DC/Marvel: so far

[phillyboy]

I was looking at a site with the rundown of DC & Marvels B.O. history & it got me thinking. Post Batman & Robin (which seemed to be the turning point of comic book flics), even though Marvel has churned out as many movies as they can (since x-men/spiderman), they're still making more regardless of the quality. I.M.O DC/WB makes better movies (with the exception of Catwoman): Batman Begins, V, Superman Returns (though some people question the direction, its still a quality film), and even Constantine (may not be the most comic acurate, still looks great).

Marvel on the other hand has been plagued with dodgy cgi & cramming too much into an hour&a half, eg Daredevil, FF, Blade3 (with the exception of spiderman/ xmen) . FF even made more than Batman Begins opening weekend & nearly outgrossed the worldwide total.

So my question is: Does the viewing public prefer a popcorn flic over a decent film? It seems going that extra yard to make a better quality film isnt paying off. Or are DC films not family orientated enough? Do we want them to be?

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/DCComics.php
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/MarvelComics.php

 

[HighVoltage]

Flame War.

 

[HighVoltage]

FF even made more than Batman Begins opening weekend & nearly outgrossed the worldwide total.
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/MarvelComics.php

I love this truth.

 

[Chaos Bringer]

I cannot handle the truth

 

[Speedball]

Marvel: Let's the Studio and writers do whatever they want, so they kill the story most of the time.
DC: Only one Studio, which they practically own, and tells the writers what can fly and what can't.
DC FTW!

 

[The Kid]

I think Marvel has good films

Daredevil DC(this beats Begins to me)
Hellboy
Blade 1
Blade 2
X-men
X-men 2
Hulk
Um... well I'll put Spider-man 2 even though it's not that great to me.

DC has their top ones on my list:

Superman TM
Batman89
Batman Returns
That's prettymuch it I guess.
The sequels to Batman begins and Superman Returns, I'll leave a placeholder for with this sentence.

The rest fall around average, lost potential, to poor.

Popcorn flick vs Decent film... well I've seen a few decent popcorn flicks that are decent films. Why not both?

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I was looking at a site with the rundown of DC & Marvels B.O. history & it got me thinking. Post Batman & Robin (which seemed to be the turning point of comic book flics), even though Marvel has churned out as many movies as they can (since x-men/spiderman), they're still making more regardless of the quality. I.M.O DC/WB makes better movies (with the exception of Catwoman): Batman Begins, V, Superman Returns (though some people question the direction, its still a quality film), and even Constantine (may not be the most comic acurate, still looks great).

Marvel on the other hand has been plagued with dodgy cgi & cramming too much into an hour&a half, eg Daredevil, FF, Blade3 (with the exception of spiderman/ xmen) . FF even made more than Batman Begins opening weekend & nearly outgrossed the worldwide total.

So my question is: Does the viewing public prefer a popcorn flic over a decent film? It seems going that extra yard to make a better quality film isnt paying off. Or are DC films not family orientated enough? Do we want them to be?

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/DCComics.php
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/MarvelComics.php

This Marvel V DC stuff is pretty dumb to me...but I'll say that I don't like most of Warner Brothers comicbook movies. The only really good Batman (and DC movie for that matter) movie to me is Batman Begins and even that movie wasn't good enough for that wonderful character. The Superman movies (I haven't seen SR and Superman 4, so I'm excluding them) just aren't very good movies at all and I doubt that they were that special 20 plus years ago. I liked Constantine (it's not the greatest movie but I like it) but VFV is overrated and Catwoman Batman 2 3 and 4 aren't good movies-at all-and lets not forget about Steel.

On the other hand I can name atleast four movies based on Marvel comicbooks that I love.

I loved Blade 1&2 and Spider-Man 1&2. I liked X2 and thought that Fantasic Four X3 and X1 were entertaining movies, hell I don't even dislike Elektra. On the other hand DareDevil, The Punisher, Hulk and I'm probably forgetting something else (for lack of a better word) sucked.

Truth is, I don't think that DC's movies are any smarter than Marvels, maybe more pretentious (okay Marvel does have Hulk) but not smarter.

I like what I like, the Marvel vs. DC thing isn't anything to me...except when I have to tell you that has Marvel had better movies made of their comicbook characters than DC.

This is all ofcourse I SEE SPIDEY'S opinion.

 

[Fused]

I pretty much agree. It's not like there's a DC movie making machine VS a Marvel movie making machine. . . Like a previous poster said this *is* a flame war starter thread. A comic book movie's quality is no different than any other movie genre. To say DC vs Marvel is completely unfair and frankly naive and presumptuous. Hell to even say WB vs Marvel Ent. is unfair. The quality of a comic book movie is completely measured by its creative team. Bryan Singer made X-Men, X2 and Superman. Love them or hate them they were made by the same people. The quality of those movies has little to nothing to do whether or not they were Marvel or DC. If Christopher Nolan made a rockass Avengers movie no one could say it sucked simply because it was Marvel. . .There's no use in arguing.

