What is DC Entertainment doing? What is their plan? - Part 1

[Rocketman]

If Man of Steel isn't amazing, as a film and at the box office, we're all screwed.
I mean, everything might be riding on that movie.
If they can't even make Superman a successful franchise, they won't give two s**** about Flash and Wonder Woman.
Superman should be hugely successful long before Wonder Woman and Flash.
They won't do another Green Lantern anytime soon.

But aside from movies and aside from WB, DC can't even get their comics together properly. We could be in dark times.

 

[HighFivingMF]

But aside from movies and aside from WB, DC can't even get their comics together properly. We could be in dark times.

A lot of the new 52 books are getting great reviews and they're all pretty much selling through the roof.

 

[TheIncredibleSk]

DC Sales are up a ton and many are getting great reviews so I don't see how their comic line isn't together.

 

[chiefchirpa]

I hear all this talk about Avengers 2 and further solo films featuring characters most people have never heard of. Call me skeptical that all that is going to go to plan with little involvement from Disney.

It's called the Iron Man factor, Marvel brought up a character most people never heard of. They tried it with Thor and to a lesser degree, Captain America (which is probably famous to geriatrics but not for younger guys). All 3 attempts, all successful by various degrees. No wonder they will keep trying.

WB flunked it with Green Lantern though on their first attempt. Is this the reason why you got skeptical?

 

[Red Mask]

If Man of Steel isn't amazing, as a film and at the box office, we're all screwed.
I mean, everything might be riding on that movie.
If they can't even make Superman a successful franchise, they won't give two s**** about Flash and Wonder Woman.
Superman should be hugely successful long before Wonder Woman and Flash.
They won't do another Green Lantern anytime soon.

But aside from movies and aside from WB, DC can't even get their comics together properly. We could be in dark times.

Please wait for the film to come out before judging the Man of Steel Pecs.

 

[jmc]

It's called the Iron Man factor, Marvel brought up a character most people never heard of. They tried it with Thor and to a lesser degree, Captain America (which is probably famous to geriatrics but not for younger guys). All 3 attempts, all successful by various degrees. No wonder they will keep trying.

WB flunked it with Green Lantern though on their first attempt. Is this the reason why you got skeptical?

Um, no, I'm skeptical because until now Marvel haven't had to contend with a higher authority when it comes to releasing their movies. They don't have the clout that a company like Pixar have.

But aside from movies and aside from WB, DC can't even get their comics together properly. We could be in dark times.

It's early days but the new 52 seems to be doing well at this point. Regardless any 'dark times' is going to affect the comics industry as a whole, not just DC.

 

[chiefchirpa]

Um, no, I'm skeptical because until now Marvel haven't had to contend with a higher authority when it comes to releasing their movies. They don't have the clout that a company like Pixar have.

Sure they don't. That's why they need Avengers & Iron Man 3 being successful first before launching Avengers 2.

 

[DrCosmic]

But aside from movies and aside from WB, DC can't even get their comics together properly. We could be in dark times.

As said before, this comment is about two months too late. Perhaps you, like others, believed the fanboy hype that nothing would come of this "publicity stunt."

Overall, Man of Steel has a bit too much going for it to not be at least moderately successful. When was the last time this many award winning actors signed on to an unsuccessful movie? Nolan's track record. Snyder's track record, love it or hate it, is made almost entirely of good films. I don't think a billion dollars would be all that surprising, especially seeing how little competition it has, with the relatively small RIPD not coming for three weeks, and Spielberg's Robopocalypse the following month. It's really got a wide open track to spring with Snyder's action genius and Nolan and Goyer's narrative sensibilities, assuming that's what happened.

 

[The Morningstar]

We'll see 6 months down the line when comic sales drop back down to below 100,000 (apart from a handful of flagship titles).

 

[DrCosmic]

Well honestly, if good stories don't hold increased leadership, then we should thank DC for proving that the industry is terminally ill.

 

[The Morningstar]

We still need proof?

Good books don't hold readership if they don't feature A-Listers or established "brands".

So i'd expect the likes of the excellent Animal Man and Swamp Thing to be gone before they hit the 20s.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

I detect sarcasm, but yes, it really is that easy.

Marvel did it.

Iron Man - 2008
The Incredible Hulk - 2008
Iron Man 2 - 2010
Thor - 2011
Captain America - 2011
The Avengers - 2012

6 movies in 4 years, and they had a 2-year gap between 2008 and 2010.

DC could easily do 7 movies in 4 years. Man of Steel is already in production, so at this point, they only need to worry about 6 films.

Hire a team of people who know how to plan collaborative projects, like Bruce Timm and Paul Dini.

