Alright who is in the JLA movie, debate

[Ginger Tea]

The Spiderman and X-Men franchises met the same fate.
Film 1: Great
Film 2: Good
Film 3: Crap
Film 4: Reboot

Both trilogies ended with such utter crap that they had to reboot and retcon.

Or in X men's case prequel with 2nd in the works, could the Wolverine origin taint cameo characters having their own films or being used in Marvel studio works?
EG I'm willing to see the Wade Williams (or whatever his name is) just happen have the same name as Deadpool, hell I share my name with a movie director and a former footballer, so there are probably more Wade's knocking around.
But sadly we may not get to have an X men/Avengers cross over due to the rights being split between two studios.

[crashhelmet]

Well, the main thing that changed was quality control me thinks and avoiding letting their lesser known characters be used in toss away movies.

I think this is what made the astounding difference. Marvel took an active role in Quality Control where before they probably had no say in it. Writers often bite that bullet when they sell the rights to their books.

The Spiderman and X-Men movies were universally successful for instance. Even Ang Lee's Hulk was decently reviewed even if it wasn't perfect. But the lesser known/cared about franchises Fantastic 4, Daredevil, Ghost Rider and Punisher. Were all sort of just made with the barest hint of staying with the comics and more just cashing in on the name by the studio in question.

The Spiderman and X-Men franchises met the same fate.
Film 1: Great
Film 2: Good
Film 3: Crap
Film 4: Reboot

20th Century Fox was in danger of losing both Daredevil and Fantastic 4, but somehow managed to hang onto F4. I think there's something in early production stages for another F4 reboot. Not sure.

I'm not sure they're as worried about those. X-Men First Class was fantastic and the Amazing Spiderman, while frankly unnecessary, was still pretty good and critically/commercially successful.

Both trilogies ended with such utter crap that they had to reboot and retcon.

Wait, Iron Man 2 wasn't good? That's news to me and the rest of the world. It was well reviewed, grossed higher than Iron Man 1, made back over 3 times its budget and had the 12th biggest opening weekend in movie history. Only Avengers, Spiderman 3 and Iron Man 3 are higher on the list than it for Marvel movies. By what measure was it not good?

The Incredible Hulk on the other hand was resoundingly average. It wasn't terrible by any means. It had decent reviews and it did make money. But Hulk is a hard sell character to begin with. Though alarmingly, it still has a higher critical rating than Man of Steel on RT somehow.

I think people didn't like Iron Man 2 because it was 2 blink and you miss it fight scenes with Vanko / Whiplash. As a trilogy (quadrilogy?), it was the perfect part 2.

I understand the Hulk reboot so they could tie it into the other storylines better. Primarily, shifting from the nanotech of Ang Le's Hulk to the supersoldier serum.

[Gravekeeper]

What people keep forgetting is that Marvel only got it right after they reined it all in.

Well, the main thing that changed was quality control me thinks and avoiding letting their lesser known characters be used in toss away movies.

The Spiderman and X-Men movies were universally successful for instance. Even Ang Lee's Hulk was decently reviewed even if it wasn't perfect. But the lesser known/cared about franchises Fantastic 4, Daredevil, Ghost Rider and Punisher. Were all sort of just made with the barest hint of staying with the comics and more just cashing in on the name by the studio in question.

The only franchises they haven't reined in are X-Men and Fantastic 4 from Fox and Spiderman from Sony.

I'm not sure they're as worried about those. X-Men First Class was fantastic and the Amazing Spiderman, while frankly unnecessary, was still pretty good and critically/commercially successful.

Well, even then Iron Man 2 wasn't good and The Incredible Hulk wasn't much better. More than being unified under one house being the key to Marvel's success, I still think it has to do with continually taking risks by continuing produce.

Wait, Iron Man 2 wasn't good? That's news to me and the rest of the world. It was well reviewed, grossed higher than Iron Man 1, made back over 3 times its budget and had the 12th biggest opening weekend in movie history. Only Avengers, Spiderman 3 and Iron Man 3 are higher on the list than it for Marvel movies. By what measure was it not good?

