You could say the same thing about the Western. Its not a genre its a setting.
Stagecoach
Paint Your Wagon
Blazing Saddles
How The West was Won
A Fistful of Dollars
Don't Fence Me In
None of these movies are the same genre.
DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
You could say the same thing about the Western. Its not a genre its a setting.
Stagecoach
Paint Your Wagon
Blazing Saddles
How The West was Won
A Fistful of Dollars
Don't Fence Me In
None of these movies are the same genre.
More speculation, with an interpretation of Momoa's recent post about "the maestro" (supposedly a reference to Snyder) and JL2:
Zack Snyder's Return!! PLUS Christopher Nolan & Steven Spielberg meet w/ David Zaslav!! 2:24 - 3:26
Regarding Spielberg, he has mentioned interest in DC's Blackhawk series, so I believe if he directed anything for DC, it might be a Blackhawk film. The idea of a Blackhawk movie has been tossed around for years, but its never reached the development stage. The comic's setting would not be foreign territory to Spielberg (meaning capturing the feel of Raiders of the Lost Ark more than anything else).
Zack Snyder's Return!! PLUS Christopher Nolan & Steven Spielberg meet w/ David Zaslav!! 2:24 - 3:26
Regarding Spielberg, he has mentioned interest in DC's Blackhawk series, so I believe if he directed anything for DC, it might be a Blackhawk film. The idea of a Blackhawk movie has been tossed around for years, but its never reached the development stage. The comic's setting would not be foreign territory to Spielberg (meaning capturing the feel of Raiders of the Lost Ark more than anything else).
But the fact that it's a setting does make it more limited in adaptability. There came a point when audiences were just less interested in seeing things in that setting regardless of genre. What would the equivalent problem for the superhero genre even be? No more special heroes with astounding abilities? The superhero genre didn't even invent those.
The superhero genre may not have invented it, but it made such a full, year-by-year investment in its development, that superheros are the cultural default for "special heroes with astounding abilities" whether in direct adaptation, parody or common reference. It is their inherent trait/hallmark. The superhero (and its genre) is so associated with it that in a number of interviews, George Lucas used such characters as a contrast to the Jedi, to point out that Jedi have limitations and are not invincible super-beings like the comic book superhero. So, fictional characters with fantastic powers are as defining for the genre as the Western setting was its genre.
The only outliers (who are more versatile in that they work in and out of the superhero genre) are characters such as The Punisher.
The only outliers (who are more versatile in that they work in and out of the superhero genre) are characters such as The Punisher.
And yet, if audiences completely turned against the traditional presentation of characters with fantastic abilities studios could easily respond with characters like the Punisher or with even more down to earth versions of already grounded characters like Batman, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, etc. Would we really not consider such movies 'superhero movies' just because the presentation is different?
You mentioned superheroes with actual superhuman powers that give them an edge in a fight, Daredevil's superhuman senses, JJ's and Cage's superhuman strength etc.. Their setting may be grounded, i.e. no fancy space adventures or outlandish visual effects when their powers are used ( the optical blasts of Cyclops for example) but they still do show this in fights.
One may even consider Batman as superhuman even though he's "classified" as peak human physique but i dare you to show me an olympic athlete or martial artist who could perform all the physical feats Batman does on a regular basis and not get massive health problems within a year.
Personally i believe the MCU is slowly losing quality. Since Endgame there have been few movies i actually call good or interesting, others were just mediocre or plain bad ( Thor Love and Thunder was just ugh), the same goes for the TV shows.
DC has just a general problem in so far as their movies are simply not good, at least most of them ( The Batman was just awesome start to finish). I haven't seen Black Adam yet but in recent years the only movies i actually liked were Wonder Woman 1, Gunn's Suicide Squad and Aquaman, with Shazam a decent superhero funny movie ( mainly because i really like Zach Levy since his Chuck days).
Let's if James Gunn can turn it around and get the DC movieverse on track.
