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An Underrated Will Ferrell, Tina Fey And Brad Pitt Superhero Comedy Predicted Toxic Fandom

This article is more than 3 years old.

Megamind was not as successful as Despicable Me, but the Will Ferrell/Brad Pitt/Tina Fey superhero toon was far more prescient in terms of superhero domination, chosen one tropes and toxic fan cultures.

Megamind (now on Amazon AMZN ) was not a big hit and frankly it’s merely a “good” movie. Released ten years ago today, the DreamWorks Animation toon, starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, opened with $46 million domestic and legged out to a decent $148 million, albeit with a final global gross of $321 million on a $130 million budget. This was a time, between The Dark Knight in 2008 and The Avengers in 2012, when superhero movies were big without being dominant. Considering the recent run of bad luck with non-Marvel/DC superhero movies, you can argue that the success of this “nature versus nurture” fantasy was more about merely being a big DWA toon featuring a well-liked cast as opposed to being a large-scale superhero movie.

Megamind, about a Lex Luthor/Brainiac-like heavy who struggles with purpose after he murders his longtime nemesis, opened months after Despicable Me which was about a baddie who adapts three young girls as part of a plot but succumbs to paternal instincts. The symbolism of the Illumination “super villain toon” becoming a blow-out smash ($251 million domestic and $543 million worldwide) while the DWA “super villain toon” underwhelmed pointed to Universal’s animation upstart becoming the new “second only to Disney DIS ” animation giant. Not only did Megamind provide the kind of unapologetic superhero smack downs that the live-action movies (at the time) had not, it ended up being pretty damn accurate in regard to superhero culture and fandom. Despicable Me is The Truman Show (the bigger and better hit) then Megamind was Ed TV (the more prescient movie).  

A better comparison might be the “dueling” period-piece magician movies from late 2006. Neil Burger’s The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton and Jessica Biel, used its magical protagonist for a gripping romantic melodrama. Chris Nolan’s The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as former partners turned lifelong rivals, was very much ABOUT magic and the art of illusion. Despicable Me was about a comedic grump whose heart grows three sizes after he adopts three orphan sisters. Conversely, Megamind is very much about the notion of good and evil, the fantasies that make superhero fiction so appealing and the darker implications of cape-specific fandom. Despicable Me, which justly created a franchise, is a movie about a larger-than-life bad guy. Megamind is about good guys and bad guys in a textual sense.

Megamind was and is shockingly similar to J.M. DeMatteis’ “Going Sane,” a four-part Legends of the Dark Knight arc that saw the Joker reverting to “normalcy” after (seemingly) killing Batman, so if you like the movie I recommend the comic. Moreover, the film’s action, especially its third act, delivered the kind of city-imperiling “clash of the titans” fisticuffs that we weren’t yet getting from the likes of Superman Returns or Iron Man. There is little-to-no collateral damage, but the size and scale of the film’s climax, pitting reformed baddie Megamind (Will Ferrell) against Titan (Jonah Hill), was comparable only to Disney’s animated Incredibles in terms of superhero spectacle. Megamind predated the deluge of city-wide destruction climaxes found in the likes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Avengers and Man of Steel.

The Tom McGrath-directed and Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons-penned action comedy tapped into the selfish, gatekeeping entitlement of that portion of fandom (be they genuine or performative) which often seems (partially due to SEO-driven media) to have taken over far too many IP-specific fan bases. After Metro Man (Brad Pitt) seemingly perishes in battle, Megamind trains a replacement superhero (Hal Stewart, named after the two most famous Green Lanterns) only to see his protégé turn evil after being rejected by the object of their mutual affections. Titan is fueled not by world domination schemes, but rage, spite, entitlement and confusion. If becoming a hero won’t win him Tina Fey’s Roxanne Ritchie, then he’ll become a villain and take her by force. Big movies about toxic masculinity have been around well before Donald Trump or #YesAllWomen.

Will Ferrell’s career as an actor (Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, The Campaign, The Other Guys, etc.) has been defined by men who live their lives by an almost cartoonish version of so-called manhood. His appearance in this film, alongside both Hill and Brad Pitt as the film’s Superman stand-in, is not just about stunt casting. Megamind’s application of these themes and ideas to the superhero fantasy template was predicative of a decade’s worth of superhero cinema (from Thor to Joker) being viewed through the critical lens of male entitlement and adolescent power fantasies. It predicted the notion that some (stereotypical) “nerds” and “outcasts” would, upon their favorite pop culture turning mainstream, become bullies dedicated to keeping everyone else out of their sandbox. Hal Stewart didn’t want to save the day. He only wanted to get the girl.

Ten years later, Megamind remains a slightly ahead-of-its-time genre deconstruction that had the bad luck to follow a slightly similar game-changing smash hit. It stood out then and now as a big-scale superhero comedy that actually had something to say about the mythos and some of those who relished them. Like any number of DWA toons (Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Antz, Turbo, etc.), it’s about a protagonist who pushes back against the role society has chosen for him. In Megamind, it showed a good person undercut by “not the chosen one” circumstances of his birth who nonetheless eventually embraces his own path. In Hal Stewart, it showed a regular guy breaking bad after he realizes that getting superpowers doesn’t make him any more “special.” It’s a fascinating prologue to a decade defined by superhero cinema.

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