Ok here is my take on the history of comic book to movie...
Back in the 80's and 90's the comic to movie wasnt really a great transition. Superman was considered a success of the genre spannng the late 70's but only with its two sequels, then we have Batman in the 90's which again had two successful movies before it flopped big time... It was because of this that the studios didnt want to take a risk... During the mid to late 90's many studios tried to revive the comic book franchise and try and make it as big as such movies like Jurassic Park and Terminator, but the effects at the time deemed it impossible to render a superhero movie that looks effective... it suffered from the same problems it had in the past. Then marvel sold most of its movie rights to studios in hopes one of those characters would be picked up, one studio brought the Fantastic Four franchise but didnt really work on making the film, in the end marvel said they wanted the rights back and they made a real cheapply made Fantastif Four movie that only the few have seen online. Feeling at the end of the comic book genre in the movies One studio, i think it was New Line, that wanted to do a horror based on Vampires but give it a gritty realistic edge of the underground real world. However they lacked an angel as there have been many Vampire stories been told before and havent been a success and well Van Helsing and Bram Stokers dracula were owned by other studios... But somehow they found Blade, an untapped vampire story just waiting to appear on the big screen. This was considered a big risk to them, but Blade was was a character that appeared in the comics since the 70's and most of the fans of the comics now in there late 20's and probably horror fans too saw the first amazingly done Comic Book Movie...
But this wasnt the end, Studios everywhere realised that there approach to comic book movies were wrong, instead of the superhero saves the day story, they realised that there was more levels and complex story that mirrors more than one genre, and by tapping into the other genre they would tap into that market of people who would never normally see a superhero movie... For example.
Fox had been trying to make a way to have X-Men come to the big screen, but it was Bryan Singer who showed them that X-Men face the same social problems that a minorities have faced. With that this movie then went from small but big fan base market, and the minority markets.
Sony wanted to make Spiderman, but again wanted to give it a gritty story, something that would cement it in the real world, Sam Raimi discoveored that Spiderman really is that classic Romeo and Juliet style story, On one had you have Peter Parker who is Spiderman, someone the public fear and love, where you have Mary Jane who is dating his best friend who is the son of the green goblin... Complex Drama
However these cross genre movies havent always worked, Fox tried to turn Daredevil into its own Batman movie, the lone hero walks the night fighting crime... I enjoyed the movie but i think it suffered because nobody knew who daredevil was and what the movie was about. Another unsuccesful franchise is Hulk, they still dont seem to have given up on it, but really Hulk is not a good story to tell and they have tried the love drama angel... twice and it hasnt worked. Although i do think Edward Norton makes a better bruce banner. - The problem with the Hulk is that they should of really cross genre the story with a war story, like they did with Iron Man, and that is why Iron Man was excellent. Hulk is a powerful war machine, he is the Dr.Manhattan but with less powers, instead of the goverment trying to capture him all the time, they could of really showed what the hulk could of done for them... such a waste.
Fantastic four was an excellent franchise aimed for the younger generation but fans got peed off with that because they wanted it to be more gritty and thats now really who they were marketing for. Problem is that devide of who do they market too caused the sequel to suffer leaving the fact that Silver Surfer and Galactus the ultimate ending to a trilogy is actually just the second outing for them... LOL Mind you they can rectofy this... the story didnt show the level of time between the two movies so we could intially make a new Fantastic Four 2 and rename to pre-exitising one as FF3
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Baring that in mind, Marvel has been a testing subject to what works and what doesnt, now the studios know there answers, they know what works and what doesnt... its seemly risk free to do what they do. However other studios for other comic books have now homed into this and now we have an excelllent Batman franchise, Watchmen was excellent...The first hellboy was good, the second was ruined by the director who turned it into his own Pans Labirinth..