The Incredible Hulk on the other hand was resoundingly average. It wasn't terrible by any means. It had decent reviews and it did make money. But Hulk is a hard sell character to begin with. Though alarmingly, it still has a higher critical rating than Man of Steel on RT somehow.

[Mytical]

The ideal movie for the JLA would also focus on the clash of characters between Batman and Supes. Supes IS the boy scout, and that is how he should be. Bats..is the anti-boy scout. He's not afraid to push the line, or even cross it..and that can be a compelling story. It also gives the villain a way to play them against each other. Almost EVERYBODY who is a comic fan wants a Supes/Batman throwdown. The pure human with gadgets but a brilliant mind, against the man who can not be beat.. and IF done right, it would be an awesome 'shaking the JLA to its core' foil before the final showdown.

One of my favorite animated movies is DOOM, and I think it would make a great plot for a JLA movie. The LOD gets ahold of Batman's files on the JLA, and how Batman would beat them...and takes it one step further to try to KILL the JLA. Only the movie should make it seem like Bats is behind it, and confronted by Supes. Unable to prove his innocence, bats and supes throws down. The Legion comes in, and they learn that Supes and Bats staged the fight/throwdown it would be EPIC if done right.

[Ginger Tea]

Warner Bros is smart enough to release everything under their banner, as they own DC, but they need to create a "DC Studios" to concentrate on producing a quality division of movies.

If they were not owned by a movie studio, they would be just as fragmented as Marvel is, the producers of FF only got to make the movie cos they did the trashcan 90's movie to cement their claim as it was due to time out and revert back to Marvel to sell again.

Mind you I'm not sure when they were bought out and even if WB did the Reeves Superman or if that was another studio.
Perhaps the reason we had a long wait between the last Reeves and Returns was the rights being owned by a company other than WB only due to it being sold long before WB bought DC.
Would have to check.

Maybe the souring of the batman franchise and other comic adaptations (which for some I could not tell they were based off a character) not grossing well caused the original rights owners to let Superman expire back to DC who then 'sold' it to their parent WB.
If for example it was paramount doing Superman, you would be hard pushed to find him doing any form of cross over on the silver screen.

Edit, it was WB, but we had a different distributor in the UK

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Well, even then Iron Man 2 wasn't good and The Incredible Hulk wasn't much better. More than being unified under one house being the key to Marvel's success, I still think it has to do with continually taking risks by continuing produce.

DC fails and gets gun-shy. But you can't be a movie production studio without making movies.

[crashhelmet]

What people keep forgetting is that Marvel only got it right after they reined it all in.

Pre-Marvel Studios Control
Raimi's Spiderman trilogy & the Amazing Spiderman - Sony/Columbia
Fantastic 4 - 20th Century Fox
Daredevil - 20th Century Fox
X-Men Franchise - 20th Century Fox
Wolverine films - 20th Century Fox
Ghost Rider (first one) - Sony
Blade trilogy - New Line Cinema
Hulk (Ang Le) - Universal
The Punisher (Thomas Jane vs John Travolta) - Artisan

Under the Marvel Studios Banner
Iron Man trilogy
The Incredible Hulk
Captain America 1&2
Thor 1&2
The Avengers

Marvel Studios has reclaimed Blade, Daredevil, Elektra, and Powerman.

"Punisher: War Zone" & "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" were released under the Marvel Knights banner but have since been reclaimed by Marvel Studios.

The only franchises they haven't reined in are X-Men and Fantastic 4 from Fox and Spiderman from Sony.

Warner Bros is smart enough to release everything under their banner, as they own DC, but they need to create a "DC Studios" to concentrate on producing a quality division of movies.

[daleduke17]

Superman's problem has always been his power level and how to create a challenge that actually threatens that level short of just having him fight other gods all the time.

