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Warner Brothers Announces 10 New DC Comics Movies
wired_parrot writes After being criticized for being slow to respond to Marvel's string of blockbuster superhero movies, Warner Brothers finally announced their plan for DC comic universe movie franchise. Yesterday at their annual shareholder meeting, WB announced 10 DC comics movies. The studio has unveiled an ambitious schedule that features two Justice League films, plus standalone titles for Wonder Woman, Flash, Shazam (Captain Marvel), Green Lantern, Cyborg and even Aquaman. Also announced were plans for 3 Lego movies and a three-part Harry Potter spinoff.
Everything these days is reboots, reboots of reboots, sequels, prequels, sequels to prequels, prequels to sequels, comic book adaptations, games adaptations, movies made from tv series, remakes, remakes of remakes, japanese remakes.
Seems like they're not even trying anymore.
Frankly...beyond Superman and Batman, DC doesn't have much—at least that anyone has heard of and/or cares about. Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern do at least have some following, but they haven't aged well and I'm not sure they can translate to film nearly as well as, say, Iron Man.
IMHO, they'd be better off finding some more offbeat superheroes from their back catalog (a la Guardians of the Galaxy) or biting the bullet and inventing some new ones.
Still, Marvel has done an amazing job of refurbishing characters like Captain America and Thor, so maybe DC can do the same.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I am no expert, but I believe it's because they are easy.
They are easy to pitch. You just use the comic book to explain the concept.
They are easy to script. Logic and reason fly out the window. You don't want mutants to be exterminated ? Declare war on the U.S. in their name.
The action scenes and big explosions are built in. Just take it straight from the storyboard aka comic book.
They have a built in market. Pre sold to the comic fans.
The people that go to them don't expect much and hence are rarely disappointed
The people that go to them don't expect much and hence are rarely disappointed
That about sums it up!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I am no expert, but I believe it's because they are easy.
I would add that they are also able to mine decades of stories for the ones that have proven themselves over time and have a following. Comics as a business compared to the film industry is almost not worth mentioning, but for what it is worth, they can essentially run scripts (complete with storyboards) past the public monthly to see what resonates with them and which ones turn out to be good, and even have them pay for themselves. Most of the movies that have been made have been the classic story lines that were getting printed into graphic novels and have highly sought after issues by collectors for years. Marvel even has a large collection of test marketing with updating such stories to a modern setting and sensibilities with the Ultimate series. It's no surprise that the movies are a combination of the regular Marvel stories and the Ultimate stories as they've already seen what people like and don't like with updating such. Comics seem to be an excellent marketing test field for movies and I'm actually sort of surprised they didn't end up experimenting with it way before now (probably because comic code kept them from really being useful to the movie industry).
DC does a lot better with TV than film. Consider
- Smallville was a huge success, very long run
- Arrow has been renewed twice, has a good audience and is doing very well
- The Flash looks like it has legs
- Gotham is getting rave reviews and looks like it has legs as well
Now let's look at their last couple of films:
- Man of Steel - OK this wasn't that bad
- Green Lantern - horrible
- Watchmen - Good movie but flopped
- Jonah Hex - Did anyone even know this movie came out?
- Superman Returns - horrible
The only saving grace has been the Nolan Batman films.