USA Today Weekend

Ready, set, action!

With all the comic book-inspired movies out lately, we asked super celebrities which hero they’d most like to play.

It’s a lineup that would leave even Doctor Doom shaking in his steel booties. Spurred by the success three years ago of “X-Men” and last year’s smash hit “Spider-Man”, which spun its way to being one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, comic-book films are enjoying a golden age. “Daredevil” premiered in February with a $42.5 million opening weekend, “X2” has raked in more than $200 million so far, and as of press time “The Hulk” was set for a monstrous opening June 20 - all of which bodes well for next weekend’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”.

There’s more where those came from: Projects in development or production include sequels to “Spider-Man” and “Daredevil” (plus an Elektra spinoff) and features starring icons such as Batman, Superman and the Fantastic Four as well as lesser-known do-gooders like the Punisher, Hellboy, Catwoman, Iron Man, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Ghost Rider, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. And comic companies such as Marvel and DC are laughing - like the Joker - all the way to the bank.

So why are guys and girls with superpowers ruling Hollywood?

“We call it ‘comics,’ and it’s sort of self-deprecating, because this is really great literature,” says Avi Arad, president of Marvel Studios. “No one will wonder why they make movies based on Tom Clancy [books], but they’re trying to figure this one out. What’s really interesting is if you’re a filmmaker or an actor or a studio exec, you can open a comic book and you’ve got storyboards, probably the most detailed storyboards you’ll ever see. Then, you can see the movie.”

So, in an effort to help scads of casting directors trying to fit the right celebrity to the right crime fighter (Britney Spears as a singing She-Hulk, perhaps?), we asked stars: If you could be in a movie based on a comic book, whose brightly colored tights would you most like to slip on?

[…]

Jorja Fox (“CSI”): “I wasn’t allowed to read comic books when I was a kid. My well-meaning mother didn’t consider them ’literature.’ Instead, I read a lot of Stephen King novels and any other horror [and] suspense stuff I could get my hands on. So I don’t know … but it would be really cool to play somebody’s hero.”

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