No Shared Universe for DC Films

[Cain]

I forgot to say in my other post but despite the dumb decision making all over "Superman 5" I at least give them credit for hiring someone who DID have passion and a real vision for what they wanted to accomplish with that one. Even if it was the wrong vision especially for a relaunch and I can't fathom how some execs couldn't even see that (to their credit I'm sure some execs did and those guys are probably in "I told you so" mode today if they're still at WB).

With GL they didn't even do that much. Is like they just kept getting sloppier as the years went. But the past is the past and I hope that they do indeed have a general vision of what kind of consistency they want for the entire DC brand on film from here on out with MOS and indeed do hire the filmmakers to make that vision happen. Shared universe or not.

 

[Cain]

No matter when they decide to make a Non batman superhero movie, it is will always going to cost them money, that is why WB have a co finances / co producer with "Legendary Pictures" on TDK and MOS.

I expect then to make a JL movie (or any other superhero property) with other company as a co production. They financed and produced GL alone, a thing that may not happen again.

WB has also tried some of its lesser known Vertigo properties with little success, like Watchmen, Constantine, Losers and RED ( which they licensed out to a different studio)

If they just decide to make low budget lesser known Vertigo movies which get moderate success, they will miss the wave of comic book movies that Marvel is currently exploiting.

RED was successful actually; to the point that it's even got a sequel coming up. It was rumored that WB execs will never pass on a DC branded property again because they feel that passing on that one and giving it to another studio was in the end a dumb financial move. Constantine was also a box office success.

 

[Micromind]

WB should give out rights to some DC brands to other studios, at least the ones that they will not be making in near future.

We already know that WB works at an incredibly slow pace, so passing the movie making rights for some time to other studios and getting some revenue and brand recognition for DC property is a plus, like what Marvel did when they gave rights to X-Men to Fox.

WB could give rights to say, for example - Captain Marvel (Shazam), Dr. Fate, Doom Patrol to some studio and see what happens.

 

[Cain]

WB has no interest in that though. Which is a catch 22 for DC movies since they have priorities outside of DC comics based films. I just hope they make wiser decisions with those properties and truly sit back and really asses the potential and who it will take to hire to get there. As opposed to just attaching anybody to the properties just to get them going.

 

[jmc]

Brace yourselves for a JL film to be green lit if Avengers is as good as being reported.

 

[Micromind]

Brace yourselves for a JL film to be green lit if Avengers is as good as being reported.

They could use Cavil Superman and Reynolds as GL, but there is no use of making a JL-team without Batman, so unless Batman Reboot happens, Justice League cannot take off.


Other characters like Flash and WW could be introduced in the movie itself, and later on if JL proves successful, they could make the origin prequels (for WW and Flash.)

But they have to get the new Superman (MOS) and reboot the Batman to make a Justice League movie.

The proper way would be like (IMO.) -

* Man Of steel (Superman) -2013.

* New Batman (restart/ reboot whatever.) -2014

* Flash -2015 summer
* Wonder Woman -2015 (Nov. - Dev.)

* Justice League -2016.

But I doubt that WB will make such long term grand plans. They always plan only for next two years.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

They should attempt a World's Finest series first.

 

[solidsnake86]

Brace yourselves for a JL film to be green lit if Avengers is as good as being reported.

It would be funny if they green lit the film and got nolan as director. Mostly because I would get a kick out of the reaction on this board.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

They would have to offer him so much money. And odds are, if they got Nolan, they'd get Bale.

It would be gloriously euphoric. But very unlikely.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Double posts are

 

[Cain]

I think he'd rather do other things then sell out to something he doesn't even believe in. It's the same reason he won't make a Batman 4. He told the story he wanted to tell; no need to hamper it's impact with something that doesn't measure up cause it was made for the check. I agree with him too; better for him to get to make the movies that he wants to make than waste time with something he doesn't have his heart on.

 

[Rockstar]

Nolan and Snyder both said Cavill's Superman will exist alone in his own universe and NOT in Justice League.

