Sun_Down
Groovy
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You don't have to go far on the Hype to find opinions like these. Many people feel the solo films should come first and that WB is making a mistake by doing Justice League first. These are valid opinions and I'm not here to attack anyone. But here's why I feel that won't work, or is atleast unneccessary.
The main argument for doing JLA last is that it would...
A) Help introduce the characters to the audience
B) Be a big payoff
These reasons may sound nice on paper, but they really don't make any sense. First off, coordinating 3,4,5 even 7 solo franchises, to be released in an appropriate order to lead into JLA would be damn near impossible. One actor or director drops out and everyone's screwed. And this all assumes that each franchise is successful. It's much more feasible to have the ensemble film, and then see which solo franchises will work and which won't.
Think of it like this (and this is a hypothetical, now) : you have, say, an Aquaman solo franchise that is unsuccessful after one film. And let's say this film comes out in 2009. By the time JLA comes out in 2015-2018, no one's gonna remember Aquaman from the failed film in 2009. So the whole character origins argument kinda goes out the window. Plus, I don't have to tell you how short the average moviegoers attention span is. Most people have a hard time remembering what happened in the last Saw or Pirates movie, even though those films came/come out yearly. Unless they film some massive, 8 picture thing and release them in very quick succession, it would really be hard to keep all the characters straight and remember anything meaningful about all of them. And finally, this whole establish-the-origins-in-solo-series theory assumes that everyone who sees JLA will have seen all those solo films.
And I know that people can follow movie series and I am really not trying to say that people have some sort of retrograde amnesia for movies, but my point is just that these origins and character nuances really aren't that important to the general audience. Most people going to see JLA aren't gonna be like "Wait, how did the Flash get his powers? I can't concentrate on this movie until they explain that". For the general audience, just saying "he's the fastest man alive" or a quick reference to some "accident" is plenty. The spin-offs can handle the origins if they choose.
As for this idea of JLA being this big payoff at the end. Like I said, unless this is all done on an extremely short time table (I'm talking 3 years or less here), the impact of the "payoff" would be lost. Putting all these characters together too long after the solo franchises would just feel like a desperate money-making grab, regardless of whether or not it had been in the works for years. And more importantly, unless all or most of the actors stay on, the impact would be lessened even more. Great, you had 1-3 good films with actor A, but if he doesn't play that character in JLA, then the whole thing was pointless. There is no payoff. You face the same challenged faced now between Nolan's movies and JLA.
Finally, here's a fact that people seem to be forgetting : most people already know who most, if not all, of these characters are. They've been a part of pop-culture for decades. Just seeing this characters on screen or in a trailer should jog people's memories enough. And even if someone has never heard of a certain character, who cares? The vast, vast majority of movie characters are entirely new to the audience. No one knew who Luke Skywalker was, no one knew who Hannibal was, and so on and so on. This sounds obvious, but some people seem to forget this just because we're dealing with comic book characters.
Now let me end by saying this : I'm not saying that I necessarily love the direction JLA is going right now. I'm not a "studio apologist" or anything like that. JLA may be a steaming pile of crap. But it won't be because they didn't make solo films first. Again, this are only my thoughts. But if you really think about this situation logically, I think you'll find I'm correct.
Thank you and goodnight.
