They are going ahead with a Justice League movie

[SG-17]

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

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true, but the Avengers haven't fought Thanos yet. Justice League could beat them to the punch so to speak. but there are other bad guys who can go toe to toe with the JL. Despero or Amazo just to name two.

Neither of them are as well known as Darkseid. Though if they don't use Darkseid the only other villain I could see is a multitude, the Secret Society or the Injustice League/Gang.

[Captain Craig]

Out Of My Vulcan Mind wrote:

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For a superhero movie in general, no, but for Thor in particular I think he actually was a pretty obvious choice.

Agreed. Your wording here is perfect to describe the scenario.
I thought Branagh was spot on casting.
I thought Johnson for Cap:FA was inspired.
Whedon on Avengers made so much sense to me you'd have thought I was in on the decision.
I was indifferent with Leterrier on TIH and think it's really the under appreciated film from Phase One.

Flying Spaghetti Monster, I don't think anyone would disagree there is a bottom to the well. At some point no one will care about a D-Man movie or Ambush Bug film. Where the bottom is and how far down the rabbit hole success can be farmed is the question. Blade is a C-lister in the books but is considered very "mainstream" by general movie audiences. How oftern can that be repeated? We'll all find out together.

[Admiral2]

SG-17 wrote:

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Neither of them are as well known as Darkseid. Though if they don't use Darkseid the only other villain I could see is a multitude, the Secret Society or the Injustice League/Gang.

Let's make it really obscure. I vote for the Anti-Monitor!!

[the G-man]

SG-17 wrote:

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Neither of them are as well known as Darkseid. Though if they don't use Darkseid the only other villain I could see is a multitude, the Secret Society or the Injustice League/Gang.

Or they could have saved Zod, et al, for a Justice League movie instead of using him in Snyder's Superman.

[the G-man]

Captain Craig wrote:

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Agreed. Your wording here is perfect to describe the scenario.
I thought Branagh was spot on casting.
I thought Johnson for Cap:FA was inspired.
Whedon on Avengers made so much sense to me you'd have thought I was in on the decision.
I was indifferent with Leterrier on TIH and think it's really the under appreciated film from Phase One.

Flying Spaghetti Monster, I don't think anyone would disagree there is a bottom to the well. At some point no one will care about a D-Man movie or Ambush Bug film. Where the bottom is and how far down the rabbit hole success can be farmed is the question. Blade is a C-lister in the books but is considered very "mainstream" by general movie audiences...

Not mention the fact that Men in Black was originally an incredibly obscure comic book.

[Greg Cox]

Admiral2 wrote:

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Let's make it really obscure. I vote for the Anti-Monitor!!

Starro!

[Christopher]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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Ok, whatever, It may be my opinion, and the opinion of almost anyone I meet. It might also be shared by a majority of critics on Rotten tomatoes that I've read, various blogs by genre fans I've visited. Hardly accurate sources, and I haven't conducted any scientific surveys or recorded statistics, - and my opinion certainly colors things, but I'm just stating what I see.

Well, if advance opinions on the Internet reflected reality, then every movie ever made would be a disaster. Remember how much people complained about the idea of Heath Ledger playing the Joker, until they actually saw the footage?

People use the Internet to gripe and complain and express doubt. It's just noise until the actual films arrive. As long as studios keep making good superhero movies, I think people will still go to see them, no matter how much they complain in advance.

I would not be surprised if ASM has mediocre box office reception.

I hope not. I really like what I'm seeing in the trailers, and I feel this new interpretation of Spidey has the potential to be at least as good as Raimi's, and also very different.

I think Marvel's strategy, the way they built it up (not to mention good casting) was what made Avengers so successful.

No, that laid the foundations, but that alone wasn't nearly enough. Sure, all that built up a ton of buzz about the film, but if the film hadn't actually been good enough to live up to those heightened expectations, then the result would've been a fierce backlash. The fact that it's such a huge hit even now, weeks after its premiere, shows that it actually was good enough to live up to -- and even exceed -- the hype. It is completely misguided to say that the film's own quality had nothing to do with its success.

