Kevin Smith, the doughy, bearded director of Clerks and Chasing Amy, still remembers the reason studio executives gave for rejecting his screenplay for a movie based on the 1970s TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man.

"I turned in the script and this executive went ’What (the hell) is this? It reads like a comic book! I didn’t approve this!’ I always took that as a real compliment," Smith says now of the 1996 incident, which he also blames on an executive-level shuffle.

"I said, ’You think it really reads like a comic book? Because that’s what I was going for.’ But back then it was a pejorative."

Hard as it may be to comprehend, but yes, there was a time when — to paraphrase the tagline of 1978’s Superman: The Movie — no one believed a comic book movie could fly. Even after both Christopher Reeve’s action-adventure and Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman grossed hundreds of millions at the box office.

Hard to comprehend because these days if it’s not on the comics page it’s not on the stage. Like never before, four-colour fantasies about muscle-bound men in tights have become the preferred source material for Hollywood’s prescription of special-effects-driven blockbusters.

Lament the lack of originality all you want — it’s not about to change. While the legendary likes of Superman and Batman have been around for decades on-screen, filmmakers are increasingly delving into the recesses of genuine geekdom for their next projects. And audiences, at least so far, don’t appear to mind. For every flop — Elektra, Catwoman — there is a Spider-Man or X-Men 2. And with Sin City and Constantine — both based on graphic novels — each grossing around $30 million US in their opening weekends, studios no longer feel they need an A-list superhero to guarantee a turnout.

Naturally, undertaking a comic book adaptation carries its own peculiar risks — namely a fanbase that is notoriously fickle and now, thanks to the Internet, armed with its own version of a nuclear football.

With a few keystrokes, a project can be obliterated online.

Just ask the folks at Warner Bros. whose plans three years ago to relaunch their long-dormant Superman franchise fell to pieces after the website Ain’t It Cool News ran a scathing review of the revisionist screenplay by Alias and Lost guru J.J. Abrams. Lex Luthor’s an alien from Krypton? Superman gets his powers from his costume — not our yellow sun? Krypton didn’t blow up and is in the midst of a civil war? Mild-mannered bloggers became nerds of steel. Warners got the hint.

Abrams’ script was hastily overhauled and eventually scrapped in favour of a new Superman movie from director Bryan Singer (X-Men).

Interestingly, Smith wrote a Superman script in 1998 for producer Jon Peters who incredulously requested Smith include a gay robot in the plot.

No wonder Smith — who has written Daredevil and Spider-Man comics in recent years — recently turned down the chance to write and direct a film version of The Green Hornet.

Smith says he bowed out of helming the production when he realized that "it wouldn’t belong to me because they’re not my characters ... and you’re at the behest of the studios. You don’t have to make exactly what they want, but they’re looking for the most palatable movie possible ... So you’re essentially making a product where people go and sit there and eat popcorn and don’t think about it.

"And that’s not the kind of comic book movie I want to make ... If I’m ever going to make one of those movies I want it to be something I create and something that I can maintain a larger level of control."

Smith isn’t alone. Other comics creators are also not content to leave their characters in the hands of Hollywood — and more than ever they have the clout to create the films themselves. Frank Miller’s co-director credit on Sin City is one example.

Another is the forthcoming directorial debut of Neil Gaiman, the best-selling author (American Gods) who got his start writing The Sandman for DC Comics.

Gaiman, who attended this year’s Sundance International Film Festival for the world premiere of MirrorMask, the fantasy film he wrote and comics artist Dave McKean directed, Gaiman confirmed he hopes to shoot a film based on his comic Death: The High Cost of Living later this year. "It’s a nice, cheap, low-budget movie about a miserable teen and a girl who thinks she may be death and the day in New York they spend together."

Why is Gaiman, who is currently writing his next novel, bothering with a movie? "The only reason I’m directing is that I don’t want anyone (messing) it up."