No offense to you, KRIM (sincerely), but it just takes 5 minutes for a DC/WB executive to skim over a post like this and a decent plan could be in formation. Unfortunately for us, studio heads tend to worry about dollar signs as opposed to the proper way to get things done, like fans such as you and me demand.

You make it sound like I'm some entitled, high-horse poster who thinks that it should be my way or the highway, when really, this is a damn good way to plan the DC film universe. It's not my fault that WB/DC has no clue what the hell they're doing. Green Lantern proved that.

Marvel actually had 6 years, Iron Man and Hulk didn't just appear. Marvel also had one single producer (Avi Arad) who wanted to make the Avengers, WB doesn't have that. Also, in those 6 years Marvel Studios made 6 movies, WB made tens. Until there is a DCE Studio it will never be "just that easy".

 

[DrCosmic]

We still need proof?

Good books don't hold readership if they don't feature A-Listers or established "brands".

So i'd expect the likes of the excellent Animal Man and Swamp Thing to be gone before they hit the 20s.

Well, I think the idea is that the phenomenon you're referring to has to do with a very insulated audience. By bringing in 'new blood' someone else can be the favorite superhero. This is what we see with the Kids of the Naughties who are more familiar with Iron Man than Superman, and even Spider-Man.

But, if the increased readership can't be held *anywhere* then the entire industry is terminally ill, not just the non-brand books. After all, in that scenario, we can just put out ten superman books and ten batman books and four JLAs and have a respectable market share.

 

[Lord]

In my opinion Marvel is better in the film industry right now because DC is just a big hit (Batman Begins and TDK) or a big failure (GG, Catwoman, Jonah Hex), but DC's comics are much better right now, in fact i would rate the company's comics like this:

Best during the Golden Age: I think they're tied because while DC had Superman and Batman their first comic was New Fun Comics, that wasn't very interesting while Marvel started with the awesome Marvel 1 whose characters were also great (android Human-Torch, Namor, Angel, etc)

Best During the Silver and Bronze age: Marvel with the start of Fantastic Four 1, it just begun something great.

Modern Age: DC comics, latelly Marvel's events exept for Civil War are very easily forgoten, Spider-Island? wtf, i didn't read but it doesn't seem very interesting, while DC's Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, Infinite Crisis, and even Final Crisis and Flashpoint are allways quite interesting, DC's latest events just give me a feeling of conection between the title.

That said i hope somebody tries to do a Marvel Studios type treatment to the DC comics films, they could even have some events adapted, i'm reading Sinestro Corps war, and i'm right now at the earth invasion, if carefully adapted it could be an awesome event movie. Unfortunatelly they just got the Green Lantern film wrong.

In my opinion WB should have looked at Smallville as their starting point for the next superman film, unfortunatelly the show draged too much and had a lot of bad elements, but if they were more careful in the begining they could have done it a sort of Prequel for a future Superman movie they could later make

 

[jmc]

Well, I think the idea is that the phenomenon you're referring to has to do with a very insulated audience. By bringing in 'new blood' someone else can be the favorite superhero. This is what we see with the Kids of the Naughties who are more familiar with Iron Man than Superman, and even Spider-Man.

But, if the increased readership can't be held *anywhere* then the entire industry is terminally ill, not just the non-brand books. After all, in that scenario, we can just put out ten superman books and ten batman books and four JLAs and have a respectable market share.

The industry has been ill for a while, IMO the way comics are handled, released and advertised needs to start from scratch for a new century, digital issues aren't going to be the saviour. I think a part of why Marvel are trying to get so many characters on film is actually to keep the characters mythologies going if/when the comic industry dies, even though it's a crap load more riskier.

 

[DrCosmic]

I totally agree. I think one of the big things to come out of the DC reboot is the question of whether it can be saved, whether starting from scratch will even matter. If good comic book stories can't hold the new readers, will it matter if they have some all ages stuff in the check out aisle or in the magazine shop? Or if they have commercials on TV?

 

[jmc]

I've argued this for a while but I think in order for comics to survive the serial nature of the medium needs to be done away with and stand alone graphic novels with no connectivity to other stories needs to be the path forward, in other words treat them like regular novels. I don't get why they are persisting with method that is clearly no longer working, monthlies really have worn out their use by date. Start treating the stories like proper novels, build up some hype over the course of a year or so, and most importantly, keeps character separate from one and other.

 

[DrCosmic]

That would be pretty smart, but c'mon, there's an emotional attachment to this format, and the type of storytelling it affords. Understanding why people don't consider letting it go doesn't take a lot of imagination.

Graphic Novels do sell well, perhaps more emphasis could be given to such things.

 

[jmc]

Emotions don't always bring in the revenue, at some point you've gotta step back and assess the situation objectively. Ultimately if you let emotions dictate things you're doomed to fail in the long run. I believe real change may come about too late for the comic industry, I think things should have been steered in a new direction about 10 years ago.