That's the whole point of this thread.

 

[CConn]

I think he'd rather do other things then sell out to something he doesn't even believe in. It's the same reason he won't make a Batman 4. He told the story he wanted to tell; no need to hamper it's impact with something that doesn't measure up cause it was made for the check. I agree with him too; better for him to get to make the movies that he wants to make than waste time with something he doesn't have his heart on.

Yep.

The real problem with a Nolan-directed JLA movie would be that I don't think he'd ever find a story for it that he'd be interested in. The JLA has always been about substance taking a backseat to spectacle. Even the more acclaimed comic runs are more focused on the overall action and sci-fi element to the League than anything more meaningful.

And Nolan's all about substance and meaning and all of that ****.

 

[DrCosmic]

The ideas do; there is no limit to where you can take a JL story. That's the appeal of the property in the first place. I also mentioned it's only possible with the proper amount of research and imagination on behalf of the screenwriters. It's kinda what they're paid to professionally do.

So before you said it just takes a little imagination, and cite one of DC's best crossovers (Final Crisis) as your evidence. Now you admit it takes the proper research and animation. Before you said the story writes itself, now just the ideas do. I think if we kept going, we could eventually get to the truth: writing a compelling story for the JLA takes a lot of imagination, research and creativity. Not a lot of people can do it well, no matter how hard they try, and many, many (many...) talented writers have tried and fallen short. Afaik, no one has done it without relying on things that only work in comics.

All this are great reasons not to do a shared DC Universe in film.

Hire the best men for the job? please. It was their mistake as professional investors to even look in the direction of people who had no real vision of what they wanted to do with GL in the first place. You don't invest that kind of money without executing proper project management.

Granted the people they did hire did what they competently could with the material but there was no real passion on their behalf it was just work. The mistake they made and why many including many professional movie website writers lay blame on them is because they DIDN'T hire the best men for the job.

To the point that the execs themselves realized it when it was too late and tried to save face by commissioning their own edit and not giving Campbell final cut which ended up being a disaster.

They lucked out with Nolan because the execs at that time also saw someone who had a passionate vision (key words) for Batman on film and it paid off. Otherwise their judgement on who they pair with these properties have been iffy at best. That wasn't the case with GL.

Also take your sarcasm in the bold somewhere where it'd actually be valued. Geoff Johns didn't play much of a role in GL's production. Not to the extent that you imply he did by mentioning him in the same breath as Singer. He was a co-producer. He was not the director or the writer. In the case of SR they were desperate and only saw that this was the man who successfully brought a resurgence to superhero movies with the first X-Men movie he made.

Sure it's cool to presume this man could make any comic book property pop the same way. However you can't say they're not to blame once the man told them he wanted to make a Superman movie that barely had an active Superman in it. They still listen to pitches, they still read scripts and the movie was a mess beginning with it's script.

The script had a ton of dead ends for potential Superman sequels beginning with the fact that they gave him a son but not just limited to that plot point. It was a decent ending for a previous franchise but I'm sure that's not what they had in mind; they had a NEW franchise spinning off from that movie in mind.

They decided to invest in a vision hampered by fidelity to a film that was decades old at the time instead of a vision that could reintroduce the character to a new generation of film goers. Like they did with Batman.

I don't care how much nostalgia STM had in the early 00's they didn't think things through properly with SR the moment they decided on that. You can't count on the modern audience to care about a story that relies on knowledge of movies they probably haven't even seen in the case of younger audiences or haven't revisited in years in the case of others.

Big budget film making is filled with risk taking but between that option as opposed to hiring someone who wanted to start from scratch with the character (which there were plenty that did) they didn't risk enough and it cost them. The reception to the movie proved it. That was a sloppy executive call that cost them a lot in the end. Not giving Superman to someone who had a vision to truly reintroduce the character again to a modern audience is a decision they DID have control over.

