Superhero/Comic Based Films & Tv - Vol.2

[Gendo'sPapa]

You SAY the DC Brand has never been in such dire straights but last I checked Patty Jenkins WONDER WOMAN was the biggest movie of last summer and was a cultural phenomenon.

I’d say they’re doing pretty well. A little course correction from the overly serious and misguided Zack Snyder vision and they’ll be fine again. Four years and three to four films from now and everyone will be singing a different story.

But, maybe it’s just time the DC Universe in mainstream pop culture was allowed to exist beyond the titans of Batman & Superman. WB won’t let it happen but I would be perfectly happy if both those characters went on hiatus for a decade and the DC Universe was movies where the other characters to shine.

Studios are not leaving the superhero game - the movies are so simplistic they play on a global level - so there’s no need for hypebolics. Nothing is in “danger”. They just need to course correct. They’re already on that path with Wonder Woman & will likely continue.

[Chuckman]

Can we just hiatus Batman? I think I made a list earlier in this thread showing Batman has had 3 different actor/universe reboots with seven independent films and ten appearances counting Suicide Squad, BvS, and JL, and Superman has had a kinda-sequel to 40 year old movies and one standalone film that's pretty hostile to the idea of the character.

I just want a good, fundamental Superman story that captures the essence of the character without trying to make some asinine point, or that is crafted to appeal to Batman fans. Not a message piece/exercise in 'realism' like the Nolan movies or whatever, just a movie that presents the character in a distilled form capturing the best of 70+ years of storytelling in one place in an accessible, entertaining way.

Especially one placing the emphasis on Superman as the immigrant, the outsider, the man of the people, and the potential of humanity vs. Superman as an alien god.

[Chuckman]

I wish someone would make a Superman movie that could cut through your pessimism. That's pretty much the benchmark for a good Superman movie.

I mean, it's a little tautological, but saying Superman couldn't really exist in a post-9/11 world is just wrong. Superman can do anything.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I think (deleted) needs to rewatch the Schumacher Batman movies. On a loop. Until the next DC movie comes out.

No post Nolan DC movie has ever lost money. They just didn’t make as much as they wanted.

And yes, you can make a Superman movie on the cheap. They did it around 40 years ago (cheaper than they do nowadays, even after adjusting for inflation), which, as you said yourself, was one of the best DC movies ever made.

Think about it, Chris Reeves never needed to be successful in China in order to profit in 1978. That objective fact alone unarguabley refutes your entire pessimistic premise. We can make movies for less money that cater to a domestic audience and still make a Superman movie. (I mean, do we really need to spend the extra money on a set of Uncanny Valley CGI lips and a virtual, plastic-looking cape that looks stupid as it flaps against a windless backdrop? I don’t think so.) To insist otherwise is to gouge out your eyes so you don’t have to see the great truths that we accomplished in American entertainment history. And nobody wants to watch a movie with gouged-out eyes. How would they be able to see the movie for what it truly is?

[Chuckman]

He doesn’t have to.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Also, if Reeves superman movie were released TODAY. I doubt it would be any better received. The two good ones are good for their time, but haven't aged well. People expect more from their Superhero movies than they did in the 70's.

You’re still lookin at it from the perspective of wealthy studios’ arbitrary and creatively destructive desires to make all of the money in one over-budgeted and excessively pressured film, as opposed to simply making a modest profit spread across a vast output of media. If you want DC’s problems to loop forever, then so be it. But Superhero movies don’t need to be funded by the amount of wealth of small countries in order to be good or successful. Nor does the film industry need to devolve into an intellectually decaying dick-measuring contest over budget amounts and literal attempts at world domination in media.

I know if the market doesn’t shift towards more modest productions soon, then in another 3 years you’re gonna look back on this discussion with a “Woulda, coulda, shoulda” attitude. Or it can change for the better right now so we don’t have to say these things 3 years later.

