The Power and the Glitter!

[vultan]

1994 in film

Excerpt from Nupedia article "1994 in film". Last edited May 12, 2012.

1994 was a significant year in film.

The top grosser worldwide was The Lion King, which became the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time (before being superseded in 1999 by Don Bluth's Flash Gordon).

In addition, 1994 was dubbed by some commentators "The Year of Tarantino", due to the fact that two films relative newcomer Quentin Tarantino directed, Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, were released to high critical praise and box office success. Both of the two films would earn Tarantino Academy Award nominations for Best Director, a feat rarely accomplished, while Pulp Fiction would win Best Picture.

It is also generally considered to be the first year of the "Superhero Craze" of 1990's cinema, with Watchmen and The Crow becoming very popular. In the comedy realm, there was The Mask and Four Weddings and a Funeral, the latter of which upset Pulp Fiction to win the BAFTA award for Best Film.

Other high-grossing films included Forrest Gump, a comedy-drama epic and Stargate, the first installment of the popular science fiction film series.

It was also the year that contained the films honored in the now-infamous 67th Academy Awards. The lack of Best Picture nominations for Watchmen and The Lion King, in addition to what was widely considered to be a poor performance by host Jay Leno, would bring poor reviews and relatively low ratings. This would serve as an impetus for the massive re-haul of Oscar ceremonies starting with the 68th Academy Awards.

Although a box office disappointment when originally released, 1994's The Shawshank Redemption, based on a Stephen King short story, would eventually become regarded as one of the films considered the greatest ever.

Additionally, Crumb, a documentary that follows the story of underground comic book artist R. Crumb, received high critical and popular acclaim and is generally considered one of the best documentary films ever made.

---

Well, here is a much-belated update. Yes, it doesn't go into especially great detail, but I said my next update would be a "1994 in film"-centric one, and here it is.

Besides the reasons I'd previously given for it taking so long, I made the most common mistake in alternate history writing in wanting to change things around... just because. No reason but for the heck of it. (For instance, I wrote and rewrote to death a concept for a Michael Cimino film that he historically never made or even considered making, for no particular reason.)

I realized that, with my timeline having a political rather than pop culture POD, I shouldn't gratuitously change things in the field of popular culture, at least not just yet. The year of 1995, though, will have some pretty huge differences in that area, mostly stemming from what's happened in 1994. I figured that there would be no reason in me essentially repeating what Wikipedia has said about the films in 1994 in great detail, when more often than not 1994 is pretty close to OTL. So I didn't, because I think that I've already shared the differences in film. Therefore, this update was a lot shorter than I had originally intended it being.

(Speaking of which, why yes, the text of this update is lifted from the Wikipedia article on 1994 in film, albeit with some pretty substantial differences. Of course, something is amiss in the name of the site...)

I'll give a (probably even shorter) update on 1994 in television tomorrow (again, mostly the same).

And then, with my 1994 in film obligation done with, I can go to the fun part- 1995 in film.

(And to thekingsguard, one of my more loyal readers, who has really wanted an update on The Crow... aside from the fact that it's more successful and Brandon Lee isn't killed, there isn't much to say. That is, until the sequel starring Brandon Lee enters production...)

 

[Brainbin]

The top grosser worldwide was The Lion King, which became the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time (before being superseded in 1999 by Don Bluth's Flash Gordon).

Do my eyes deceive me?! Don Bluth, scoring a smash-hit movie? You have done traditional animation a tremendous service. I can't help but compare it to another space-opera directed by Bluth, that same year, IOTL. Of course, that turned out to be a career-killer...

It is also generally considered to be the first year of the "Superhero Craze" of 1990's cinema, with Watchmen and The Crow becoming very popular.