I don't mind if superhero movies are here to stay, no matter the quality. I don't have to see them so why make a fuss.
You're talking about how they are right now, not what could theoretically be done with them if audiences got tired of how they are right now.
Batman, for instance, is very, very close to what the old school James Bond used to be. And he could very easily be reimagined in the same way Bond was reimagined for the Craig series. In fact, Batman could go even farther than Bond did since he has the detective angle to fall back on which makes it 100% possible to tell great Batman stories with almost no actual fighting in them at all.
There's no reason characters like Luke Cage, Jessica Jones or many others couldn't just be put on screen in the vein of general badass action heroes a la Shaft, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, John Mcclane, etc. Daredevil could easily be toned down to the classic kung fu hero who's just 'perfectly aware of his surroundings' without anyone ever mentioning the words 'super-hearing'.
There are *tons* of superhero characters who could still be adapted easily even if people grew less open to movies about fantastic abilities. There are also tons who would be persona non grata during such a time. I doubt a Superman movie would take off in such an environment. But there's no good reason whatsoever to believe it would actually kill the genre as a whole, it would just change the focus and presentation of the genre.
Personally I disagree. Shang Chi is basically my favorite superhero movie period except for Endgame and No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness were great. Others were less good, but all told the older phases of the MCU didn't have any better of a success rate than that, anyway. There have always been less good MCU movies in the mix.
I will grant you the series having more issues on average (though I still count WandaVision and Werewolf by Night as top-shelf MCU), but I see no reason to attribute that to a general decline rather than attributing it to the whole D+ operation being new and still having to work out the kinks. Making great tv shows just isn't the same thing as making great movies.
In addition to those I personally also liked Birds of Prey and WW1984 (although I personally hated Aquaman, so our totals aren't far apart at all). But that issue also is something that has been going on for basically the entirety of the superhero era of dominance (even during the halcyon days of the Nolan trilogy, DC also put out stuff like Catwoman, Jonah Hex, and Green Lantern), so I just don't really see what it has to do with the idea of the genre eventually dying out.
That is most certainly true.
I'm not sure such a drastic tonal shift would work as well as it did for the Craig Bonds, that was a wonderful exception. The Batman was to a great degree a detective story and because they used a less experienced Batman he came off as more human but he still had all the trappings of Batman which the audience simply expects - i'm not sure having Bruce Wayne take up 80% of screen time would work in this context but if done right i would be willing to give it a shot, much like i gave Craig the benefit of the doubt and to me he became the best Bond in the entire franchise.
But then you are taking away what's central to these characters. The charm of characters like Ripley, McClane and the others is that they are regular people thrust into highly irregular circumstances and as normal people they have to get through it.
Superheros by defintion are not regular, even with low power abilities like Daredevils sonar sense or just "plain" superstrength like Jessica Jones. In her Netflix show it worked though because it was more of a noir detective story with occasional use of superheroics/villainy but once you get to the costumed/uniformed superheroes it quickly goes out of the window and the audience has certain expectations that i don't believe can be done away.
The comics can on occasion and have Wolverine do an out of costume story for most of the part in his solo series but sooner or later he will still pop the claws or heal some damage in record time.
I agree to some extent. Part of what i really liked about the current Superman TV show in its first season was to show Clark as a family man with normal family problems ( with the occasional injection of superheroics). However the show fell apart ( at least for me) when they sidelined this for the most part for the flashy Superman action fighting another powerful enemy - i've seen this for what feels like hundreds of time and it becomes boring.
However i also believe at some point people would also have enough of Clark getting the morning bagels from the bakery shop and setting up the coffee machine for breakfast if that would be all there was - a good balance would be preferrable.
Now the speculation is that it's about James Gunn and they are doing a Lobo movie together. He was even asked about it in an interview and he said people can check if they want to know who his favorite comic book character is. James Gunn also posted a Lobo picture on his socials.
We can disagree on which characters would or wouldn't work best under those circumstances, but ultimately the point is that lots of characters would so if we agree on that then there's no point arguing the rest.