And on the subject of casting... Scarlett Johanssen was rather disappointing in Iron Man 2, impressing with her looks but dragging the film down every time she delivered a line of dialogue. And yet in The Avengers she's one of the most central players and gives one of the best-received, richest performances. And that's because Joss Whedon knows how to write rich, complex heroines and how to bring out the best in actors. The script and the direction made all the difference.

It also felt like a comic book on screen dispensing with the things people didn't want really see again (romance plots, origin stories)

I liked the way that romance was present but was treated matter-of-factly as a part of life. You had Tony and Pepper's relationship, and you had Coulson chatting with them about his cellist girlfriend just as background texture (which then took on a poignant dimension). And you had the implicit, unvoiced romance between Widow and Hawkeye, two hard, detached people who would only really tend to show emotion in subtle ways.

But they just will keep going to that well again and again. It will run dry.

What "well," really? Movies about colorful heroes fighting bad guys? Has Hollywood ever stopped making movies like that? Sure, this particular breed of heroes wear costumes and have superpowers, but that's superficial. People like to see action-adventure movies with heroes and villains, and superhero comics are a natural source for that.

And it's not like they're only telling one kind of story. Thor is high fantasy, Captain America was a WWII epic, the Nolan Batfilms are gritty crime dramas (although he's saying The Dark Knight Rises is a historical epic in the mold of Doctor Zhivago or a Fritz Lang film), Green Lantern is (potentially) grand space opera, etc. There's plenty of variety, plenty of directions to take it.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Flying Spaghetti Monster, I don't think anyone would disagree there is a bottom to the well. At some point no one will care about a D-Man movie or Ambush Bug film. Where the bottom is and how far down the rabbit hole success can be farmed is the question. Blade is a C-lister in the books but is considered very "mainstream" by general movie audiences. How oftern can that be repeated? We'll all find out together.

I'm not talking about ideas, as there's always going to be comic books that could be later become films. I'm talking about the public's desire to see yet another film with superheroes in them. There is a big difference.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Starro!

heh. if Watchmen can't give us a giant scary squid then JLA can!

[Greg Cox]

Captain Craig wrote:

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At some point no one will care about a D-Man movie or Ambush Bug film. Where the bottom is and how far down the rabbit hole success can be farmed is the question. Blade is a C-lister in the books but is considered very "mainstream" by general movie audiences. How oftern can that be repeated? We'll all find out together.

I don't know. I think maybe we put too much emphasis on the A-list, C-list thing. The Mask, Hellboy, and Ghost Rider were all pretty obscure, too, but they succeeded, as did Blade and Men in Black.

Done right, with a hot new comic in the lead, I can see AMBUSH BUG being a hit. Just like THE MASK was back in the eighties.

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Just like THE MASK was back in the eighties.

Nineties.

[Guy Gardener]

There were Mask comics before that movie?

Meanwhile Hellboy is creator owned.

The suits only had to butter up one guy.

Ghost rider on the other hand was suits vs. suits and you can see the cluster fuck resultant because of that soulless exchange of ideas.

[Greg Cox]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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There were Mask comics before that movie?

Yep. Which proves my point. The movie was a hit even though most people had never heard of the comics (even if I got the decade wrong!)

So maybe Ambush Bug has a chance?

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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There were Mask comics before that movie?

Like Hellboy, the Mask is a Dark Horse Comics property. The comics are much more hard-edged than the movie, or movies actually - there was a sequel, Son of the Mask, with Jamie Kennedy, which bombed horribly and which most people aren't aware of.

[Greg Cox]

Out Of My Vulcan Mind wrote:

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there was a sequel, Son of the Mask, with Jamie Kennedy, which bombed horribly and which most people aren't aware of.

Now on sale at my local Wal-Mart for $5!