It will be interesting to see which films follow. All eyes are on the sequel to Batman Returns, in particular. Will Burton return to the director's chair? Will Keaton once again don the cape and cowl? Will Billy Dee Williams see another fate in his pay-or-play contract, and emerge as a Two-Face very different from either Jones or Eckhart IOTL? And what of the Boy Wonder? I guess we'll find out next time, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

As for other movies, I take it that Blade, Spawn, and Steel won't be the leading lights of the superhero genre for the remainder of the decade. That is a very good thing!

I realized that, with my timeline having a political rather than pop culture POD, I shouldn't gratuitously change things in the field of popular culture, at least not just yet. The year of 1995, though, will have some pretty huge differences in that area, mostly stemming from what's happened in 1994.

Looking forward to reading about those changes. This update has been very good at whetting the appetite for more...

I'll give a (probably even shorter) update on 1994 in television tomorrow (again, mostly the same).

Now this is what I'm waiting for. Remember that 1994 was a particularly auspicious year for television, especially Thursday nights on NBC...

I look forward to seeing where you'll go from here, now that the central focus of your timeline thus far (Watchmen) is behind you. I've certainly been there, myself!

 

[Brady Kj]

As for other movies, I take it that Blade, Spawn, and Steel won't be the leading lights of the superhero genre for the remainder of the decade. That is a very good thing!

I's assume so. But I think that versions of these movies could still exist, better ones. Also, all three of these revolve around African American characters, and TTL's African Americans probably want heroes.

 

[vultan]

Just wondering, before I tread too far forth, is there anything I haven't satisfactorily explained in the early years of the timeline (late 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994)?

 

[vultan]

Decided to skip the TV update. Almost all of the changes in TV are with Jerry Springer (which I already explained) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (which I will explain in a future Star Trek update). So I decided to expound on a point I made earlier...

---

The Superhero Craze: Part I

One of the most important cinematic developments in cinema of the 1990’s was the so-called “Superhero Craze”. Coined by none other than famed graphic novelist Alan Moore (who used the term derisively), this referred to a time in the mid-to-late part of the 1990’s in which films based on comic books, particularly superhero comic books, were extremely popular at the box office. It is generally agreed by film historians that the first year of the “craze” was 1994, with the final year being 2001. In that time, no fewer that eleven movies based on superhero comic books achieved international blockbuster status (or, having made more than $400,000,000 at the combined domestic and foreign box office). Some argued that it was a creation of the times; that the huge crime wave of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and accompanying social and economic tensions had created an atmosphere conducive for vigilante fiction (indeed, one of the most acclaimed- and controversial- films of the 1990’s, Michael Mann’s Hero, would consciously tread the line between vigilante drama and superhero flick). This, of course, ignores the fact that the wave was mostly over by the mid-1990’s, though former Secretary of Human Resources Steven Levitt and former Secretary of Culture John Landis both subscribe to the theory, with Landis arguing that “the violent crime and riots created a huge mark on the collective American psyche, which was then solved by catharsis through film” [1]. The more standard explanation requires something of a history lesson.

The first modern superhero movie is widely agreed to be 1978’s Superman. However, despite the success of that movie and the film franchise it began, very few other unrelated comic book movies were produced in its immediate wake. Some film scholars have tried to retroactively place the beginning of the fad in 1989, with the release of Tim Burton’s Batman. But like Superman, the success of Burton’s adaptation would not be the immediate start of a wider trend. The only successful comic book movies released in the early 1990’s were Batman Returns, the sequel to Batman and Dick Tracy, a passion project on the part of Warren Beatty. The reason 1994 is usually chosen as the beginning of the “craze” is due to the double-success of James Cameron’s Watchmen and Alex Proyas’ The Crow. On its own, Watchmen had become the highest grossing superhero movie of all time at that point, as well as the most critically acclaimed. Taking the two films together, well over three-quarters of a billion dollars were netted. While the Superman and Batman movies had been successful because they were based on popular culture icons, making it a relatively safe investment, Watchmen and The Crow were two films centered around relatively little-known comic book characters (at least at the time of their release), with hard-R ratings to boot. Because of this, the same sort of executives who had rejected Sam Raimi’s proposal for a movie based on Marvel’s Thor were now fighting over the rights to practically every comic book in existence.