This is a rant, though. It's full with baseless judgemets like 'they had no passion, it was just work' and 'they were desperate.' It really sounds like you've made up this story of what's happened behind the scenes. Some of it, like Geoff Johns not being very (very) hands on with the GL script not only doesn't ring true, but has been openly refuted by the man himself. I can understand not knowing that, since it's not like it's on wikipedia or something.

Overall, despite what 'people on the internet' say or don't say, movie studio execs aren't creative talents, that's why they hire them, because they don't have the taste and skillset to evaluate whether a five minute pitch has sequel potential or whether the public in general will like it. Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to say that your impressions of the film were readily apparent to the guys in the pitch room, but that's just a blame game, not a logical conclusion.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

Yep.

The real problem with a Nolan-directed JLA movie would be that I don't think he'd ever find a story for it that he'd be interested in. The JLA has always been about substance taking a backseat to spectacle. Even the more acclaimed comic runs are more focused on the overall action and sci-fi element to the League than anything more meaningful.

And Nolan's all about substance and meaning and all of that ****.

So someone like Micheal Bay is perfect for a JLA film series since its all about spectacle. So bascially since its all about spectacle thes JLA films should just be made as summer popcorn, mindless action flicks?

 

[roach]

Yep.

The real problem with a Nolan-directed JLA movie would be that I don't think he'd ever find a story for it that he'd be interested in. The JLA has always been about substance taking a backseat to spectacle. Even the more acclaimed comic runs are more focused on the overall action and sci-fi element to the League than anything more meaningful.

And Nolan's all about substance and meaning and all of that ****.

agreed I wouldn't want him to do JLA

 

[CConn]

So someone like Micheal Bay is perfect for a JLA film series since its all about spectacle. So bascially since its all about spectacle thes JLA films should just be made as summer popcorn, mindless action flicks?

Hah. No, Michael Bay is just plain bad.

No, you just need a director who can make movies without deep meaning and introspection, but still can easily provide the intangibles of a good movie.

Spielberg, JJ Abrams, etc. are all of that vein. Nolan is not.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Have to say, I don't care for the popcorn flick angle.

Having such characters together can actually make for a lot of interesting character interaction. Just look at the animated TV show. Half of the show is characters talking, disagreeing, etc.

 

[Cain]

So before you said it just takes a little imagination, and cite one of DC's best crossovers (Final Crisis) as your evidence. Now you admit it takes the proper research and animation. Before you said the story writes itself, now just the ideas do. I think if we kept going, we could eventually get to the truth: writing a compelling story for the JLA takes a lot of imagination, research and creativity. Not a lot of people can do it well, no matter how hard they try, and many, many (many...) talented writers have tried and fallen short. Afaik, no one has done it without relying on things that only work in comics.

All this are great reasons not to do a shared DC Universe in film.

No you just had some serious problems comprehending the **** out of my original post. Maybe my writing wasn't clear enough for you before.

To reiterate verbatim:

"My point is not that it's a filmmable story my point is that it's an example from the source material amongst many that proves that you could find logical way of putting these characters together."

If that's not plain enough english I'm not saying "GIMME AN FC MOVIE" I'm just saying that FC is one of hundreds of examples in the comics that could be used as reference as to why these characters could work well as a unit.

Maybe "All it takes is a little research and imagination from the screenwriter hired for the job. It's not "unadaptable" stuff." confused you but I thought it was pretty obvious that I'm talking about JL as a franchise in this blurb here as anybody else who read that post seemed to gather.

Many, many, many talented writers have successfully managed to implement good enough research and had a vast enough imagination to adapt the JL successfully. Granted none of this has been in live action media I'll give you that. But then again apparently there was a script good enough for a live action project once before, good enough in the execs eyes that WB gave it a go ahead once upon a time.

It just cost them too damn much to produce it so they tabled the project. It proves that it's not impossible though. I don't care about shared DC universe on film at this point in time BTW. I stopped caring many years ago (mid 2000's) and even as a DC fan I've said it before and will say it again when it comes to movie universes make mine marvel.

