Is DC even going to try to compete with Marvel on the big screen?

[Shellhead]

Superhero movies need to be live action to get the respect of the general, non-comic book reading audience.

They may be more likely to dismiss animated movies as just "cartoons for kids".

Aside from the potential to make a lot of money, appeal to non-fans should be a non-issue. Should Monday Night Football change its format to appeal more to non-football fans? Should Harlequin romance novels include more action and violence in hopes of attracting some male readers?

[sethysquare]

I love Marvel for how they're going about it. On the one hand Avengers has "awesome" written all over it with great action, Hulk catching Ironman, Ironman getting out of his armor as he is walking on his skyscraper loft, etc. But at the same time i can see that its not shallow and stupid. They're working on the characters, their personal stuff, the relationships between them, etc. And all this comes as a culmination of everywthing we've got so far.

I love what Nolan is doing for Batman and i dont want to start a Marvel vs DC war, but i cant help but feel sort of jealous that my favourite DC heroes arent getting the marvel treatment. Are their movies deep like TDK? No, but they're solid and safe and very entertaining, without big screwups. They embrace the comicbookiness of their franchises and bring them to life. They stick to the tone, the characters, the whole look of their world and dont mess around with it. "What if Batman was realistic", "what if Superman was Ed Scissorhands" (damn it Burton), "what if GL was Jack Black", etc. They dont hand out their franchises to random directors to do their thing, they take care of them and oversee their development. DCE did that with GL and it was faithful to the atmosphere, look and feel of the GL books but they missed the part where the script and CGI were bad.

And so all of Marvel's movies converge in the Avengers. A movie universe! No "batman is all serious and realistic you guys, he's alone in the universe, leave him alone" shenanigans. Sometimes i just curse Nolan for his seriousness, pseudorealism and his "no other superheroes" rules. His batsuits are also atrocious.

A Marvel movie fan can jump right into their comics and feel at home, but just walk up to any Nolan fan and utter the words "Robin", "JL", or "other superheroes" and he's gonna roll his eyes.

I hope DCE gives us something similar to Marvel's movies.

I love this picture.

[Dr. Hurt]

And before someone calls me shallow or whatever, Nolan's plots, chase scenes, Joker, Batman (not the suit), Batman's origin, casting choices, etc are all amazing. But when i go watch a Batman movie, i'd like it to take place in Gotham and not some bland American city, i'd like Batman to look like Batman, i'd like Catwoman to look like catwoman. I want to feel like i'm in Gotham the way the Arkham games make me feel.

I love this picture.

Me too! It's so colourful and... comicbooky!

[Dr. Hurt]

:( I think Diane Nelson will fix it. She can build up a Harry Potter franchise and made billions of profits. She joined DC entertainment only after GL was green lighted. I'm sure she'll make GL 2 much much better than GL, which is pretty okay, just not perfect.

Well if she's on board then there's still hope!

I think I'm the only one who actually likes the GL film. I didn't really care for it at first, but after a second viewing I started to like it more and have now probably watched it 4-5 times total which I was not expecting to do when I bought it. I really wish DC would get a kick ass director like Matthew Vaughn (pun intended), someone who really knows how to put out an action film and keep it within budget. Xmen First Class is probably my favorite comic film so far, and Kick-Ass was so good especially considering the budget he had to work with.

The guy they got did Goldeneye and the first Zorro movies which were great and totally in the tone GL should be. But his script was weak and his CGI bad.

Still, i liked the suits, and i loved Sinestro. And since i mentioned him, wtf was that ending with the yellow ring? Why would he put it in? It made no sense, especially when a noob lantern vanquishes Parallax all alone and the Guardians told us that the yellow energy destroyed even one of their own. I guess Johns couldnt contain his fanboism.

[Deadmanshand]

Hopefully Man of Steel will do a lot better than Green Lantern does and hopefully that will open up the doors to other properties from the DC Universe. I thought Green Lantern would have done that and I had high hopes for the movie, but critics were really hard on it. I won't say it was a bad movie at all, but there were a lot of missed opportunities in it. The Flash has the potential to be a visually stunning movie and with the right director, script and star it could be amazing. The same goes for most all of DC's character, but we can only hope DCE will do the right thing with these characters. I am done rambling now

[MajorHoy]

Aside from the potential to make a lot of money, appeal to non-fans should be a non-issue. Should Monday Night Football change its format to appeal more to non-football fans? Should Harlequin romance novels include more action and violence in hopes of attracting some male readers?

The first part of your response says it all: "Aside from the potential to make a lot of money".

