We covered the Marvel panels rather thoroughly here, but there was one more surprise on the way, as booed Marvel Chief Kevin Feige claimed that the toxic “Punisher” brand name, which has survived three underperforming films is now back in Marvel hands, and the gun-toting vigilante will make a re-appearance in the onscreen Marvel universe (the character was played by Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson, in the previous three iterations).
Could he pop up in “The Avengers”? Or are they planning yet another solo voyage for the character no one seems to love? As one of the seven people who saw “Punisher War Zone,” we do hope they keep Ray Stevenson aboard, but we assume Marvel will lowball someone entirely new.
Would they bother doing yet another reboot film? They could, but as this astute Deadline observer writes, what’s really the point? “The problem with making a movie about The Punisher is that the story is the same as every violent, grade Z vigilante/revenge movie every made. The character surged to popularity in the late ’80s and died out after a couple of years. I don’t see why we have to keep bringing him back to the big screen.” Amen.
hey I saw P:WZ too!
Punisher War Zone was awesome. And the Dolph Lundgren Punisher was better than Daredevil, Elektra, X-Men 3, Wolverine, both Fantastic Fours and the Tom Jane version. So there's that.
War Zone was almost the perfect Punisher movie. Just because it "underperformed" doesn't mean it wasn't spot on, Marvel.
the problem with the Punisher films was with which tone, which audience and which material it was goin to be based on..
The first film dealt with what was already goin on during the 80s-left over mafia,drugs and a dirty New York City which at the time was becoming a big popular thing in most action films especially the Death Wish series, the Dirty harry series and the tv show "the Equalizer", being a vigilante was cool, but the advent of "miami Vice","Riptide" and other cop shows that centered on a cop at the beach-was becoming the norm,thus vigilantism was waning..However Marvel kept it up and introduced a new Punisher series "WarZone" which was supposed to deal with a much harder and ruthless version of the character-this however didn't last very long,and Marvel eventually closed shop on this guy only to bring him back under the Marvel Knights banner..the return series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon,"Welcome back Frank" was a hit with fans and brought back what was great about this guy in the first place.This series was also the basis for the Thomas jane film-however some stuff was changed due to the pg-13 rating..Fans were not to happy with the end product and after some time languishing in limbo,it was brought back from the dead,ala a reboot though this time with the tag line "warZone",hoping to appease fans that had expected a "hard R" with the last film but were denied their blood-this film was to bring back the edge that the last film lacked.However,though it fixed issues with the character's origin and reasoning behind its actions,the story as well as the over the top lack of acting kept this film from attracting new fans or even a household name…3 Strikes and usually your out in the film genre..
I believe that if Marvel was to seriously invest in this character, they should try to bring it to tv instead of film..the comics worked because each issue worked as "part of a grand mission", which kept you intrigued as to his character might have to do in the next issue..trying to put a 12 part series in a 2hour film is hard,and details tend to get tossed aside..
a perfect example of a similar character is Jack Bauer from "24",after 5 or 6 seasons,you want to see what this guy does next,how does he survive,what's his agenda etc..The Punisher is a similar character because you never know how much he has changed and if he's goin to cross that line to the point of never goin back..
A Punisher TV series would be the way to go.
BTW, the Tom Jane Punisher was definitely rated-R.