First on the plate were the sequels. Brandon Lee and Alex Proyas were signed to a sequel to The Crow, slated for release in 1996. Watchmen was a considerably more complicated case, however. James Cameron was unwilling to do a sequel, at least in the near future, looking for a more lighthearted project to work on. Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver had made a gentleman’s agreement with Alan Moore that they would not pursue another film set in the Watchmen universe until he had published the prequels that DC Comics had convinced him to do, tentatively titled Minutemen, telling the story of the predecessors to the main characters in Watchmen with World War II as a backdrop. Moore, who was at best ambivalent about film adaptations of his works, consciously set out to write, in his words “the most shocking, complicated, unfilmable wretch of a book ever - as a challenge, more or less, to Hollywood”. Needless to say, any follow-up to the Watchmen movie would be a ways off. In addition, the newfound profitability of the superhero genre convinced Disney to go ahead with a sequel to 1991’s The Rocketeer, this time with a better marketing strategy and a director other than Joe Johnston at the helm.

And then there was Batman. Contrary to popular belief, the decision to make the third installment of Tim Burton’s trilogy “darker and grittier” was not due to the success of Watchmen. Warner Bros. had decided that the reason Batman Returns wasn’t more successful was because it was too “fantastic and kid-friendly” [1], especially in the environment. Tim Burton had already refused to direct the third one, opting instead to produce and work on the script, which was based fairly closely on Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The titled was shortened at the studios request to The Dark Knight, to avoid confusion with Batman Returns. The first order of business was to find a new director, and Burton had just the person in mind…

Meanwhile, all across Hollywood, studios were ramping up preproduction efforts on any superhero-related properties they owned, or could get ahold of. It wouldn’t be long before Robert Zemeckis had decided he needed to make his own superhero movie, and his path soon crossed with Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith. And legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer, upon seeing Watchmen in a special early screening, would soon hatch one of the most ambitious plans in film history…

Of course, despite the name of the craze, not all comic book movies that came out at the time were centered around superheroes. Some critics contend that the best comic book movies of the 1990’s were based on “non-standard” graphic novels. Notable examples included Sergeant Rock, Grimjack, and Men in Black, among many others.

Still, the “Superhero Craze” had a great impact on American cinema, which would soon be felt in other types of blockbusters as well...

...

[1] Irony! Of course, this is only by comparison...

[2] The Department of Human Resources was created as part of the consolidation of the federal bureaucracy in the administrations of President Jack Kemp and his successor. It essentially merged several former departments. The Department of Culture has a more interesting background…

As far as the crime goes, the somewhat crappier-than-OTL economy of the early 1990’s slightly prolongs and worsens the crime wave, but not drastically so.

---

Thoughts?

 

[Brainbin]

Decided to skip the TV update.

That's unfortunate (But I do understand and accept your reasoning.)

It is generally agreed by film historians that the first year of the “craze” was 1994, with the final year being 2001. In that time, no fewer that eleven movies based on superhero comic books achieved international blockbuster status (or, having made more than $400,000,000 at the combined domestic and foreign box office).

That is a tidy sum in the 1990s. And if we exclude Watchmen and The Crow, that's still nine movies to go. Interesting to see what those films will be.

former Secretary of Culture John Landis

I can't help but think that the optics in selecting Landis would be questionable. Remember that he has the Twilight Zone Movie incident hanging over him.

In addition, the newfound profitability of the superhero genre convinced Disney to go ahead with a sequel to 1991’s The Rocketeer, this time with a better marketing strategy and a director other than Joe Johnston at the helm.

Really? The Rocketeer? Though I've never seen the film myself, I understand it to be widely regarded as an underrated gem. But I'm not sure how a sequel might turn out. Especially since the trend is for Darker and Edgier, whereas The Rocketeer was a throwback. And we all know the executives are going to hire a director who toes the line.