DC is only going to do this stuff if it makes decent dollars, and they don't want to limit the audience to just a portion of their comic book readers. (I think it's safe to say not all readers also want to invest in buying animated movies.) How much does it cost to make those suckers, any way? Then how much more would it cost to get publicity and theater commitments if they want more than just DVD sales, which I thought were also a dying market in these days of internet streaming and all?

[Mat001]

Superhero movies need to be live action to get the respect of the general, non-comic book reading audience.

They may be more likely to dismiss animated movies as just "cartoons for kids".

Right. Most animated films that aren't produced by Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and sometimes Fox, tend to be ignored by the public. There have only been a few exceptions where there's been a film outside of those studios that have done that level of box office. A larger percentage of people will go see a live action film with comic book superheroes than an animated film. "The Incredibles" did well because it was a commentary on the genre and was produced by Pixar.

Aside from the potential to make a lot of money, appeal to non-fans should be a non-issue. Should Monday Night Football change its format to appeal more to non-football fans? Should Harlequin romance novels include more action and violence in hopes of attracting some male readers?

The first part of your response says it all: "Aside from the potential to make a lot of money".

DC is only going to do this stuff if it makes decent dollars, and they don't want to limit the audience to just a portion of their comic book readers. (I think it's safe to say not all readers also want to invest in buying animated movies.) How much does it cost to make those suckers, any way? Then how much more would it cost to get publicity and theater commitments if they want more than just DVD sales, which I thought were also a dying market in these days of internet streaming and all?

Wizard magazine had an article about "Batman & Robin" back in 1997, before the film came out talking about this very subject. It was pointed out that a studio will appeal to a larger audience than the fanbase, because they can sell twice as many tickets to John Q. Public over the guy who has been a fan for most of his life. The studios thought that they could appeal to the fan community by showcasing a lot of their projects at SDCC and found that based on sales and ratings, it was a waste of their time and energy. That despite a strong, positive reaction when trailers are shown there, the larger picture is often much more disappointing. That's why they scaled back last year, for the first time in years.

[Badger1701]

It is upsetting too, because movies are the most important medium in transmitting a franchise to the public. Marvel has never produced a good animated movie, and their television series, especially the early early 90's stuff are horrible! That recent Spider-man series was the best tv show made with Marvel properties and it was produced by Sony!

I have to disagree with you on your assertion that Marvel has never produced a good animated movie. They produced some good stuff with Lionsgate, particularly their Iron Man and Doctor Strange animated films. However, I do agree that their animated television series of the last couple decades have been nothing to write home about. I thought the animation and storytelling on the FOX X-Men series of the nineties was pretty bad, despite my wife's love for it.

[Kiryu]

They just have made some very myopic choices in regards to creators for their films. The writers of the GL movie should never have been able to get off the ground with a resume whose highlight was "Everwood".

Truest thing said about GL.

I don't know if DC has a chance against Marvel! Zach Synder is not imo an inspired choice for directing Superman and Nolan's Batman doesn't play well with others, so they can't ever make a franchise of franchises like Avengers until he's done. I mean, it'd be amazing to get a JLA trailer that looks as amazing as The Avengers trailer, but I don't know that the people in charge of WB are capable of choosing really talented folk to do their films.

[MajorHoy]

. . . I do agree that their animated television series of the last couple decades have been nothing to write home about. I thought the animation and storytelling on the FOX X-Men series of the nineties was pretty bad, despite my wife's love for it.

But wasn't that animation a major step up from some of the earlier stuff in the 1960's?
And wasn't the series itself (story-quality wise) a major improvement over the 1970's Fantastic Four cartoon (wasn't that Filmation for that?) which had H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot instead of the Human Torch?

(Granted, it wasn't as good as Batman: The Animated Series.)

[Zeeguy91]

I love Marvel for how they're going about it. On the one hand Avengers has "awesome" written all over it with great action, Hulk catching Ironman, Ironman getting out of his armor as he is walking on his skyscraper loft, etc. But at the same time i can see that its not shallow and stupid. They're working on the characters, their personal stuff, the relationships between them, etc. And all this comes as a culmination of everywthing we've got so far.

I love what Nolan is doing for Batman and i dont want to start a Marvel vs DC war, but i cant help but feel sort of jealous that my favourite DC heroes arent getting the marvel treatment. Are their movies deep like TDK? No, but they're solid and safe and very entertaining, without big screwups. They embrace the comicbookiness of their franchises and bring them to life. They stick to the tone, the characters, the whole look of their world and dont mess around with it. "What if Batman was realistic", "what if Superman was Ed Scissorhands" (damn it Burton), "what if GL was Jack Black", etc. They dont hand out their franchises to random directors to do their thing, they take care of them and oversee their development. DCE did that with GL and it was faithful to the atmosphere, look and feel of the GL books but they missed the part where the script and CGI were bad.