Watching "The Three Doctors" earlier and reading this brought an idea back that I had for a wicked cool Batman story that could be changed to fit for this:

Superman is doing his thing, being all sorts of awesome and hears Lex Luthor is out of prison/asylum/whatever. All of a sudden there are random and strange sightings around Metropolis. Weird vortices, time fluctuations, etc. Superman gets a video message from multiple versions of Lex Luthor. He has pulled different versions of himself from different universes (Gene Hackman, John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum and Kevin Spacey) to team up to finally defeat Superman. Superman must now bring the Justice League together to defeat Luthor.

This would be easier than trying to pull alternate versions of Superman together as Dean Cain and Tom Welling probably aren't in Superman-shape anymore and Christopher Reeve is unfortunately dead. It would also be a good lead-in to the inevitable spinoffs and such.

[Gravekeeper]

From what I've heard, I doubt I'll much get into Man of Steel. It's directed by Zach Snyder, and that just doesn't fit well with Superman.

Yeah, that is kind of an odd choice, isn't it? It would explain why the punching things part of the movie is so good, but the rest is just there to fill time until more stuff is punched.

Although I'm going to disagree with the idea that Captain America is an identifiable character. He isn't, or at least, shouldn't be. Captain America is like Superman. A good Captain America story isn't about Captain America, it's about the people around him reacting to this ludicrously perfect human being.

But see, that's the brilliance of the Cap A movie and the Avengers. Cap A ran a very real risk of being the intolerable boy scout. Marvel knew that all too well. So instead, Cap A was essentially created to be an American icon. Then the time skip basically renders him obsolete. Giving him depth and conflict. Also, powers wise, he's the blandest Avenger short of Hawkeye. So making him a three dimensional character was a big accomplishment for Marvel.

Having him as the light to Stark's darkness was the perfect foil as well.

And that's part of why the Captain America movie worked so well. Because Captain America was a ludicrously perfect guy. He goes behind enemy lines, BY HIMSELF, armed only with a shield, to rescue a captured platoon. This guy seems too good to be true, but only because he is.

But he's not too good to be true. Power wise he's actually the most down to Earth of all of the Avengers from a realism angle. The whole basis of Cap is that ultimately he's just a soldier. A super soldier yes. But still a soldier and still a product of his country. Going solo behind enemy lines isn't an amazing feat by action movie standards. Its pretty much standard practice.

That's what you need to do with Superman. Make a movie about what a great guy Superman is. Unfortunately, people have trouble doing that. They assume we want movies about flawed heroes, and we keep saying we do, and we call Superman "Boring."

Supes problem is that he is the classic golden age boy scout type hero and his power level is essentially demigod level. Challenging him to a toe to toe fight means you need to bring up an equally powerful villain. Which stretches the believably more and results in Man of Steel. One huge ridiculous demigod fist fight that likely killed thousands and thousands of people. Which is completely out of character for Supes.

Supes is not a flawed character in the broken sense. He needs to be challenged on the basis of his goodiness. He wants to save everyone, but even with his power level he can't save everyone all the time. That's where you need to challenge him for it to be compelling. Weigh him against his inherent need to save everybody. Force him to make choices on who to save and who to sacrifice. That's why Lex Luther is one of the better villains to use against him.

I think that story arc wise in a movie, we need to see Superman's nobility in the face of impossible decisions. Not just literally throw someone with the exact same powers at him for a giant super fist fight. We also need to see Clark's charm and sense of humour on the flip side.

Nobody wants brooding angsty Superman. It sort of ruins the point.

I did see the Green Lantern movie, and I can say... I think it had the right idea. It was badly written, badly directed... But it embraced the ludicrousness of a guy who uses green light to beat up the color yellow.

Yeah thats pretty much the movie's problem in a nutshell. The premise of the Lanterns is kind of corny when you get down to the how and why. But the movie just grabbed it and ran with it like it was a cartoon for 5 year olds. It basically turned into The Mask near the end. Because inexplicably the script called for GL to keep using his power to manifest the stupidest / corniest shit possible. The script even calls him out for it the first time he really uses his power ( To make a hot wheels racing track in the sky for no reason at all ). Yet somehow lacks the self awareness to not have that stupid scene in there to begin with.