 

[phillyboy]

I didnt start this thread to fuel another flame war, which is why I didnt use the term 'vs' in the title. I'm not saying I dont like marvel movies, I own them all on dvd (except for Blade3 & Elektra). But when it comes to comic movies I have a slight biase towards DC, because I only read DC comics. If some Hollywood researcher asked me if I'd rather see a new DC movie or a new Marvel movie, naturally I'd want to see a DC movie.

I guess the point I was trying to make was, IMO, I think WB/DC makes better looking movies (catwoman not included & with the exception of the x-men& spiderman movies) regardless of content. But on the other hand movies like BB & SR have much larger budgets than Marvels smaller movies, though these 'smaller' movies seem to outgross 'bigger' movies like BB & SR.

So I dont really know if this about DC vs Marvel. I dont think it is.

 

[Chris Wallace]

DC: Only one Studio, which they practically own, and tells the writers what can fly and what can't.

Do you really believe that's true? WB owns DC, not the other way around. DC has absolutely NO SAY in anything Warner does. Do you really think it's otherwise? Do you think they would have allowed something like CINO to happen? Do you think the rumored Green Lantern comedy is approved by ANYBODY at DC? Get real!
Marvel, on the other hand, shops their properties around & has hands-on involvement in their film projects. And they have more hits than misses, both in terms of quality and sales.

 

[Chris Wallace]

Flame War.

Not yet. But it's coming.

 

[Chris Wallace]

I cannot handle the truth

In that case, the much-maligned X3 outgrossed the highly anticipated "Superman Returns".

 

[Chris Wallace]

Now I'm gonna get outta here before the flaming begins.

 

[Speedball]

Do you really believe that's true? WB owns DC, not the other way around. DC has absolutely NO SAY in anything Warner does. Do you really think it's otherwise? Do you think they would have allowed something like CINO to happen? Do you think the rumored Green Lantern comedy is approved by ANYBODY at DC? Get real!
Marvel, on the other hand, shops their properties around & has hands-on involvement in their film projects. And they have more hits than misses, both in terms of quality and sales.

Marvels films are crap.
I rarely see any quality from marvel, except for the first two x-men films(which are very unfaithful), and the Spider-man films(only real unfaithful part is Doc Ock dying). The rest are really poorly made.

 

[Elisha Cuthbert]

So my question is: Does the viewing public prefer a popcorn flic over a decent film?

yes.

 

[redlion2]

I was looking at a site with the rundown of DC & Marvels B.O. history & it got me thinking. Post Batman & Robin (which seemed to be the turning point of comic book flics), even though Marvel has churned out as many movies as they can (since x-men/spiderman), they're still making more regardless of the quality. I.M.O DC/WB makes better movies (with the exception of Catwoman): Batman Begins, V, Superman Returns (though some people question the direction, its still a quality film), and even Constantine (may not be the most comic acurate, still looks great).

I disagree with this......

Marvel on the other hand has been plagued with dodgy cgi & cramming too much into an hour&a half, eg Daredevil, FF, Blade3 (with the exception of spiderman/ xmen) . FF even made more than Batman Begins opening weekend & nearly outgrossed the worldwide total.

And this.......

So my question is: Does the viewing public prefer a popcorn flic over a decent film? It seems going that extra yard to make a better quality film isnt paying off. Or are DC films not family orientated enough? Do we want them to be?

You're kidding right?

 

[redlion2]

Marvels films are crap.
I rarely see any quality from marvel, except for the first two x-men films(which are very unfaithful), and the Spider-man films(only real unfaithful part is Doc Ock dying). The rest are really poorly made.

That's why I'm soooo glad that quality is a matter of taste and purely subjective. Isn't it truly beautiful to live in a relative free society?

 

[The BatDude]

Marvel IMO is taking more risks then DC. DC is just sticking to the heavy hitters well except V for Vendetta. I loved the Punisher, the Spidey movies, the first two Blade movies, all three X-Men movies, and I think they had a pretty good cast in the Hulk but the rest sucked. As for DC I loved V for Vendetta and course Batman Begins. Superman Returns was alright and Constantine had a few good twists to the character but over all it a kinda good movie.

The only real winners are the fans.