And so all of Marvel's movies converge in the Avengers. A movie universe! No "batman is all serious and realistic you guys, he's alone in the universe, leave him alone" shenanigans. Sometimes i just curse Nolan for his seriousness, pseudorealism and his "no other superheroes" rules. His batsuits are also atrocious.

A Marvel movie fan can jump right into their comics and feel at home, but just walk up to any Nolan fan and utter the words "Robin", "JL", or "other superheroes" and he's gonna roll his eyes.

I hope DCE gives us something similar to Marvel's movies.

I think you just hit the nail on the head honestly. You are so right!!! Green Lantern was ok. Actually when I watched it the second time, I liked it leaps and bounds better than I did before, but it was still a little cartoony. However, they did screw up in a big way by making the internal conflict of the hero way too generic: "oh, I doubt myself." That doesn't sound like Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan is all about taking charge and not taking orders. If anything, the conflict should have been him coming into conflict with the Guardians. Also, they should have narrowed down the villains to just 1. I mean, Hammond and Parallax (who was actually a mash-up of Krona and Parallax) was too much for the storytellers to handle. They should've just had Hammond as the villain or maybe even Atrocitus.

Anyway, I hope DCE can make their franchises into successful movies that depict not only the major characters but lesser known ones as well. I say that we should get Flash, Wonder Woman, and Animal Man movies!!!

[Patroklos]

Marvel has really put their character library out there while DC seems slow to do so.

We should have had films like The Flash ,Wonder Woman ,Aquaman ,and Justice League out long before now.

Come on DC if Marvel has a film out then you should have a film out.

Ever heard of "quality over quantity"?

[Flashpoint]

I liked it, but I understand it was not well received. The movie primarily suffered from poor, poor editing if you ask me.

This is the number #1 problem and it cannot be stressed enough. It's fairly well-known that once director Martin Campbell delivered his cut of GL, WB execs didn't care for it and insisted it be recut. That right there, IMHO, is where everything went horribly wrong. A corporate executive-driven recut doomed GL; the cuts they insisted on delivered a film that looked butchered in the final edit.

I'd give anything just to see the original director's cut of GL. I've no doubt the director's cut was better. Christopher Nolan has proven repeatedly that what WB needs is to hire top notch A list talent and then let them drive the moviemaking process. If Jeff Robinov wants to match or exceed Alan Horn's well-regarded and highly profitable stewardship of WB, he has got to let his creative talent drive the process. Robinov and his team should embrace the incredible talent available to them and to trust them. The edit of GL they did was visibly jarring onscreen by its stop/start quality which marred the flow of the story.

They have the talent. They just need to trust them a little bit more. I hope and pray they will be a little more hands-off with Man Of Steel given that production is being supervised by Christopher Nolan. I am optimistic that the hacking given to GL taught them to be more trusting with their talent and will lead to less heavyhanded oversight in the future (even if it means slightly lower budgets).

[ArsenalX]

DC Comics > Marvel Comics
DC Animated TV Shows >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvel TV Shows
DC Animated Movies >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvel Animated Movies
DC Movies < Marvel Movies

and adding on DC live action TV show >>>>>>>> Marvel live action TV show

There is a lot of pride in being a DC fan, DC are already doing enough, seizing the big screen would be a bonus and an Icing on the cake

[Mat001]

This is the number #1 problem and it cannot be stressed enough. It's fairly well-known that once director Martin Campbell delivered his cut of GL, WB execs didn't care for it and insisted it be recut. That right there, IMHO, is where everything went horribly wrong. A corporate executive-driven recut doomed GL; the cuts they insisted on delivered a film that looked butchered in the final edit.

I'd give anything just to see the original director's cut of GL. I've no doubt the director's cut was better. Christopher Nolan has proven repeatedly that what WB needs is to hire top notch A list talent and then let them drive the moviemaking process. If Jeff Robinov wants to match or exceed Alan Horn's well-regarded and highly profitable stewardship of WB, he has got to let his creative talent drive the process. Robinov and his team should embrace the incredible talent available to them and to trust them. The edit of GL they did was visibly jarring onscreen by its stop/start quality which marred the flow of the story.

They have the talent. They just need to trust them a little bit more. I hope and pray they will be a little more hands-off with Man Of Steel given that production is being supervised by Christopher Nolan. I am optimistic that the hacking given to GL taught them to be more trusting with their talent and will lead to less heavyhanded oversight in the future (even if it means slightly lower budgets).

It also didn't help that the number of visual effects was such that they had to outsource to other companies, in order to meet the deadline which ballooned the budget even further and thus making it even more difficult to get ahead.