Gaiman’s distrust of the Hollywood machine is not unfounded. In the late 1990s, Peters — the same producer who wanted Superman to have a gay robot — snapped up the rights to the Sandman series and hired a writer to adapt Gaiman’s multi-faceted and intelligently-adult narrative into a screenplay. The experience was "nightmarish," says Gaiman, who recently sold a script based on the Beuwolf myth to director Robert Zemeckis for $2 million US . "(Peters) was hiring people to write scripts that didn’t resemble the comic. It was like a bad B movie version of the Hulk."

He’s just as perplexed at Constantine, in which Keanu Reeves plays a character who, in the comics, is a blond-haired Englishman. "Doing Constantine with Keanu Reeves is just odd. It’s like just deciding that the blue thing in the book is suddenly going to be green. We know what the character looks like. Part of the implicit deal you make when you film a comic book movie is that it resembles the source material."

Nor does that necessarily mean the superheroes most people associate with the medium. "What’s interesting about this comic book movie glut is — if they’re just talking about Spider-Man or Elektra than I’m less impressed than if we can have another American Splendor."

IN THE WORKS

Captain America: Possibly with Brad Pitt.

Green Lantern: Rumoured at one point to star — Jack Black?!

The Punisher 2: The first did well enough on DVD to warrant a sequel that will shoot shortly.

The Hulk 2: Marvel insists its making a more action-centric sequel.

Iron Man: Once due in 2006, has reportedly lost its director so the search is on for who will helm Shellhead’s feature debut.

Blade 4: Unlikely, but Wesley Snipes may make Black Panther.

COMING SOON

Batman Begins (June 17): Christopher Nolan (Memento) puts the Caped Crusader back in black — sans nipples — in this retelling of the hero’s origins. Christian Bale (American Psycho) dons the cape and cowl previously worn by Val Kilmer, George Clooney and Michael Keaton. Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine co-star.

The Fantastic Four (July 8): Marvel trots out its first family to the big screen in this Vancouver-filmed adaptation of the famed comic book. The director is Tim Story, the guy who made Barbership and Taxi. Uh-oh.

V For Vendetta (November): The Wachowski Brothers of Matrix fame produce this adaptation of the graphic novel about a freedom fighter in a ficticious facist Britain. Natalie Portman stars as a woman with a mysterious link to the vigilante.

Ghost Rider (Summer 2006): Nicolas Cage assumes the flaming skull of Johnny Blaze, a biker who cuts a bargain with the devil and becomes an avenging demonic angel.

Superman Returns (Summer 2006): Unknown Brandon Routh fills the bright red boots of the last son of Krypton in Bryan Singer’s $150-million US movie. Kevin Spacey (as Lex Luthor), Kate Bosworth (as Lois Lane) and Frank Langella (as Perry White) round out the cast.

X-Men 3 (May 26, 2006): With Singer off directing Superman Returns, Matthew Vaughn (who helmed next month’s British gangster saga Layer Cake) takes the reins of this third film. Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen return — as does Famke Janssen as a resurrected and possibly evil incarnation of her former self. After wrapping X-Men 3, Jackman will move to the spinoff flick Wolverine, due in 2007.

The Watchmen (Summer 2006): Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) tackles what many consider the greatest comic book story ever told — Alan Moore’s seminal 1986 graphic novel that gave psychological heft and real-world context to the world of superheroes.

Hellboy 2 (2006): The follow-up to last year’s sleeper hit about a demon-turned-do-gooder is expected to film in Europe later this year.

Wonder Woman (2006): Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has signed to write and direct. No word on who he’ll cast, although he recently confirmed one thing to Entertainment Weekly: His Wonder Woman won’t be battling evil in star-spangled panties.

Spider-Man 3 (May 2007): The third film about the web-slinger will see Tobey Maguire back in tights — along with Kirsten Dunst as his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson. Word is Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) will portray the shape-shifting Sandman.

The Sub-Mariner (2007): Harry Potter director Chris Columbus will direct this adventure about Namor, the prince of Atlantis who considers the surface world as a threat to his empire.

The Flash (T.B.A.): David Goyer, who directed the last Blade flick, hopes to bring the fastest man alive to the big screen with Ryan Reynolds.