusive. The casting of Tom Hanks as Robert Langford, the recent casting of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher despite looking nothing like the extensively described character in the novels, even massively deviating plot points in many films adapted from John Grisham bestsellers are all examples of the issues inherent in the studio system.

There is a simple solution to all of this. Stop giving things away. That's all they need to do. Stop releasing pictures a year, a year and a half before the film will be released. Announce who is in the film but not who they'll play, unless they are the protagonist. Stop running trailers with every gag in the comedy film, with the twist in plain sight, with the entire synopsis revealed and read out in gravelly American baritone. We need more films like Black Swan, where you don't know what you're getting into when you sit down but you know it'll be good.

If every aspect of a production is leaked onto the internet, or as it is happening now officially announced by the studio, the novel approach that may have been taken will be lost on the audience in the cinema. The speculation mill will go over and over with fingers flying in a fury over keyboards and the anticipation for the film will go up and down while people don't realise how much of the film will not be new to them. A few movie posters a few months before release- fine. But stop releasing every last detail, if only to save me from spoilers. Bank on the fact that internet users and fanboys are like the rays in Ghostbusters. If they cross, all sorts of disasters happen- mainly because they're all dicks and won't think twice about revealing the recently revealed whatever to a host of as yet blissfully ignorant fans who would rather wait for the film's release.

To go back, before we finish, to the photo of Catwoman, it is a single frame from the film with probable explanation. Has Nolan bastardised the character? Is that what he wants people to believe? Is it possible that this is pre-Catwoman Selina Kyle gathering bits and pieces before her full assumption of the person? After all, we saw a certain Mr Wayne in various stages of Bat-suit undress (not a phrase I saw often)in Batman Begins, did we not?



And how many people cried "what, Nolan's Batman has no cowl?". Not a one. Because we didn't see it. So stop sampling the film and throwing it around out of context and let us enjoy the surprises and the story when it comes out. A film is a film- not a half-made jigsaw we have to bring the rest of the pieces to after collecting one a month from uncle Warner Bros to see where they fit.