‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

STID was a generally fun movie with some significant flaws, but neither its heights nor its depths were extreme. Man of Steel had some parts that were brilliant and inspired, but unfortunately it had other parts that were utterly abysmal and horrible and wrong and poisoned the rest. In my blog review I called it "the best and worst Superman movie ever."

 

TDKR returns to BB, where Wayne mentions that Batman needs to be a symbol, so that everyone can be behind that mask, even if he is killed. That's all what TDKR is about.

 

1) Blame Christopher Nolan

2) Uh... GL more than doubled the gross of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

3) Only in the fanboy community. Regular folks don't care.

4) You need pals on the inside. Jennifer Garner, for example, has already seen her husband's new Batman suit.

 

No, I've seen a lot of similarly mixed reactions from more mainstream critics. It's at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning opinions are pretty evenly divided. Glancing over the review excerpts, even many of the reviews marked positive complain about the excesses of the climax or the humorlessness of the film.

 

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance made $132.5 million worldwide against a production budget of $57 million. Green Lantern made $219.8 million worldwide against a production budget of $200 million. The latter is a much worse result.

The fanboy community and the critics were split, but you're right that the general public was much more positive. While Man of Steel has a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics, its audience rating is 76%, similar to its IMDB rating of 7.4, and it had a Cinemascore of A- on its opening weekend. Iron Man 3, on the other hand, has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 78% from critics and an audience rating of 80%, while its IMDB rating is 7.4 and it had a Cinemascore of A.

 

Dammit, next time I'm bringing up Punisher: War Zone.

 

That made me snigger out loud like Beavis and Butthead.

 

Wow, I didn't realize Spirit of Vengeance actually made that much. I thought it was total and complete bomb that nobody went to see.

 

It had a big drop-off from the first film. Ghost Rider made $228.7 million against a $110 million production budget. The sequel made almost $100 million less. The sequel was going to be a big budget film, with a budget initially set at $135 million. Sony saw the writing on the wall and saved themselves from taking a loss by slashing the budget way down.

 

Spirit of Vengeance was definitely a failure for Sony.

SONY gave the Ghost Rider rights back to Marvel Studios after Spirit of Vengeance flopped. I guess they were hoping for some bonus points from Disney for doing that.

 

Pardon me while I revisit this.

You obviously don't think that anyone at Warner Bros knows what they're doing. I think you're wrong. Bringing Batman into the sequel to Man of Steel is a brilliant move. I don't think anyone here anticipated it, and someone certainly should have if we're all so much smarter than WB execs.

While we love knocking studio people, I believe there is serious planning going on at Warner Bros/DC. We're just unlucky not to be in on the discussions. They're not copying the MCU approach but they're not winging it either. You and many others would be far less frustrated and annoyed if you had friends at the studio feeding you intelligence on WB's plans. My bottom line is "wait and see," not "it's a trainwreck."

 

No one here anticipated a Batman vs. Superman movie? Are you serious? People have been wanting a Batman vs. Superman film for decades. It's not some crazy idea that only a genius could come up with; it's incredibly obvious and the only thing I didn't anticipate is how long it took WB to get off its ass and finally make it happen.

 

I think Bad Bishop's point is that nobody anticipated a Batman/Superman movie so soon after Man of Steel. I think most fans expected a trilogy of Man of Steel films, or at least a proper Man of Steel sequel, and maybe a couple of individual films like The Flash or Wonder Woman before even getting a Batman/Superman movie.

Warner Bros. is obviously not wanting to replicate Marvel's model, but emulate it. I have to agree with Bad Bishop that by putting Batman in a Man of Steel sequel this is their best bet to do that. If they followed Marvel's approach (individual movies eventually leading to a team-up movie) then they would get criticized for copying. At least here they are doing something different by teaming up a couple of superheroes in a movie before eventually building up to a Justice League movie.

As a matter of fact, I would love to see a Green Lantern movie but with appearances by Martin Manhunter or a Wonder Woman movie with appearances by Superman. Or an Aquaman movie with appearances by other Justice League members. It would be an interesting approach, if done well.

 

What Bad Bishop and JacksonArcher said.

Recall that the Batman/Superman movie was revealed at SDCC last year. Nearly a month after MOS had debuted in theaters. Nobody saw it coming that soon. TPTB must have been highly satisfied with the movie and the business it was doing at the BO; to green light a sequel as early as they did.

 

As I said, they saved themselves from a loss with the big budget cut. Even so, the huge drop-off in box office from the first film meant it wasn't worth their while continuing the franchise.

 

Warner Brothers had plans for a Superman/Batman filmed do be directed by Wolfgang Peterson and a Wonder Woman and Flash movies but all those plans fell though along with t he George Miller directed JLA movie. It's obvious that the WB looked at how successful Marvel has been with their MCU movies and are now scrambling to catch up.

 

But the operative word there is "seem." It would be a huge mistake to assume that the lack of clarity in what's been made public to date represents a lack of clarity in the actual planning. What we see is just the tip of the iceberg. Heck, it's just the barest glimpse of the iceberg peering over the horizon. For all we know, they may have a very clear, detailed plan for their films; but we're just learning about it in dribs and drabs, through secondhand sources and rumors and leaks and speculations. So what we're aware of is bound to be a whole lot vaguer and more confused than what's actually being done behind the scenes.

 

Yes, that's true, but rushing a Batman vs. Superman film isn't a sign of brilliance. It's a sign of panic. WB is scrambling to catch up with Marvel and make the money that they could have made years ago.