ACTION! MOVIE STUDIOS LINING UP TO TURN COMICS INTO CINEMATIC GOLD.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Writer

They're as different from each other as they are from you and me. They may be superheroes or they may be mutants. They may have drunk a potion that changed them, or they may have been born on another planet. They may fight for justice, vengeance or glory, to win back a loved one or to save the world.

But there's one thing they mostly have in common, the inhabitants of the comic book universe: They are hot properties in the dynamic new world of digitally enchanced moviemaking.

``Filmmaking has evolved again, just like it did when the Steadi-Cam and the crane came along, or when color and sound and better film stocks were introduced,'' said Mark Dippe, a digital effects pioneer and the director of the comic book-based movie ``Spawn,'' which opens Friday.

``The range of stories you can tell has expanded. The most successful movies are the ones that involve the new visual effects techniques, and Hollywood is chasing after fresh meat like a pack of wolves.''

Indeed, comic book heroes are being snatched up for the movies faster than 6-footers at a playground basketball game.

``Spawn,'' the No. 1-selling comic in America, is opening this week in a splashy, visual-effects-laden $40 million live-action feature for New Line that comes on the heels of a successful animated series that debuted on HBO in May. (Both are executive produced by ``Spawn'' creator Todd McFarlane.) ``The X-Men,'' another longtime top seller in the comic book world, is being developed for 20th Century Fox by director Bryan Singer (``The Usual Suspects'') and writer Ed Solomon (``Men in Black'').

``Superman'' is being revamped for Universal by director Tim Burton (``Batman'') and will star Nicolas Cage.

This summer will see Kevin Sorbo as ``Kull the Conqueror,'' and Shaquille O'Neal (speaking of basketball players) as ``Steel,'' all at movie theaters.

Early next year, Wesley Snipes will star in ``Blade,'' the vampire killer.

Moviemaking Marvel

The list of comic books in development at movie studios from Marvel Comics alone includes ``Black Panther,'' ``The Hulk,'' ``The Fantastic Four,'' ``Iron Man,'' ``Daredevil,'' ``Captain America,'' ``Silver Surfer,'' ``Venom'' and ``Mort the Dead Teen-ager.''

``Comic books represent a gold mine of source material for movies,'' said Mitchell Goldman, president of marketing and distribution for New Line, which hit paydirt years ago with ``Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' and ``The Mask'' and hopes to repeat that success with ``Spawn.''

``Comic books are filled with edgy stories and edgy characters that kids can respond to.''

Even ``Spiderman,'' a perennial threat to become a James Cameron movie for the last 10 years, may be about to emerge from the legal problems that have delayed it, according to its creator, Marvel Comics chairman Stan Lee.

And the bull market for comic book rights has been deflated not a bit by the current runaway success of ``Men in Black,'' which is based on a comic series by writer Lowell Cunningham.

``Comic book properties are more sought after now than they ever have been,'' said Lee, who still draws a daily ``Spiderman'' strip for newspapers. ``One reason is that they are more doable than ever because of the new special effects.''

Another reason is financial - at a time when movie audiences are growing accustomed to visually spectacular, mega-budget productions, comic book heroes lend themselves to merchandising tie-ins that offset the high cost of filmmaking.

``Those extra revenue streams are important to the studios, and comic books are naturals for merchandising,'' said Malibu comics founder Scott Rosenberg, who recently launched a Beverly Hills-based enterprise, Platinum Studios, to develop a library of European comic book properties for film and television.

It began with `Batman'

Warner Bros. laid the groundwork in the '80s with its astonishing success in merchandising the ``Batman'' franchise.

Now New Line, a smaller company that has excelled at ``niche marketing'' of horror and urban genre pictures, is taking a run at supremacy in the comic book arena. Aside from ``Spawn,'' the company is preparing ``Avengelyne'' and ``Badrock,'' based on the comics of artist Rob Liefeld, as well as the Marvel comic ``Venom.''

New Line's executives claim that their passion for caped crusaders has little to do with merchandising.

``(New Line president) Michael De Luca and I are big comic book fans,'' said Brian Witten, New Line's director of development. ``We love them, we still read them, and we figure, `Why not do what we know and love?' ''

One of the most aggressively enterprising of the top-selling comic book artists, the 29-year-old Liefeld, has gone so far as to sell movie rights before ever committing colored inks to paper. ``Rob created a character

specifically for Tom Cruise called the Mark,'' said Witten, who at one time was Liefeld's partner in his Hollywood enterprises. ``He plans to launch it as a comic book when the movie comes out.''

Another Liefeld project that's in development at Amblin called ``Dooms IV'' was created ``first for the movies, and then as a comic book miniseries,'' Witten said.

Horror stories

But comic book-based movies also have their pitfalls - including long, expensive post-production periods, nightmarish on-set logistics, and the potential mistake of substituting visual effects shots for story values.

For every resonant effort like ``The Crow,'' there's a forgettable ``Tank Girl'' or ``Barb Wire.''

``They get made by rock video directors or second-rate filmmakers and the results are usually highly visual, but absurd and unengaging from a story point of view,'' says Singer, who's tackling ``The X-Men.'' ``I think it's time that the storytelling directors took the reins and started making films in this medium.''

Solomon, (``Men in Black'') who's scripting ``The X-Men,'' agrees, ``A comic book movie won't be good if you get too caught up with the flash and gimmicks. You have to ground it, thematically and in the characters. Without a basis in character and thought, the visuals just become like noise for the eyes.''

Says Dippe, who makes his feature directing debut with ``Spawn,'' ``Gimmicks will only take you so far.

``The heart and soul of comic books is that they create these fantastic, surreal worlds; they take people to places they don't see every day, and that's a natural place for digital filmmaking to go. But a movie also has to make you feel something - hopefully, strongly.''

A native of Alaska, Dippe exemplifies a new generation of filmmakers who have come of age in the era of spectacular visual effects.

After getting a doctorate in computer graphics in the '80s, he made his way into the movie business, creating innovative, Oscar-winning visual effects for directors such as James Cameron (in ``The Abyss'' and ``Terminator 2'') and Steven Spielberg (in ``Jurassic Park'').

Dippe met ``Spawn'' creator Todd McFarlane while the comic book artist was visiting Industrial Light & Magic, where he worked. They became friends, and along with two other ILM artists, Clint Goldman and Steve Williams, decided to collaborate on the ``Spawn'' movie.

``Digital effects let me make the kind of movies I can see in my head,'' said Dippe. `` `Spawn' is full of fantastic moral dilemmas and amazing, mind-blowing images.'

``There are going to be other people with similar visions who are going to get the chance to make these kinds of movies, now that the major studios are getting behind it.

``It really feels as though something exciting is happening and I just happen to be in the middle of it. New talents are emerging, and who knows what they're going to think of next.

``Cinema could become something we don't even know about yet.''

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9 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) SUPERHEROES SAVE THE MOVIES

(2--Color) Comic panel from ``Spawn'' 58 by Image Comics

(3--Color) Michael Jai White in ``Spawn.''

(4--Color) Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in ``Men in Black.''

(5--Color) Shaquille O;Neal in ``Steel.''

(6--Color) Kevin Sorbo in ``Kull the Conqueror.''

(7--Color) George CLooeny in ``Batman & Robin.''

(8--Color) Mark Dippedigital effects pioneer, director of the movie ``Spawn''

(9) Comic books slated for big-screen treatment include ``Superman,'' ``Blade'' and ``X-Men.''