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DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

With all the reshoots,, and removal of actors they probably paid a pretty penny for; I really have to wonder how bloated the budget is now for The Flash movie; and how David Zaslav will react if it doesn't do huge $1 Billion+ worldwide box office?

(Hell, he might even consider a $1 billion box office performance underperforming at this point.)
 
I mean, what's he gonna do? The movie was made under the old regime, he handpicked the new team heading any further DC properties, who already made clear that completing the script before doing any other work on a movie will be a new policy. He might make sure Ezra Miller won't be in any further films, but other than that ...
 
Kai "the spy" said:
Again, Clooney is 61. He's older than Batman was in The Dark Knight Returns. He's over ten years older than Affleck, who was deemed old to start a Batman franchise when he was announced for the role about nine years ago. Not to mention that Clooney probably does not want to commit to a whole shared universe franchise of possible appearances in both live-action and animation.
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Well, sure, I wasn't saying he should be Batman now, just that I always wished he'd gotten another chance to do it right. The conventional wisdom is "Clooney was a bad Batman," and I'm saying the problem was the movie, not the actor. In terms of casting alone, I found him a better fit for the role than Keaton or Kilmer or even Bale.


But while I wouldn't rule it out, I do still think it's a long shot. James Gunn's comment about not casting anyone until their movie's script is finished, that alone makes it highly unlikely we'll really see the new DCU's Batman in The Flash.
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Oh, sure. If they're building a new universe, they'll want to do things their own way and pick the actors that work for their vision of the characters, not be saddled with leftovers from the previous regime. It's like how when Universal attempted to get its "Dark Universe" franchise up and running -- they hastily filmed a tacked-on modern-day ending to the standalone Dracula Untold with the intent that it could be folded into the planned shared universe, but the developers of that shared universe decided to go their own way instead and not be beholden to someone else's version of Dracula. (Although it was rendered moot when The Mummy bombed and the shared universe was abandoned.)
 
I've been seeing some comments on other sites about how Superman: Legacy shouldn't prioritize Clark's relationship with Lois, how he should have another love interest, etc.

The quote in my sig should make my position on this subject clear.

Personally, I think Clark should consider himself lucky Lois lets him be in her movies. ;)
 
Other love interests have been tried multiple times since the early 80s and never stick. The character of Lois has come a long way since the Silver Age. She is one of my favourite DC characters and would be even without Superman.
 
theenglish said:
Other love interests have been tried multiple times since the early 80s and never stick. The character of Lois has come a long way since the Silver Age.
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True, but some of the foundations for her modern characterization were laid in the Golden Age. There were some solo Lois Lane backup stories in the comics of the 1940s, and Lois was pretty badass in them, usually saving herself and catching the bad guys with little to no help from Superman. She was also pretty bold and adventurous in the Fleischer cartoon shorts, at least the ones made during WWII, when women were participating more equally in society while the men were off at war.

Still, in the early days, she was more a rival for Clark than a love interest, and for all that she crushed on Superman, he seemed to enjoy unfairly using his superpowers to steal scoops from her and impede her efforts to prove that a "girl reporter" could hold her own with the boys. They didn't really have what I'd call a relationship, just a token secret-identity triangle of the type codified by The Mark of Zorro, where the woman falls for the dashing hero identity but despises the meek civilian cover identity.

I think things got somewhat more romantic for them in the Bronze Age comics, but I'm not sure the perception of Superman and Lois having a great romance for the ages really took off, or even existed, until the Reeve-Kidder movies. If so, it's perhaps the best influence those movies have had on the Superman mythos. Lois is much more impressive as Clark/Superman's equal partner.
 
Christopher said:
I think things got somewhat more romantic for them in the Bronze Age comics, but I'm not sure the perception of Superman and Lois having a great romance for the ages really took off, or even existed, until the Reeve-Kidder movies. If so, it's perhaps the best influence those movies have had on the Superman mythos. Lois is much more impressive as Clark/Superman's equal partner.
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But even that romance didn't last beyond the second movie. DC comics even had Clark dating Lana around the time the third movie came out. It wasn't until the Byrne run that the foundation for the current version of Lois was set.
 