As for the balance issue, yes I agree people would eventually get tired of there never being fantastic fight scenes. And that would just mean the genre would start to change back towards where it used to be before fantastic abilities somehow became unwanted. The idea of audiences deciding they don't want to see anymore fantastic abilities on screen and that somehow remaining the standard status quo for ever (or honestly even for very long, I'd give it a decade at most) just isn't credible given how common such fantastic abilities have always been in cinema (in lots of different genres).
You could say the same about countless action heroes in adventure fiction. Look at, say, any hardboiled detective from pulp fiction who got conked on the head by bad guys on a regular basis yet never suffered cumulative brain damage. Or any character who dramatically slashes their palm open with a knife to draw blood but is still able to use that hand normally with no impairment. That's not in-story superpowers, it's just dramatic license.
I don't think anyone in this thread is suggesting that all Batman movies should switch to being done a certain way -- the premise on the table, I believe, is that, since there are already at least three distinct Batman-based continuities in DC's live-action films with distinct tones and approaches (Affleck, Pattinson, and the Joker universe), there's no reason there couldn't be yet another alternative version, such as a lightweight Adam West-style one, coexisting with the rest.
And that surrender to expectations was my problem with it. I would've liked it better without the gratuitous big action sequences. The highway chase with the Penguin, in particular, was completely pointless. The sequence began with Batman and Gordon seeking to question the Penguin, and the aftermath of the chase was Batman and Gordon questioning the Penguin. So the actual chase could have been left out entirely with no impact whatsoever on the storyline. Action sequences should serve and advance the story and character arcs, not just interrupt them. (Although I give the highway chase credit for hitting all my fear buttons as a driver -- driving at night in the pouring rain and surrounded by semis.)
Pandering to expectations is lazy. The best stories are the ones that shatter expectations, or at least challenge them. What is even the point of telling stories if you don't give the audience anything they don't already have in their own heads?
Maybe it is lazy but i remember a saying that there are basically 6 original stories and everything that came after are only variations of it. You as a writer know probably more about that than me, it is just a hazy memory for me.
I believe there's two ways one can do this - just using an existing story and putting your own small twists into them, romantic comedies have done this for decades and almost a century now and they are still very popular.
That doesn't mean these are automatically not interesting or bad , sometimes they are so charming or the dialogue so well written that they make you forget that the basic story is something you've seen a dozen times already. An example would be When Harry met Sally which i consider one of the best RomComs ever made.
Then, to stay on topic, you have The Batman or Joaquin Phoenix' The Joker - storywise also nothing new but the acting performances and the cinematography provide an experience that is notable.
I agree and Nolans' style proved very popular as well as Tim Burtons', all with their very distinct style. It's just a question how fundamentally you can deviate without it becoming completely unrecognizeable, running the risk of turning away the audience. Yes, Craigs' Bond movies didn't use the ubiquitous Q gadgets for the most part and even made fun of it in his first movie but he still had all the character traits and the swagger that made up Bond, so it was less of an issue not to have a car that is only possible in Science Fiction.
That defines a starting point, not a limitation. Most vertebrates have the same basic body plan -- head, spine, rib cage, four limbs -- but nobody's going to mistake a fruit bat for a giraffe or a blue whale.
And it's not about pandering to expectations, it's about knowing what building blocks you have to work with. Any theme can be varied endlessly.
I reject the premise. It's nonsense to use familiarity as the only standard for success, since how would anything brand-new ever succeed then? What attracts an audience is TELLING A GOOD STORY. It's as simple as that. Riding on having a built-in audience is a lazy shortcut. If you just tell a good story, you will earn an audience regardless of prior familiarity. It may not be the same audience that liked the previous version, but who cares, as long as it's good?
I mean, I profoundly doubt the majority of the audience for Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica were fans of the original show; indeed, it was pretty much specifically made for people who disliked the original show, or who wouldn't have liked it if they'd ever seen it. The purpose of creating a new version of a thing is to attract a new audience, not just to pander to the old audience. After all, any existing audience base is bound to dwindle over time, so the specific goal of a remake or sequel or spinoff or reboot or whatever is to broaden the market and draw in people who weren't already fans.