Warner Bros. had decided that the reason Batman Returns wasn’t more successful was because it was too “fantastic and kid-friendly” [1], especially in the environment.

If they only knew! It will be interesting to see what the legacy of Batman Returns will be. Probably as thoroughly mixed as it IOTL.

The first order of business was to find a new director, and Burton had just the person in mind…

Another cliffhanger! You sure know how to string us along...

It wouldn’t be long before Robert Zemeckis had decided he needed to make his own superhero movie, and his path soon crossed with Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith.

And thus we have the $64,000 Question. Can either of them avoid their inexorable career declines of OTL? Funny that they both arguably "peaked" in the same year (1994).

Some critics contend that the best comic book movies of the 1990’s were based on “non-standard” graphic novels. Notable examples included Sergeant Rock, Grimjack, and Men in Black, among many others.

Consider this an official request for an update about the version of Men In Black ITTL. The OTL version is one of my favourite blockbusters of the 1990s.

Thoughts?

Very clever way to bridge your narrow, laser-like focus on Watchmen into a wider exploration of an entire genre, a medium, and ultimately popular culture.

Looking forward to more, as always!

 

[Brady Kj]

Moore ... set out to write, in his words “the most shocking, complicated, unfilmable wretch of a book ever - as a challenge, more or less, to Hollywood”.

This certainly sounds like something Moore would do.

On an unrelated note I must admit, that having a Secretary of HR seems far-fetched to me.

 

[Kalvan]

The biggest problem is going to be special effects.

I don't know how much the James Cameron Watchmen advanced the state-of-the-art beyond established by Jurassic Park, but I'm certain that it was the release OTL of X-Men, The Matrix, and The Phantom Menace that convinced Sam Raimi he could make Spidey's webslinging work.

A big problem with superpower combinations beyond the level of Flying Brick is that making them convincing on film even nowadays isn't very easy. Super speed (Like Flash or Quicksilver), or stretching powers (like Plastic Man, Mr. Fantastic, or Stretch Armstrong) are the hardest to do right, but I simply cannot find away to do web slinging, web swinging, or web slingshotting like in the Sam Raimi movie with mid Nineties tech that won't look like the Seventies Live Action Spider-Man mixed with early Babylon 5.

 

[phx1138]

Really? The Rocketeer? Though I've never seen the film myself, I understand it to be widely regarded as an underrated gem. But I'm not sure how a sequel might turn out.

It had good writing & a good cast. I had the sense of "Indiana Jones with a jet pack", which was, apparently, what Dave had in mind.

Consider this an official request for an update about the version of Men In Black ITTL. The OTL version is one of my favourite blockbusters of the 1990s.

Mine, too. Proof IMO well-done SF can be successful. Even if it was a comedy monster movie more than "classic SF". They hit just the right tone. (Just like they did in "Silverado" IMO: tongue firmly in cheek, & played straight, with just enough self-awareness. Which IMO "Scream" tried for, but never achieved.)

 

[MaskedPickle]

Secretary of Culture John Landis? Oh my.

 

[Glen]

Good update - I look forward to hearing about The Dark Knight. It will be especially cool if they manage to include the Superman/Batman beatdown.

Hmmm - could TTL's Christopher Reeve reprise his role as an older Superman for The Dark Knight? That would be cool!

 

[Brady Kj]

I'm really curious to see what Men in Black will be like. OTL's was good, but I know the plot went through several drastic changes during production, and the actors look nothing like the ones from the comics, so MIB has a lot of potential to be extremely unlike OTL's.

 

[phx1138]

If you're still accepting nominations for comics to turn into film, what about Dinos For Hire? I loved this one...

 

[Brady Kj]

Perhaps Dinos For Hire can be the first full-length computer animated film?

 

[phx1138]

Perhaps Dinos For Hire can be the first full-length computer animated film?

Wouldn't be "Toy Story", fer sher. Pixar's first R-rated pic?

