Individual films... What about villains?

[SuperFerret]

Originally Posted by DoomsdayApex

Hey now, we're psych cases, not doltish entities.

A little of column A and a little of column B.

Originally Posted by metaphysician

Anyway, I will try to sum up the only point I've been trying to make, again: Yes, Wonder Woman can be done. No, its not going to be easy. Ignoring challenges like lack of a truly iconic rogues gallery means that you are more likely to fail, than acknowledging such challenges and accepting that you are going to have to work harder to overcome them.

You know what, you're right. You're absolutely right. I mean, a Wonder Woman movie is definitely going to have an uphill battle with her less than iconic rogue's gallery. Unlike Batman, she doesn't have universally known and beloved villains like Ra's Al Ghul, Scarecrow, Falcone and Bane.

Now, if only the Wonder Woman franchise had a comic book icon in it, it just might work. And not just any icon, one that's known to almost everyone, not just comic fans. Someone who would probably be in the top three superheroes in the DC universe, if you were to rank them by iconic status. It's a damned shame that the Wonder Woman movie won't have that, because that would really give it the kind of name recognition that it so desperately needs to draw in the general audience.

[Cain]

[DoomsdayApex]

Originally Posted by SuperFerret

A little of column A and a little of column B.

Nah, my straight jacket (who I've decided to name Felicity -- after the WB show from a decade ago) is telling me you're inaccurate.

We're just Bats**t Crazy.

[Oberon sexton]

Wait....wait. Wait, this thread is about putting Batman villains in other DC superhero films?

The world really is at an end isn't it ?

[The Morningstar]

I thought it was just about villains having their own solo films?

[The Guard]

You know what, you're right. You're absolutely right. I mean, a Wonder Woman movie is definitely going to have an uphill battle with her less than iconic rogue's gallery. Unlike Batman, she doesn't have universally known and beloved villains like Ra's Al Ghul, Scarecrow, Falcone and Bane.

I'm fairly certain most audiences didn't know who Magneto was before X-MEN. IRON MAN featured Obadiah Stane, who most people had never heard of. THOR featured Loki, a character from myth, but again, something of an unknown villain. CAPTAIN AMERICA featured The Red Skull, who I'd wager most people have no clue about. First class featured Sebastian Shaw, who again, is something of an unknown to the general public. Ra's Al Ghul was an unknown before BATMAN BEGINS to audiences. Ditto The Scarecerow and Bane to a lesser degree.

What matters is not whether people know the villains before the films, but whether they are well executed and interesting to audiences.

Now, if only the Wonder Woman franchise had a comic book icon in it, it just might work.

Not sure if you're taling about WW herself or the villains, but Ares is a comic book icon. So is Circe. So is Cheetah.

And not just any icon, one that's known to almost everyone, not just comic fans.

Ares is a very well know mythological character.

[DrCosmic]

Originally Posted by The Guard

What matters is not whether people know the villains before the films, but whether they are well executed and interesting to audiences.

I think it's interesting that comics fnas feel this way. As though executing something that's not popular in comics well will be somehow make it popular in the mainstream. The villains have to be interesting to audiences, yes, but I think what meta was getting at is that WW's rogues are inherently un-interesting, and need to be reformatted in order to be broad spectrum appealing.

Originally Posted by SuperFerret

A little of column A and a little of column B.



You know what, you're right. You're absolutely right. I mean, a Wonder Woman movie is definitely going to have an uphill battle with her less than iconic rogue's gallery. Unlike Batman, she doesn't have universally known and beloved villains like Ra's Al Ghul, Scarecrow, Falcone and Bane.

Now, if only the Wonder Woman franchise had a comic book icon in it, it just might work. And not just any icon, one that's known to almost everyone, not just comic fans. Someone who would probably be in the top three superheroes in the DC universe, if you were to rank them by iconic status. It's a damned shame that the Wonder Woman movie won't have that, because that would really give it the kind of name recognition that it so desperately needs to draw in the general audience.

Great sarcasm, but it kinda highlights his point. People keep saying X about comics, thus Y about movie, and ignoring the challenges to that inference. Wonder Woman can be as iconic as she wants, it doesn't mean she won't be just as off putting as she's been in comics, it's just that everyone will know about it.

With the villains, invariably, people who know about Bane, Ra's and Scarecrow (from cartoons or comics) think they're cool villains. The same can't be said for Circe, Cheetah and even DC's Ares. At some point we have to account for how the characters are and how the General Audience receives similar characters instead of this odd conclusion that 'if the audience likes this previously unknown thing, they'll love all previously unknown things.'

[SuperFerret]

The fact is that the name recognition of Wonder Woman, coupled with the way superhero movies have been huge, gives the movie a good chance of success if it doesn't suck. Forcing a Batman villain in there isn't going to put asses in the seats.

[iwtv]

I voted Riddler and Poison Ivy. Why, you ask? Well namely, I'm a Batman fangirl, so the non-Batman villians didn't count. Neither the Riddler nor Ivy got their best interpretations in the films.

Plus, Poison Ivy had a wonderful moment in Batman #80: Gotham Freezes Over, in a story called "The Wilt." This alone shows the seeds (hehe) of a good storyline for her character.
As for Riddler, he's had several interesting storylines already; from Dark Victory/Long Halloween to Hush and his origin story in Batman: TAS, I believe he is worthy for a solid story to himself.

[souvlaki]

Anyone arguing that a superhero movie needs a well known antagonist to succeed really needs to look no further than Iron Man to realize what a bogus argument that is.

[thorstone]

Originally Posted by souvlaki

Anyone arguing that a superhero movie needs a well known antagonist to succeed really needs to look no further than Iron Man to realize what a bogus argument that is.

Imagine if Iron Man or its sequel had featured the Hulk as its villain.

[Llama_Shepherd]

Well that would be terrible. Just awful, worse than his actual sequel.

[The Overlord]

So this the point of this thread to talk about villains who should featured in future movies as antagonists or have movies centered around the villain as protagonists? Because those are two different things.

Frankly I don't think any of the villains mentioned would work as the central characters in a movie, rather then an antagonist. The only DC villains would work as central characters in a film are the Suicide Squad or the Secret Six. Most of the villains mentioned would work as antagonists, but I disagree with the statement that any Flash villain could carry a movie by themselves. I think it would be impossible to have a Flash movie where Captain Boomerang is the sole villain.

[DoomsdayApex]

I'm sorry but if this doesn't get asses in the seat, then well I don't know what will.





Ares is an iconic Greek God. He isn't Ironmonger or Ra's Al Ghul to the general audience.

[Daniel Thompson]

What about a Joker film based off the comic Joker by Brian Azzelo.

[Happy Jack]

I think the issue with doing a lot of villain-centric standalone films is that most villains really require the hero to work. It's always the villains that pose challenges to the hero in these stories, not the other way around. When you remove the hero or significantly minimize his role you reduce the villain's reason for being. Now there are exceptions, depending on the depth and strength of the character. Magneto is one that would work, which is essentially what First Class ended up being, but even then, the story was also very much about the formation of the X-Men with Xavier and the various other characters.