So, Man of Steel?
If it happened, there would be precedent; after the 1960s' with movie and TV hero productions overflowing with fantasy spectacle, from the Bond, Matt Helm and Derek Flint films, the spy-themedTV series (e.g., the Man from U.N.C.L.E., how The Avengers evolved) to Batman, the end of that decade (and into the next) ushered in more grounded, serious crime / vigilante / gritty cop films from Bullitt and The Detective (both from 1968), to The French Connection & Dirty Harry (both released in 1971) to Shaft (also 1971--and not the "Blaxploitation" stereotype as claimed by some 1990s to present day reviewers who attempt to feed all things from the 70s through a silly / pop-nostalgia filter) to Death Wish (1974), studios were responding to the audience wanting to see more realistic heroes instead of the increasingly campy / goofy excesses from the 60s.
One of the reasons for the phenomenal success of Nolan's Bat-films (and influence on some superhero films to follow) was to bring what was created as a serious detective character (who happened to wear a costume for effect) back to that more grounded level. Obviously, the Nolan influence has been seen in some of the DCEU films he helped to develop, and there's certainly an audience more receptive to that, as opposed to the more effects-battered, "event" superhero movies. Even beyond that, if even the scent of the standard superhero is rejected, as noted before, they do have a somewhat "above average" vigilante in The Punisher (films continuing what the TV series started). That, and with the chatter about interest in DC's Deathstroke as a film, if both see the light of day, they might serve as the beginning of anti-hero / villain films that still give audiences a sense of the fantastic, but not from the cape and cowl universe.
Luke Cage, Daredevil and Jessica Jones are enhanced characters, who (in their Netflix form) were bridging the grounded with the fantastic as established the Nolan template; they are still seen as superheroes, however, if you stripped away their powers, their series would still function as crime / vigilante dramas. You certainly cannot do that with Ant-Man, Wanda or Green Lantern, for a few examples.
Interesting. Momoa is contracted for more Aquaman appearances (beyond his 1st sequel), so i'm not sure how a Lobo film would be workable from an in-universe perspective, unless its set in an alternate (non-DCEU) reality.
Personally, I believe the MCU has been slowly losing quality since "Age of Ultron". However, I think "Captain America: Civil War" really began to speed up the franchise's decline. There were a few productions I enjoyed, but not as much as those from Phases 1 and 2. As for the DCEU, I feel as if it has been a mixed affair since 2017's "Justice League". I think Hollywood should take a break on comic book movies.
The only way that happens is if people stop watching them. Regardless of subjective impressions of quality, the simple fact of the matter is they make money and draw in crowds. No break any time in the near future.
I know there is a new thread on this in the forum but wanted to add in here
the news about a voice (or some would say THE voice) of ainmated Batman, Kevin COnroy passed away at age 66
https://www.cbr.com/kevin-conroy-ba...cV2AvkHq5tHc7qzhzEKpMT6JMYn3DelcIehGb8dv_q63o
I post it here even though he "only" appeared in the Berlantiverse. It was i believe his only live action appearance as Bruce Wayne. It is a shame we didn't seem him in the DCFU, but at least he was out ther ein the multiverse, and was appreciated by many.
the news about a voice (or some would say THE voice) of ainmated Batman, Kevin COnroy passed away at age 66
https://www.cbr.com/kevin-conroy-ba...cV2AvkHq5tHc7qzhzEKpMT6JMYn3DelcIehGb8dv_q63o
I post it here even though he "only" appeared in the Berlantiverse. It was i believe his only live action appearance as Bruce Wayne. It is a shame we didn't seem him in the DCFU, but at least he was out ther ein the multiverse, and was appreciated by many.
He still voiced the character in enough movies, including the theatrically released Mask of the Phantasm.