 

[vultan]

I'm going to do a retcon, guys. Not of any popular culture-related material, but of the 1992 presidential election. All of the main players are still there (though if someone believes that Cheney actually would have been a better running mate than Weld, I'd be willing to consider it), but some minor details, including the electoral map, have been tweaked. Note that every other aspect of the post in question is still canon (I may do a 2.0 version sometime down the road).

---

Election Night

It was very close leading up to November 3rd, 1992, with a roughly even three-way split in the polls. In fact, it wasn’t until 6:00 AM the next morning that anyone could call it. In New England, Ross Perot succeeded in winning Maine very narrowly over Cuomo, while Bush took New Hampshire by a similarly small margin. The Democrats, however, swept the rest of New England, including Massachusetts, the home state of both William Weld and Paul Tsongas (all three major tickets ended up within two points of each other).

However, Mario Cuomo scored big by winning several Northern industrial states such as Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which the Republicans had won in the past several elections. Bush was only able to hold onto New Jersey by less than a percentage point. On the flip-side, Cuomo was disappointed to learn that having a charismatic, young Southern politician on the ticket did not substantially reverse the gains the GOP had made in that region in recent years. Outside of Arkansas, where Clinton was Governor, and Louisiana, which was experiencing a backlash against Republicans because of Duke, George Bush won the entirety of the Old Confederacy.

Out west, Perot had his best showing, winning Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Outside of this, George Bush won all of the rest of the Western states, except for New Mexico, which was a Cuomo win. This region was also where Gritz had his best performances, winning 10% of the vote in his home state of Utah, allowing Perot to defeat Bush by a close margin. However, the deciding factor was the states on the Pacific coast: all of them went for the Democrats, including California, a Republican-leaning state on the national level.

With that, Cuomo won the election.

The popular vote percentage was as follows:

Mario Cuomo/William Jefferson Clinton (Democrat) - 33.7%
George H.W. Bush/William Weld (Republican) - 32.1%
H. Ross Perot/Paul Tsongas (Independent) - 30.2%
Bo Gritz/Cy Minett (Populist) - 2.9%
Other- 1.1%

Elections for the 102nd United States Congress also took place. Freshman Senators included Bruce Herschensohn (R-CA), Dick Lamm (D-CO), Bob Barr (R-GA), Carol Mosely Braun (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI). Notable freshman Democrat Representatives included Alabama's George Wallace, Jr. (son of the notorious Alabama Governor George Wallace), who would become a leading conservative Democrat in the House, along with fellow freshman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, the controversial Cynthia McKinney was elected in Georgia, becoming the first African-American woman to represent that state in the House. On the Republican side, newcomers included California's Maureen Reagan, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan and Maryland's Alan Keyes, a former Reagan Administration diplomat who was talked out of taking on incumbent Barbara Mikulski in the Senate race to instead run for the House. In an interesting development, Dean Barkley, a Ross Perot-backed Independence Party candidate in Minnesota was also narrowly elected to Congress, joining Vermont's Bernie Sanders as one of the two non-major party registrants in the House (and unlike Sanders, who caucused with the Democrats, Barkley would not join either caucus on principle, limiting his own efficacy).

---

Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?

 

[vultan]

Alright guys, update either tomorrow or the next day. Right now, can I ask my readers what they think of my retcon in my last post, and who they think would be a good actress to play Carrie Kelly/Robin in a film based on The Dark Knight Rises in this era?

In return, I'll offer some (much belated) thoughts on the comments my last update received.

That is a tidy sum in the 1990s. And if we exclude Watchmen and The Crow, that's still nine movies to go. Interesting to see what those films will be.

Of course, this also includes the year 1999-2001 years, which historically really got the ball rolling on the modern trend of huge intakes at the box office (sixteen films became international blockbusters). Could the trend begin earlier in this universe? Stay tuned.

I can't help but think that the optics in selecting Landis would be questionable. Remember that he has the Twilight Zone Movie incident hanging over him.