[Chuckman]

Sony released a trailer for their upcoming non-Disney Marvel film, Sentient Fanged Attack Pudding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzxFdtWmjto

[Chuckman]

Hardy is a good actor, looks good as Eddie, this movie clearly has a serious tone and isn't Spider-Man 3, and the teaser doesn't show much about Venom or what the story actually is except some hinting that it deals with the duality of man and crap like that, which makes a lot of sense for a movie about alien and/or genetically engineered goo that makes you into a monster version of yourself.

Sony probably isn't brave enough to make a dark comedy about a slavering, fanged monstrosity trying really hard to be a superhero, but we have nothing to go on at this point so I don't see why there's any reason to assume this is going to suck.

[Chuckman]

I'm not going to gin myself up to hate a movie I haven't seen.

Unless Tarantino makes it. Schwing.

[Chuckman]

The only problem I see is that the Rock can't play Lobo if he's already playing someone else.

[Chuckman]

His likability is why he'd be perfect for it. Lobo needs to be a frat boy that you kind of like until you realize he casually commits genocide. Isn't he basically a parody of 90's badass comics?

[Gob Hobblin]

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock?

...my body is ready.

[Chuckman]

As it happens my body is also ready for Tom Hardy. purr.

[Gob Hobblin]

Back off, you hussy, I saw him first!

[El Squibbonator]

(EDITED)

I wouldn't go that far. What I do see happening is studios becoming more reluctant to green light movies not based on established franchises or made by famous directors. You could argue that the so-called Blockbuster Era of Hollywood began in 1975 with Jaws and ended in 2009 with Avatar; today we live in what I call the Franchise Era. Big theatrical releases aren't going to disappear, but they're going to become more homogenized and less varied as studios focus on their most lucrative franchises at the expense of pretty much everything else.
We already see signs of it today. Every major film studio wants to create some sort of "cinematic universe" like the one Marvel has out of the series they own the rights to, with varying results. The result of this approach is movies that (ideally) make a lot of money, but at the same time feel mass-produced rather than created as works of art in their own right. But because these movies are so popular, they prevent original movies from finding much success. And at the same time, small independent movies have turned out to be very profitable when released to streaming platforms.
In other words, soon the only movies still getting theatrical releases will be the ones that belong to big franchises. And that's why WB isn't giving up on the DCEU, even though you'd think they would. To remain viable as a movie studio in the age of streaming movies and mega-franchises, they need a mega-franchise of their own. And that means continuing on with the DCEU.

[Ray]

Even if it means facing Divisive Retcons and Diminishing returns like the Fox X-Men movies did before the Disney Buy out?

[El Squibbonator]

Potentially. They have a "better to go down fighting than admit defeat" mentality, I'll give them that.

[Chuckman]

If you're looking for an ongoing series without retcons, stay away from the X-Men, home of Portals to the Punch Dimension and guy a who is pretending to be Magneto pretending to be himself.

Frankly I think the X-Men are a model for how to handle continuity. The bad X movies didn't stop them from making First Class and Logan. No one said, "We can't make those good movies because of a thing that happened in those bad movies", they treated each one as an independent entity which has some things in common with the others.

Marvel is taking a somewhat riskier approach. They have to roll the hard six and either recast important roles as the actors quit/age out but keep the continuity the same, soap opera style, or see if they can age out those characters and shift the focus to others in their stable. If they're smart that's what they'll do.

[Ray]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... qvaJyRFaqA

Darkseid was originally going to be in JL before WB snipped him out of the movie with reshoots.

WB just isn't the best place for these characters to be. But thanks to corporations sitting on every IP in the odd event it can make money. They are never going to be sent to a studio that can do them Justice.

And the thing is I like Warner Brothers as a sstudio. A producer of my favorite movies of all time. But with the mess ups. They're never going to be able to get the DC characters right ever again even if they do reboot because the entire way WB setup is counterintuitive to that sort of multi connected cinematic experience.

[El Squibbonator]

Marvel is taking a somewhat riskier approach. They have to roll the hard six and either recast important roles as the actors quit/age out but keep the continuity the same, soap opera style, or see if they can age out those characters and shift the focus to others in their stable. If they're smart that's what they'll do.

But Marvel is, to continue your metaphor, using loaded dice. No other company has Marvel's extra advantages, so their attempts at making a cinematic universe don't work as well.