I mean, yes the whole green/yellow thing is pretty silly. But you can still write it with some tact and seriousness. But instead the movie pretty much just went "Lawl, WE R POWERED BY THE COLOUR GREENZ. Yellow bad." and there was absolutely no character development for anyone at all except GL. I mean the villain was a cardboard cut out and the other Lanterns were just CGI with voices.

Even just taking away the terrible CGI would have upped the movie's seriousness ten fold. The glowing costumes and what not were awful.

[Hyena Dandy]

From what I've heard, I doubt I'll much get into Man of Steel. It's directed by Zach Snyder, and that just doesn't fit well with Superman.

Snyder I can't imagine making a good Superman movie, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not possible. The Richard Donner Superman movies were pretty good.

What I like in the Marvel movies, is that Marvel seems to know who/what the characters are.

Although I'm going to disagree with the idea that Captain America is an identifiable character. He isn't, or at least, shouldn't be. Captain America is like Superman. A good Captain America story isn't about Captain America, it's about the people around him reacting to this ludicrously perfect human being. And that's part of why the Captain America movie worked so well. Because Captain America was a ludicrously perfect guy. He goes behind enemy lines, BY HIMSELF, armed only with a shield, to rescue a captured platoon. This guy seems too good to be true, but only because he is.

That's what you need to do with Superman. Make a movie about what a great guy Superman is. Unfortunately, people have trouble doing that. They assume we want movies about flawed heroes, and we keep saying we do, and we call Superman "Boring."

But Superman isn't boring. It's not impossible to make Superman interesting, and it has nothing to do with quality of villain. Lex Luthor in the Donner films was seriously dull. General Zod was cool, hammy, fun to watch... Not interesting, though.

It's not really a mark on Superman if (I can't say for sure) that movie was bad. It doesn't make Spider-Man a bad character that Spider-Man 3 was bad.

I did see the Green Lantern movie, and I can say... I think it had the right idea. It was badly written, badly directed... But it embraced the ludicrousness of a guy who uses green light to beat up the color yellow. After seeing that movie, I had hope for a Superman movie. Because it seemed like they didn't mind that comics are weird.

If the movie fails, though, it doesn't fail on the strength of Superman or Zod as characters. It fails on whether Christopher Nolan and Zach Snyder are willing to remember the words of a comic book fan/blogger. "Our lot love the lavishly ludicrous."

[Gravekeeper]

First, Nolan isn't coming back, so it's a moot point.

Probably for the best. -.-

Second, I really don't know what "didn't work for Man of Steel" really means. The critics didn't care for it, but it's making decent money and fans are rating it fairly well. I don't trust straight critics because a good number of them are asses. Regardless, it had the 15th best opening weekend ever.

Right, but Shrek the Third is 14th and Twilight is 9-11. Too soon to see how it does gross. I imagine it will do well enough. But there's a difference between a critical and commercial success. As Transformers 2 can attest. Which is also the strong point of Man of Steel: Gratuitous action scenes that inexplicably kill thousands of bystanders. Which is kind of out of character for Supes I would say. >.>

The rest of the movie fell flat. With only Costner offering any heart out of the cast.

They've got a few things in the pipeline scheduled over the next couple of years, before a JL movie would come out, so they aren't making it "at this point." I suspect they won't even start it until they can get someone at the help who knows what they're doing.

Last I heard they were seeing if Man of Steel made money to green light a sequel and then use Superman as the basis of the shared universe for a few movies. They wanted a Supes sequel as a precursor to the JLA movie. As it will use the contuinity / shared universe of Man of Steel. But that means they're making a new Batman too.

The Wonder Woman script was, god help us, last in the hands of the guy that wrote Green Lantern. While the JLA script was last in the hands of the guy that wrote Kick Ass. They still don't know whether or not to reboot Green Lantern or partially reboot it with Reynolds again though. I liked Reynolds as Green Lantern, but the rest of the movie let him down.