 

[HighFivingMF]

Best During the Silver and Bronze age: Marvel with the start of Fantastic Four 1, it just begun something great.

Actually, the Silver age is said to have started with Showcase #4, the first appearance of Barry Allen as The Flash. Fantastic Four didn't come until 5 years in after the success of the Justice League prompted Stan Lee to create his own team.

 

[OsGom]

Snyder's track record, love it or hate it, is made almost entirely of good films.

I want to agree with this statement but SUCKERPUNCH was a giant step backwards in my opinion of Snyder. It was like one big music video only not as sexy. Watchmen, 300 and Dawn of the Dead remake were excellent however.

The industry has been ill for a while, IMO the way comics are handled, released and advertised needs to start from scratch for a new century, digital issues aren't going to be the saviour.

I've argued this for a while but I think in order for comics to survive the serial nature of the medium needs to be done away with and stand alone graphic novels with no connectivity to other stories needs to be the path forward, in other words treat them like regular novels. I don't get why they are persisting with method that is clearly no longer working, monthlies really have worn out their use by date. Start treating the stories like proper novels, build up some hype over the course of a year or so, and most importantly, keeps character separate from one and other.

These are both great points but IMHO... the reason comics are failing as a medium is because soceity is not encouraged to read anymore. Entertainment is spoonfed through digital media. Who needs reading comprehesion when the story is second to pretty graphics.

Make no mistake, it isn't just comics. Physical art is being replaced by digital art. Print is failing and mediums like painting and drawing are managed digitally.

Honestly I can't remember the last time I looked at artwork, except my own, that wasn't digital.

I am not judging, I simply pointing out that this is where soceity is going. So you might think that digital comics wont save the industry, I argue that embracing digital comics AND adding some kind of dynamic element, possibly even audio dialog/voice acting is the only thing that will.

 

[Docker2.0]

We'll see 6 months down the line when comic sales drop back down to below 100,000 (apart from a handful of flagship titles).

Exactly! You have to take what Warren Ellis said pretty seriously. DC marketed the heck out of their reboot, even had tv commercials so of course the initial reaction would be great. The real test is going to be around New Years because honestly, that's when I think reality sets in. For all of Marvel's oversaturation of the movie market, they are about to take over the tv market as well now with Disney's help with DC really not even getting off the ground except for one character and that is yet again Batman. DC is barely leading in sales from Marvel but it's only a matter of time before Marvel gets it back. And this is a guy who started to only buy DC comics in June because I was so sick of Bendis that it's not even funny. The relaunch did well in the beginning but unless they plan to include Wildstorm and Watchmen in regular DCU, I don't truly understand the point because they are saying all the events happened but yet they didn't happen and that doesn't make any sense.

 

[jmc]

These are both great points but IMHO... the reason comics are failing as a medium is because soceity is not encouraged to read anymore. Entertainment is spoonfed through digital media. Who needs reading comprehesion when the story is second to pretty graphics.

Make no mistake, it isn't just comics. Physical art is being replaced by digital art. Print is failing and mediums like painting and drawing are managed digitally.

Honestly I can't remember the last time I looked at artwork, except my own, that wasn't digital.

I am not judging, I simply pointing out that this is where soceity is going. So you might think that digital comics wont save the industry, I argue that embracing digital comics AND adding some kind of dynamic element, possibly even audio dialog/voice acting is the only thing that will.

I don't think it's reading comprehension that's the issue, I think the reason comics have started going south is because the last couple of generations of kids have had various other means of entertainment at their disposal, the concept of the superhero just doesn't hog the spotlight as it use to. I don't think you can point to a lack of encouraging reading as a reason when Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games books are so popular. As for adding audio and more dynamic digital comics, I fail to see that doing anything other than increase pricing. Digital won't save the comic industry, it's at best a band-aid solution for the short term.

 

[Lord]

Actually, the Silver age is said to have started with Showcase #4, the first appearance of Barry Allen as The Flash. Fantastic Four didn't come until 5 years in after the success of the Justice League prompted Stan Lee to create his own team.

I know when it started, but i says with the start of FF 1 Marvel simply rulled the rest of that era for me.

 

[Docker2.0]

Speaking of Marvel taking over the small screen as well as the big screen, http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/168698-the-punisher-heads-to-television
with the exception of comics, in which I'm sure Marvel will be back in the lead a little after New Years, this is becoming a one sided fight. Marvel now has 4 tv shows in the works, while DCE has possibly one in Deadman, if it gets made. I hope it gets made, especially if Supernatural goes off the air, but I really think they should explore a Nightwing or even Animal Man show, seeing as neither would probably ever make the big screen, the small screen would be their best bet and you really don't need a big budget, heck it would be way cheaper to make either than to make Smallville.