He’d have a while to redeem himself (especially with the help of an old friend and an… interesting confirmation process).

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Really? The Rocketeer? Though I've never seen the film myself, I understand it to be widely regarded as an underrated gem. But I'm not sure how a sequel might turn out. Especially since the trend is for Darker and Edgier, whereas The Rocketeer was a throwback. And we all know the executives are going to hire a director who toes the line.

Well, the reason Johnston was dumped here is that historically he did NOT get along well with Disney at all. Even if the movie had been successful in its first run and won a sequel solely on its own merits, it’s likely that Johnston would be replaced anyway.

Doesn’t mean much of the rest of the cast and crew can’t return, including Billy Campbell and Jennifer Connelly. Of course, the real question is whether Disney wants animator Mark Dindal to return to help create the more fantastic segments, or whether they want something more cutting edge (computer graphics have improved a LOT in that five-year interval).

If they only knew! It will be interesting to see what the legacy of Batman Returns will be. Probably as thoroughly mixed as it IOTL.

A good bet.

And thus we have the $64,000 Question. Can either of them avoid their inexorable career declines of OTL? Funny that they both arguably "peaked" in the same year (1994).

Of course, a less successful Forrest Gump might be helpful for Zemeckis in the long term, as it would help him avoid what I have dubbed the James Cameron Effect: the tendency of a movie director to slack off on making movies after creating a huge hit in the prime of their career. In Cameron’s case, that was his decade-long absence from directing after Titanic. In Zemeckis’ case… well, yeah.

Here, he can't slide into complacency.

Consider this an official request for an update about the version of Men In Black ITTL. The OTL version is one of my favourite blockbusters of the 1990s.

Your wish is my command.

Very clever way to bridge your narrow, laser-like focus on Watchmen into a wider exploration of an entire genre, a medium, and ultimately popular culture.

Looking forward to more, as always!

Thank you kindly, sir!

This certainly sounds like something Moore would do.

Ever the contrarian, he is.

On an unrelated note I must admit, that having a Secretary of HR seems far-fetched to me.

Well, I hope I can justify it satisfactorily when the time comes.

The biggest problem is going to be special effects.

I don't know how much the James Cameron Watchmen advanced the state-of-the-art beyond established by Jurassic Park, but I'm certain that it was the release OTL of X-Men, The Matrix, and The Phantom Menace that convinced Sam Raimi he could make Spidey's webslinging work.

Well, the implication is that the massive amount of time, money, and effort put into the computer effects in Watchmen (especially for the task of realistically rendering Doctor Manhattan) has put CGI several years ahead of OTL. (Note that I’m not a computer expert. If that sounds unrealistic, let me know.)

A big problem with superpower combinations beyond the level of Flying Brick is that making them convincing on film even nowadays isn't very easy. Super speed (Like Flash or Quicksilver), or stretching powers (like Plastic Man, Mr. Fantastic, or Stretch Armstrong) are the hardest to do right, but I simply cannot find away to do web slinging, web swinging, or web slingshotting like in the Sam Raimi movie with mid Nineties tech that won't look like the Seventies Live Action Spider-Man mixed with early Babylon 5.

True, very good points. See my above comment where it specifically regards Spider-Man, but as a general rule I’ll say there’s always the possibility that where computer effects fall short in this era, practical effects could fill in the gap quite nicely (for instance, if an Iron Man movie where to come out in the late 1990’s of this timeline, the suit would almost certainly be an advanced animatronic creation with an actor inside).

Mine, too. Proof IMO well-done SF can be successful. Even if it was a comedy monster movie more than "classic SF". They hit just the right tone. (Just like they did in "Silverado" IMO: tongue firmly in cheek, & played straight, with just enough self-awareness. Which IMO "Scream" tried for, but never achieved.)

Hey, it’s one of the best comedy monster movies of all time.

Secretary of Culture John Landis? Oh my.

