DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

[Noname Given]

Green Lantern as an Earth-based show doesn't interest me that much.

Yeah that was my response to that announcement. It seems some people here are excited by it but for me outer space is a big part of the Green Lantern mythos, and I'm sorry but I hope it doesn't turn into some sort of buddy cop style series just with two guys in green suits and power rings that occasionally create mundane objects.

But time will tell.

 

[Tuskin38]

After seeing at least three of his recent productions - "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2", "The Suicide Squad" and "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" - I really find this hard to accept.

You're in the minority disliking those films if you haven't noticed.

 

[YLu]

I'm just happy it looks like this new universe will start in media res, with superheroes already established. Now that the general audience is conversant in superhero universes, they can just dive straight into the deep end instead of building from scratch with Superman's debut or whatever.

Creature Commandos - I remember someone saying every single comics writer seems to have their own "fantasy take on special forces" pitch. Understandable, since the concept has both the obvious cool factor as well as multiple obvious angles for social commentary, what with the soldiers being literally monstrous or demonic. I imagine this will be along those lines, too.

Waller - I would think film Waller is too villainous for her own series, so I wonder if this will hearken back to Ostrander's original more sympathetic portrayal of her. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I don't exactly have much appetite these days for sympathetic portrayals of government black ops types who make the hard choices and trample over civil rights for democracy and the greater good something something.

Superman Legacy - I know Gunn's a Morrison fan, so I hope this takes as much influence from their Action Comics run, which returned to the character's Golden Age social crusader roots, as their All Star Superman. Give me Superman dangling a corrupt CEO off a balcony, Gunn.

The Authority - Trying to tap into the The Boys market, maybe? I see the traditionalists are already unsure about this and would prefer less ultraviolent fare, but it's good there's going to be something for everyone. The tricky part is that the original Authority was so much about the action spectacle, but that's something that's old hat in the modern blockbuster genre, so how to make a film version stick out?

The Brave and the Bold - I feel this is really going to live or die on the casting of Damian. They need the male equivalent of the actress who played the kid in Logan, but who can also do Dr. Doom-style pompous arrogance. Quite an ask.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow - They say she's going to be "hardcore" but if it's really based on the King and Evely take, then she's still a wholly heroic character and all it means is she sometimes has a potty-mouth. Anyway, I really liked that series so I'm down.

Swamp Thing - With talk about exploring his origin, this has to be based on The Anatomy Lesson, right?

 

[Saul]

Damian Wayne does open the door to Nightwing or Batgirl 2.0. "The Batman" aside we're finally getting the Bat family!

The Bat family never really interested me. I find Damian to be a bit hokey and annoying. At the very least I'd rather them set up the League of Shadows, Talia, Ras and then do Damian later on down the line.

 

[theenglish]

I imagine that this movie will have the set up along with Damien's origin story. One thing about the current Bat Family is that there are just too many Robins. For simplicity's sake, I hope this new DCU has Bruce, Dick, and Damian without Jason, Stephanie, or Tim.

 

[DigificWriter]

Honestly, as of now, the only things I actually care about are Swamp Thing and The Authority, but only if the latter uses Wildstorm-exclusive characters.

 

[theenglish]

Honestly, as of now, the only things I actually care about are Swamp Thing and The Authority, but only if the latter uses Wildstorm-exclusive characters.

Based on the description, it seems like it will be the more modern Authority.

 

[DigificWriter]

Based on the description, it seems like it will be the more modern Authority.

The picture Gunn displayed features the Wildstorm-exclusive OG lineup of Apollo, Midnighter, Swift, Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, The Engineer, and The Doctor, so I'm going to cry foul if those aren't the characters that get used.

 

[theenglish]

The picture Gunn displayed features the Wildstorm-exclusive OG lineup of Apollo, Midnighter, Swift, Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, The Engineer, and The Doctor, so I'm going to cry foul if those aren't the characters that get used.

The original characters may be there as opposed to the original line up, but I thought I read that they will have a connection to Superman-- which immediately made me think of the recent Warworld story.

 

[DigificWriter]

The original characters may be there as opposed to the original line up, but I thought I read that they will have a connection to Superman-- which immediately made me think of the recent Warworld story.

Nothing that I can find gives any indication that Superman is going to have any direct link to this Authority film, and Gunn has specifically called out the group as being from the Wildstorm imprint, which is why I'm hinging my interest in the film on whether or not it features characters who were originally exclusive to the Wildstorm universe.

 

[theenglish]

I hope you're right on that. I've recently become interested in reading more of the older Wildstorm books. It does seem that Gunn is really leaning in to comic "auteurs" and their stories. We're moving away from Johns and Miller inspired stuff and seem to have both Superman and Batman movies based on Morrison stories. Let's hope he likes the original Wildstorm-verse as well.

 

[Mage]

So they're still saying the Batgirl film was "not releasable" because it was made for the small screen and didn't look good enough to fit with their movie slate. But why not just release on TV, then, like it was meant for? It sounds like they aren't saying it was bad, just that it was a smaller-budget project when they were determined to do only big-budget movies, which strikes me as arbitrary and narrow-minded. There should be room in the world for smaller, non-blockbuster movies that don't have to make a billion dollars to turn a profit.

The way I read it here, they just say 'not releasable', period. Nothing about not good enough for the big screen. Just not good enough.
https://www.joblo.com/batgirl-movie-dc-studios-peter-safran/

However, other sites might report differently. Can you link to what you saw or read?