It sounds like they want to jump to Man of Steel 2 and use that to introduce Wonder Woman and/or new Batman first. Man of Steel has a nod to Batman in it, establishing the shared universe. But its different from Nolan's universe.

[Kheldarson]

Second, I really don't know what "didn't work for Man of Steel" really means. The critics didn't care for it, but it's making decent money and fans are rating it fairly well. I don't trust straight critics because a good number of them are asses. Regardless, it had the 15th best opening weekend ever.

Most of the fan response seems to be that "Supes gets to punch things; that means it's awesome!"

I haven't watched it myself, but I think thatguywiththeglasses kinda summarized the debate. Doug and Rob disliked it. They cited plot issues, character issues, pacing issues. The viewers in their commentary commented on the same issues, but said they enjoyed it for enjoyment's sake. Joe, on the other hand, loved it, mostly citing the action sequences. And the folks in his commentary agreed, again citing the fact that Supes gets to punch things. So take that as what you will

To the current debate, I'm going with a JLA movie can't happen unless DC figures out how to replicate Marvel's movie formula. And they haven't done it yet.

[Andara Bledin]

Just that DC can't keep using that tone for everything.

First, Nolan isn't coming back, so it's a moot point.

Second, I really don't know what "didn't work for Man of Steel" really means. The critics didn't care for it, but it's making decent money and fans are rating it fairly well. I don't trust straight critics because a good number of them are asses. Regardless, it had the 15th best opening weekend ever.

For them to make a JLA movie at this point would be a terrible leap that would just be seen as a pale copycat of the Avengers.

They've got a few things in the pipeline scheduled over the next couple of years, before a JL movie would come out, so they aren't making it "at this point." I suspect they won't even start it until they can get someone at the helm who knows what they're doing.

[Gravekeeper]

I'm just going to ask the obvious question at this point... is it the DC characters have been bad because they are bad, alien, and not compelling or is it because they have not been interpreted well on the big screen?

A little of both, honestly.

The Nolan trilogy represents a specific interpretation and one that at its lowest rated was a high 80's rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes. So when we say it has no charm, I'm not sure what you mean.

The Nolan movies have no charm. They're dark, serious and oppressive movies that rarely if ever come up for air. The third one especially. But they're suppose to be like that. I'm not saying that by itself is bad being dark and gritty, it works well for Batman. Just that DC can't keep using that tone for everything. It certainly wouldn't worked for JLA and it didn't work for Man of Steel by all accounts.

Even in the third Nolan film, Selina Kyle and Lucius Fox add charm... it's just a dark movie about a mass terrorist event.

But they're not the hero. The hero isn't fun to watch in the third movie. He's an emotionally tortured, broken recluse that gets his ass handed to him and spends half the movie hurt and/or brooding. The one time he tries to be witty, its awful, because he can't even drop that stupid stupid voice to make a joke. To himself. There's no point in him Batman voicing to himself when he's alone.

The Avengers at its heart is a war movie that only lasts for one act and the scenes about the humans being effected have been deliberately cut out. It's Whedon writing fun dialogue and it's an echo of Raimi's style. That's great, but that's not the formula by which all things should be written.

I never said it was, but it is the formula by which JLA should probably be written. There's a reason Avengers was called the greatest comic book movie. Because it is a comic book on the big screen. It has all the right ingredients, gets all the dialogue right, gets the characters right, it hit every note successfully. It feels like watching a comic book.

Batman can go dark and realistic due to his character, but he can also successfully go a more balanced Avengers like route. Because he has in the animated series and in the original Keaton Batman. That sort of balanced tone is the only way you're going to get all of these wildly different characters on the same team in one film. Especially with the more paragon of justice boy scout types like Superman.

You're right with the DC vs Marvel movie handling though. Hence I've been saying DC needs to be more smart about this and take a long term strategy approach before a team movie.

Was The First Avenger really that good? Was Thor really? They weren't horrible, but I submit if those were DC characters we would be hearing why they prove DC characters only make average films. Hulk was all but assumed to be a horrible character for film until The Avengers.