You ain’t seen nothing yet…

Good update - I look forward to hearing about The Dark Knight. It will be especially cool if they manage to include the Superman/Batman beatdown.

Hmmm - could TTL's Christopher Reeve reprise his role as an older Superman for The Dark Knight? That would be cool!

It would be at least twenty-eight different varieties of cool, including several varieties that man has yet to discover even today.

Of course, with studio heads almost certainly trying to reboot the Superman franchise (presumably with a new leading man), a film featuring Christopher Reeves as Supes released at around the same time would be somewhat awkward.

If you're still accepting nominations for comics to turn into film, what about Dinos For Hire? I loved this one...

Perhaps Dinos For Hire can be the first full-length computer animated film?

Wouldn't be "Toy Story", fer sher. Pixar's first R-rated pic?

Hmm, if it was live-action, would it be like a darker, grittier version of Theodore Rex?

I personally find the concept of the comic hilarious. I’ll see what I can do.

Toy Story’s still happening, btw.

 

[Kalvan]

I just realised something...

In the OTL 90s, ownership of Marvel movie properties was an absolute mess. Spidey was at Paramount, except that three different directors had conflicting claims, one of who still managed to get the Sam Raimi version banned in Italy until they paid him $25,000,000 greenmail, Blade and X-Men were at Fox, Fantastic Four was with Roger Corman, Iron Man and Punisher were with Carralco, and Hulk was with Universal.

And of course, you had the whole fiasco at Marvel itself, between Ron Perlman, Carl Ichan, Yitzak Perlmutter, and Haim Saban, involving things like Panini, Topps, and Heroes World.

How's that going to change things?

 

[Electric Monk]

I can speak to the CG.

Three things: SGI server farm, Avid editing, Pixar and ILM subcontractors. The server farm would probably have to be bought outright (either Cameron has a graphics studio or could create one, I can't recall) along with various software. Pixar and ILM can subcontract and use said server farm—they both have their own, but we need to jump up an order of magnitude in quantity—and I mention Avid as it was first used in 1992 on a feature film and non-linear editing, which they provide, is the only way I can imagine a mostly live action film with that much CG could be finished since the rendering won't be done until mere months before release in that time period. Heck, if you didn't mention it, Watchmen slipping it's release date would probably be reasonable.

That plus a lot of money moves Pixar/ILM software forward somewhat, and the oversized server farm deals with the fact that you're "cheating" since the cheap hardware that powered late '90s films isn't around.

Essentially James Cameron would ask ILM and then Pixar (those two being the best at the time) if they could do it. They would laugh at him. He'd then essentially buy their time (possibly delaying other movies, for more money), buy them what they need (lease them hardware he bought for his new SFX company because he'll need one), pay for the extra people they'll need (again either through starting a new SFX company or buying a smaller but good existing one and then lending them out), and then—because ILM is tied up—hiring most of the CG companies in Hollywood to do all the smaller effects they ILM or Pixar might usually do.

Basically Cameron is advancing CG like so: lots more hardware than anyone is using, lots more money than anyone is spending on software developers (to push ILM/Pixar software to what he needs), and by hiring most to all of the Hollywood CG companies.

After the dust settles Pixar and ILM have better software and some more hardware, various other companies see improvements, and Cameron has the largest server farm in the Hollywood CG community that still has to cover a lot of expenses. I'd say CameronCG (or whatever) would have tons of hardware to either lend out for the next couple of years until speed/price of newer hardware makes it obsolete, and/or he could staff them up and you'd have a raw and green but (with the right software developers) an ILM level company with enough of a hardware lead for—say—2 years to score enough contracts to keep the company going and able to match ILM when CameronCG's server farm needs to be replaced.

Anyway: yes. Money for way more hardware than anybody else but extra resources for software development means Cameron can indeed "cheat" and shove the CG industry forward somewhat.