 

[Captaindemotion]

One thing I’m wondering is that if this is a young Superman but Batman is the father of a son who’s old enough to be Robin, is it going to be a bit like the Snyderverse, with its older, jaded (initially, anyway), Batman and younger Superman?

 

[Mage]

One thing I’m wondering is that if this is a young Superman but Batman is the father of a son who’s old enough to be Robin, is it going to be a bit like the Snyderverse, with its older, jaded (initially, anyway), Batman and younger Superman?

There are many ways to go with Batman and a younger Superman. Besides.... What if Bruce had a thing in his earlier years as Batman. Or before he became Batman? In his early 20's, while training with the League? Robin is 14, Bruce is 37. Superman as a... What? 33 year old works. That's his age in MoS.

Not everyone becomes a parent in their late 30's.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Wasn't Damien's age accelerated? He also wasn't conceived in the "traditional" way, if I remember correctly.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Wasn't Damien's age accelerated? He also wasn't conceived in the "traditional" way, if I remember correctly.

Ah, I see, I’m not overly familiar with the character TBH

 

[Christopher]

Waller - I would think film Waller is too villainous for her own series, so I wonder if this will hearken back to Ostrander's original more sympathetic portrayal of her. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I don't exactly have much appetite these days for sympathetic portrayals of government black ops types who make the hard choices and trample over civil rights for democracy and the greater good something something.

Hmm. On the one hand, I agree about not caring for that kind of story. On the other hand, depicting a character's actions is not the same thing as endorsing them. There are lots of great movies and shows that sympathetically portray characters whose actions are indisputably evil and wrong, which is why there are whole genres of movies and TV shows about mobsters or assassins or serial killers or brutal tyrants. Sometimes the point of making them sympathetic is not to say that their actions are good or justified, but to explore how their choices harm them and the people around them, in order to illustrate why they're so bad. If we didn't identify with the character sinking into this dark place, we wouldn't feel so strongly about the harm it's doing to their soul.

I think the character of Waller and the talent of Viola Davis lend themselves superbly to something nuanced and complex like that. I think it's a waste of both that DCEU Waller has been so one-dimensionally evil up to now. On the other hand, my own interest in seeing something dark and nuanced like that is minimal. I never watched Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. But for people who like that kind of story, it could be done very well.

The way I read it here, they just say 'not releasable', period. Nothing about not good enough for the big screen. Just not good enough.
https://www.joblo.com/batgirl-movie-dc-studios-peter-safran/

However, other sites might report differently. Can you link to what you saw or read?

It's right there in the link you provided. "...the film just was not releasable. It would not have been able to compete in the theatrical marketplace; it was built for the small screen." Which does not rule out the possibility that it could have been a good, worthwhile small-screen movie. It's just a casualty of their arbitrary decision to abandon any movies that aren't gigantic-budgeted blockbusters.

Wasn't Damien's age accelerated? He also wasn't conceived in the "traditional" way, if I remember correctly.

Yes to the former, no to the latter. He was conceived when Bruce and Talia became lovers in the graphic novel Son of the Batman, even though that was meant at the time to be out-of-continuity.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Yes to the former, no to the latter. He was conceived when Bruce and Talia became lovers in the graphic novel Son of the Batman, even though that was meant at the time to be out-of-continuity.

Son of the Demon. But yes, checking online, it appears to have been canonized by Grant Morrison with the introduction of Damian (not Damien, weird that I misspelled it before when I've read his name so often in print). I thought I'd remembered some article about how it was specified at some point that Damian wasn't actually the same as in the Son of the Demon GN, and that he was basically the product of a stolen DNA sample, but honestly, with the probably hundreds of articles on weird storylines I've read over the years, I guess I just remembered details from one wrong.

 

[Christopher]

Son of the Demon. But yes, checking online, it appears to have been canonized by Grant Morrison with the introduction of Damian

Yes, which is what I meant when I said Son was intended at the time to be out of continuity -- that Morrison retroactively brought it into continuity.

I thought I'd remembered some article about how it was specified at some point that Damian wasn't actually the same as in the Son of the Demon GN, and that he was basically the product of a stolen DNA sample, but honestly, with the probably hundreds of articles on weird storylines I've read over the years, I guess I just remembered details from one wrong.

I can't find any version of him in the DC wiki that has that origin. The closest thing is that the animated direct-to-DVD movie continuity established that Talia had drugged Batman to have sex with him. In other words, she raped him, but because of society's gendered double standards, this was portrayed as something Batman wasn't too bothered by because he enjoyed it -- ugh. (Those movies could be pretty sexist. Talia spent the entirety of Son of Batman with her jumpsuit unzipped to the waist.)

 

[Kai "the spy"]

I can't find any version of him in the DC wiki that has that origin. The closest thing is that the animated direct-to-DVD movie continuity established that Talia had drugged Batman to have sex with him. In other words, she raped him, but because of society's gendered double standards, this was portrayed as something Batman wasn't too bothered by because he enjoyed it -- ugh. (Those movies could be pretty sexist. Talia spent the entirety of Son of Batman with her jumpsuit unzipped to the waist.)

Don't worry about it. My mind probably just extrapolated it from the artificially accelerated aging at some point. It's not like I have a clear memory of reading it.