Er, yes? The First Avenger was really good, as was Thor. They're 79 and 77 on RT respectively. The Hulk I'll give you. Ang Lee mishandled that on the first movie ( Though its still a 62 Fresh ). But Marvel was smart enough to address that and do it over.

Conversely, looking at DC's track record over the same period its been an utter disaster aside from the Nolan trilogy. They don't have a single movie with a Fresh rating outside of Nolan's trilogy. Even Man of Steel is at 56% rotten. Keeping in mind that Ang Lee's Hulk is still 62% fresh, that's pretty bad. Even Spiderman 3 is 63% fresh. Marvel's arguably worst movie in recent years still blows everything DC has out of the water critically speaking. Except Nolan Batman.

They tried the same hand ( even the same writers ) at Man of Steel as they did with Batman, and it failed. Superman is lifeless and devoid of any charm, as are most of the characters. Its only saved by its action scenes and by Kevin Costner. So Batman is still the only thing DC can get right on the big screen, and even then it has about a 50/50 track record.

Nolan, Goyer and Singer can all write a damn good superhero movie. Yet all three of them could not inject any life into Superman on the big screen. If talented writers like that are struggling to find something to do with the character, then some fault lays with the character.

But, ultimately, you're right in that DC just doesn't seem to have much of a clue how to run their movie franchises. They struck gold with Nolan Batman, and thought it could solve all their problems. But it hasn't. They just don't have the same characterization, wit and attention to detail as Marvel's movie machine has developed.

For them to make a JLA movie at this point would be a terrible leap that would just be seen as a pale copycat of the Avengers.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

I'm just going to ask the obvious question at this point... is it the DC characters have been bad because they are bad, alien, and not compelling or is it because they have not been interpreted well on the big screen?

I mean, do we even get to see Iron Man if Sam Raimi started with Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man 1&2 (still the highest critically rated Marvel movie in existence) never happened? That's sort of what Superman Returns/Man of Steel have been only with a different tone... bad to average examples of what they're supposed to be. The Nolan trilogy represents a specific interpretation and one that at its lowest rated was a high 80's rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes. So when we say it has no charm, I'm not sure what you mean. Even in the third Nolan film, Selina Kyle and Lucius Fox add charm... it's just a dark movie about a mass terrorist event. The Avengers at its heart is a war movie that only lasts for one act and the scenes about the humans being effected have been deliberately cut out. It's Whedon writing fun dialogue and it's an echo of Raimi's style. That's great, but that's not the formula by which all things should be written.

When we look at the animated DC characters, the past interpretations I get the feeling that DC has simply waited too long for great ideas. Marvel runs their movie operations like a business unit that puts out so much output a year. It looks for talent to bring them to the big screen, gives them the direction they need to tie everything together and then backs off.

DC does it wrong. They tend to solicit scripts and pass constantly. And in that incredible lack of actual output, they hurt themselves twice by not really getting great at the process and magnifying their failures. Do we talk about Spider-Man 3, the clunky X-Men (my personal bias on that one), either Hulk movie or X3? Not really because plenty of replacements have already been made. And as much as I'd like to credit the characters, I can't since as someone who isn't that comic savvy, I only found one baddy from Iron Man compelling (and he wasn't really a bad guy) and Loki and that's about it unless you want to get back to maybe Raimi's Dr. Ock which is entirely a Raimi interpretation.

Was The First Avenger really that good? Was Thor really? They weren't horrible, but I submit if those were DC characters we would be hearing why they prove DC characters only make average films. Hulk was all but assumed to be a horrible character for film until The Avengers.

There's nothing wrong with failing in Green Lantern 1 as long as you can figure out what went wrong and fix it the next time around. DC didn't bother. Was Superman Returns a failure? Yep. Could it have been fixed with a sequel? You bet. Guys like Martian Manhunter, the Green Arrow, or the Flash can work just fine. Take a page from Raimi who absolutely pissed off purists yet made critical darlings (except for 3): take what you need from source material you love and discard the rest. Tone, style, and levels of characterization all should work for the type of film your making, they aren't prescriptive in terms of making a successful film though.