 

[redlion2]

Marvel IMO is taking more risks then DC. DC is just sticking to the heavy hitters well except V for Vendetta. I loved the Punisher, the Spidey movies, the first two Blade movies, all three X-Men movies, and I think they had a pretty good cast in the Hulk but the rest sucked. As for DC I loved V for Vendetta and course Batman Begins. Superman Returns was alright and Constantine had a few good twists to the character but over all it a kinda good movie.

The only real winners are the fans.

Now this is a wise fan

 

[Steelsheen]

So my question is: Does the viewing public prefer a popcorn flic over a decent film?

yes.

It seems going that extra yard to make a better quality film isnt paying off.

yes again.

Or are DC films not family orientated enough? Do we want them to be?

depends on the "family". present day families arent the same as they were decades past. the current DC films may actually suit the family of 30 years ago compared to Marvel films. besides, its not a secret that Marvel stories tend to be a bit more pedestrian than DC stories. Marvel stories are all about seeing ourselves in their heroes just as we are versus the DC stories where we strive to be like the heroes we look up to.

 

[matrix_ghost]

The thing with Marvel is that they have sold numerous rights of their properties to different studios whereas warner has most if the rights of the DC/Vertigo books or at least is trying to buy the rights to the DC books.

Which is why ( not counting the superman and batman movies) Marvel has made more comic based movies lately then WB.
Therin lies also the problem cause studios tend to mess with the movie once they get their hands on. Sure Marvel has control over alot of their previous properties , but this is only since recently.

Hulk IMO was done wrong. A literal way of shooting a comic movie .
X-men trilogy as well as Daredevil suffered from FOX. Could've been great movies , but were okay.
Spiderman has been done right , but mostly due to the fact that the studio was willing to spent the $$$ on the movie. X-Men should've gotten the same treatment and instead got a 75 million budget.
Blade 1 and 2 were also done right . NOt blade 3 , tough the vampire design did look great.


Because WB has control over their DC/Vertigo movies , they know that releasing more then one movie of their franchises can lead to both movies cancelling each other out at the BO.
THis is a problem of Marvel because the rights are at multiple studios. The only way to insure safety is by releasing the movies so far apart that they don't affect each other's BO.
Look at 2007. We have Ghost Rider opening in february or march ( dunno the exact date) and Spidey opening in May.

Anyways overall i think DC has done better , with only SR underperforming.

Answering you're question. A quality movie goes above all , but that doesn't mean that it shoudln't be entertaining. I think that because the comic reading audience is growing each other , people do expect certain things about movies. I haven't read any FF comic but i doubt their stories run as deep as say Batman . FF is fun and that's what the movie gave , fun.
Batman was more faithful and dark . The dark material resulted in a lower BO , but it's faithfulness resulted in the movie showing legs.

 

[KaptainKrypton]

Tough question. I'd have to lean towards Marvel when it comes to box office clout. They've stomped DC since 2000 starting with X-men. They've also had a few disappointments financially, but nothing as bad as Catwoman *shudders*. I don't believe I've seen what I consider to be a perfect superhero movie yet. There is usually a flaw or two (or ten) in each film, but I have to disregard that if I'm going to enjoy the viewing. DC's only problem is that they've yet to really expose the general public to the deep wealth of characters they have at their disposal. Currently, they're developing things for a few of their other top-tier characters (Flash, WW), but tons of books could be adapted into some cool movies, I think. As far as sheer success, Marvel is winning hands down, but Warner finally realized that the formula doesn't necessarily need to be re-written to the core to make something cool. Most of their decisions in the 90's were fear-based and the new management realizes they need to work at building solid franchises instead of packaging crap like Batman and Robin. Marvel really needs to bring some of their properties back home. X-Men being the primary one (because Fox blows).

These are a few flicks I'd like to see DC make that could help to establish the depth of their universe:

JSA
The Question
Shazam!
Legion of Super Heroes
Green Lantern (with Jack Black nowhere near)

 

[Speedball]

^ LOS would be a dream come true. Just no Superboy or Supergirl.
Based on the modern comics (before Supergirl).

 

[Qoèlet]

That's why I'm soooo glad that quality is a matter of taste and purely subjective. Isn't it truly beautiful to live in a relative free society?

Quality isn't a matter of taste. Whether or not you like the film, regardless of its quality, is a matter of taste. Quality is, in fact objective. I don't give a damn how free you think society is, this point doesn't change.

 

[griffolyon12]

I don't think ones better than the other.They both have movies I love.Marvel has Spidey 1 & 2,X-Men 1 & 2,and the Fantastic Four(yes I like this movie).And DC has Superman 1 & 2,Superman Returns,Batman Begins,Batman '89,and Batman Forever(I like this movie too).There are still many other Marvel or DC movies that I like that I didn't mention.They both have their quality films it just depends on your personal preference.