They managed to take the ball and roll all the way with it so I couldn't care less about a DC movie universe even more so now since I have theirs. But it's ridiculous to act like JL is such an unfeasible concept to bring to the screen. It really is not. It's "pop culture icons against major threats" as I said before that pretty much writes itself.

 

[Cain]

Overall, despite what 'people on the internet' say or don't say, movie studio execs aren't creative talents, that's why they hire them, because they don't have the taste and skillset to evaluate whether a five minute pitch has sequel potential or whether the public in general will like it.Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to say that your impressions of the film were readily apparent to the guys in the pitch room, but that's just a blame game, not a logical conclusion.

Sorry dude but I can't fathom your logic here. They get put in those positions in the first place because they DO. I know people like to think movie execs are just coked up wealthy men who are out of touch with society in many ways. It's a tired joke with some semblance of truth but um well they also have the ability to gauge when to greenlight or pass on a project based on a 5 minute pitch. That IS their skillset lol

This is what they get paid 6 figures to do. Every day. While people "with taste" don't occupy movie executive offices. This is how they determine whether they're hiring "the right people" as you say in the first place. They hire the "right people" and greenlight the projects they do because they see that there is potential in those pitches to connect with the public in general. It's a business first and foremost. Their bottom line is to make money.

You don't make money without an audience. So how a movie will connect with the public in general based on their assessment and analysis of a pitch is a key factor in their decision making. It's common sense. They're not just making movies for the sake of making movies; they're making movies that are sell able and in many cases also have franchise potential.

You think they greenlit GL while talking about sequels prematurely just because? they saw franchise potential there. They picked a pitch that they felt could be sold to a big audience in the end. Granted the execution rendered all that moot for the time being. The fact that the movie with it's horrid word of mouth still managed to gross over $200 million though proved that they may have been right in there being an audience for that stuff in the first place.

 

[CConn]

Have to say, I don't care for the popcorn flick angle.

Having such characters together can actually make for a lot of interesting character interaction. Just look at the animated TV show. Half of the show is characters talking, disagreeing, etc.

Ugh. Just because a JLA movie would be focused on spectacle, doesn't mean it wouldn't have character exposition or drama.

Just read any of the Morrison or Kelly JLA comics. There's tons of character depth - and even some philosophical depth - in them...but they're definitely not something that would come from Nolan's mind.

IMO, at least.

 

[Daniel Thompson]

Hah. No, Michael Bay is just plain bad.

No, you just need a director who can make movies without deep meaning and introspection, but still can easily provide the intangibles of a good movie.

Spielberg, JJ Abrams, etc. are all of that vein. Nolan is not.

Ah okay I see your point now.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Morrison especially cuz he get all metatextual in dat shiznit.

 

[Lone]

Should just get Morrison to write the movie and Peter Berg to direct.

 

[The Guard]

This is a rant, though. It's full with baseless judgemets like 'they had no passion, it was just work' and 'they were desperate.' It really sounds like you've made up this story of what's happened behind the scenes.

Agreed. Interviews with those involved in the project suggest otherwise.

Ugh. Just because a JLA movie would be focused on spectacle, doesn't mean it wouldn't have character exposition or drama.

Just read any of the Morrison or Kelly JLA comics. There's tons of character depth - and even some philosophical depth - in them...but they're definitely not something that would come from Nolan's mind.

IMO, at least.

Yup. The earliest draft of the JUSTICE LEAGUE: MORTAL script was actually pretty decent. It had some character exploration and introspection. Not a ton, but enough for an ensemble film.

A Justice League story is an adaption, just like any other superhero movie has been. The same traits apply. It's not giong to be any more or less difficult than The Avengers film was to adapt, and it seems they took a fairly straightforward approach with that. It simply requires critical and creative thinking skills. It can be done. I wrote one in three days that was fairly well received. Surely an experienced screenwriter could write a good one.