Caveat: the pace of hardware development will not increase much if at all. So the software might be a couple years better than OTL and techniques for using the hardware likewise but unless somebody also builds a much bigger server farm for a movie than OTL this artificial advance is limited. So The Matrix in 1998 with better graphics, but The Matrix in 1997 would be possible but with worse graphics unless they also bought an order of magnitude more servers and possibly some extra money for software development.

 

[vultan]

I just realised something...

In the OTL 90s, ownership of Marvel movie properties was an absolute mess. Spidey was at Paramount, except that three different directors had conflicting claims, one of who still managed to get the Sam Raimi version banned in Italy until they paid him $25,000,000 greenmail, Blade and X-Men were at Fox, Fantastic Four was with Roger Corman, Iron Man and Punisher were with Carralco, and Hulk was with Universal.

And of course, you had the whole fiasco at Marvel itself, between Ron Perlman, Carl Ichan, Yitzak Perlmutter, and Haim Saban, involving things like Panini, Topps, and Heroes World.

How's that going to change things?

Yes, the Marvel properties were a complicated affair at this time (but remember, a working Spider-Man script only really got off the backburner because of none other than James Cameron, who started working on it right after True Lies in our timeline. In this one, I doubt right after Watchmen he would be as willing).

It will be an important thing to consider going forward.

I can speak to the CG.

Three things: SGI server farm, Avid editing, Pixar and ILM subcontractors. The server farm would probably have to be bought outright (either Cameron has a graphics studio or could create one, I can't recall) along with various software. Pixar and ILM can subcontract and use said server farm—they both have their own, but we need to jump up an order of magnitude in quantity—and I mention Avid as it was first used in 1992 on a feature film and non-linear editing, which they provide, is the only way I can imagine a mostly live action film with that much CG could be finished since the rendering won't be done until mere months before release in that time period. Heck, if you didn't mention it, Watchmen slipping it's release date would probably be reasonable.

That plus a lot of money moves Pixar/ILM software forward somewhat, and the oversized server farm deals with the fact that you're "cheating" since the cheap hardware that powered late '90s films isn't around.

Essentially James Cameron would ask ILM and then Pixar (those two being the best at the time) if they could do it. They would laugh at him. He'd then essentially buy their time (possibly delaying other movies, for more money), buy them what they need (lease them hardware he bought for his new SFX company because he'll need one), pay for the extra people they'll need (again either through starting a new SFX company or buying a smaller but good existing one and then lending them out), and then—because ILM is tied up—hiring most of the CG companies in Hollywood to do all the smaller effects they ILM or Pixar might usually do.

Basically Cameron is advancing CG like so: lots more hardware than anyone is using, lots more money than anyone is spending on software developers (to push ILM/Pixar software to what he needs), and by hiring most to all of the Hollywood CG companies.

After the dust settles Pixar and ILM have better software and some more hardware, various other companies see improvements, and Cameron has the largest server farm in the Hollywood CG community that still has to cover a lot of expenses. I'd say CameronCG (or whatever) would have tons of hardware to either lend out for the next couple of years until speed/price of newer hardware makes it obsolete, and/or he could staff them up and you'd have a raw and green but (with the right software developers) an ILM level company with enough of a hardware lead for—say—2 years to score enough contracts to keep the company going and able to match ILM when CameronCG's server farm needs to be replaced.

Anyway: yes. Money for way more hardware than anybody else but extra resources for software development means Cameron can indeed "cheat" and shove the CG industry forward somewhat.

Caveat: the pace of hardware development will not increase much if at all. So the software might be a couple years better than OTL and techniques for using the hardware likewise but unless somebody also builds a much bigger server farm for a movie than OTL this artificial advance is limited. So The Matrix in 1998 with better graphics, but The Matrix in 1997 would be possible but with worse graphics unless they also bought an order of magnitude more servers and possibly some extra money for software development.

Electric Monk, thank you a billion times for this post.

It will be VERY helpful for my writing. I’d say your account of the CGI production is canon here, and should I ever get around to a “2.0” version of this timeline like I’m considering I’d like to incorporate it directly and definitely credit you!