I would try other girls before Lois but he will eventually be with her.

That’s why I want a “Superman Beyond” movie. What does Superman do after Lois has past away. I doubt he becomes celibate. He’s allowed to love again. Even Lois would want that.
 
Growing up in the early 70s, Lois had stories in Superman Family where she was pretty badass. However, she was *always* known as Supes' "girlfriend", even when she was saving herself. Some writers even had bad guys underestimate her because of it.
 
theenglish said:
But even that romance didn't last beyond the second movie. DC comics even had Clark dating Lana around the time the third movie came out. It wasn't until the Byrne run that the foundation for the current version of Lois was set.
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That doesn't refute my point, because I'm talking about when the perception began to change, when we began to see Superman and Lois portrayed as a great love story. Naturally it takes more than one iteration of a concept for it to become iconic and taken for granted by the public, but it had to start somewhere. The first two movies were the first time I can think of (imaginary stories aside) that portrayed Superman and Lois as a great love story, with the romantic relationship being central to the plot, rather than just unrequited romantic tension. That was then reinforced by the Byrne comics, by Lois & Clark drawing inspiration from them, and so on.

And of course, the Reeve movies have been influential on just about everything that followed, including the Byrne reboot. It's not just their portrayal of Lois and Superman, but other things like Jimmy Olsen being a photographer instead of a cub reporter, the crystalline Kryptonian designs, the elevation of General Zod to arch-nemesis status, the codification of Kansas as Smallville's state (Bronze Age DC put it near Metropolis in the Eastern US), etc. For better or worse, they cast a very long shadow on how the Superman mythos is understood today.
 
Kai "the spy" said:
Also, while it isn't canon, Jerry Siegel did try to have Lois learn Superman's secret identity relatively early on (1940 or -41), having her help him more directly, which would certainly boosted the romance angle, but he was overruled by the higher-ups.
You can read more about it in this oldComic Book Urban Legends Revealed article.
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And a bonus to learn about the cringy Nightcat. This is pretty wild. Arguably, having Lois learn Clark was Superman as early as 1941 would have changed the format of secret identities permanently. We might never have had Peter Parking keeping his secret from Gwen Stacy or any of the other super-heroes keeping their identities from loved ones.
 
The Realist said:
I've been seeing some comments on other sites about how Superman: Legacy shouldn't prioritize Clark's relationship with Lois, how he should have another love interest, etc.

The quote in my sig should make my position on this subject clear.

Personally, I think Clark should consider himself lucky Lois lets him be in her movies. ;)
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Here's hoping they don't drag out the Superman/Lois/Clark Triangle thing, because it's NOT romantic...it's creepy.
 
Christopher said:
That doesn't refute my point, because I'm talking about when the perception began to change, when we began to see Superman and Lois portrayed as a great love story. Naturally it takes more than one iteration of a concept for it to become iconic and taken for granted by the public, but it had to start somewhere. The first two movies were the first time I can think of (imaginary stories aside) that portrayed Superman and Lois as a great love story, with the romantic relationship being central to the plot, rather than just unrequited romantic tension. That was then reinforced by the Byrne comics, by Lois & Clark drawing inspiration from them, and so on.
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Slightly before the Reeves movie came out in December 1978, the Great Love Story was portrayed in Action Comics #484, in which we saw how the Earth-2 Clark and Lois fell in love and got married. It was the 40th anniversary issue of Action Comics. It's a wonderful story.

I'm no Earth-2 expert - was this the first time they showed Lois and Clark as married? If so, this might be the real starting point.
 
Commander Troi said:
Slightly before the Reeves movie came out in December 1978, the Great Love Story was portrayed in Action Comics #484, in which we saw how the Earth-2 Clark and Lois fell in love and got married. It was the 40th anniversary issue of Action Comics. It's a wonderful story.

I'm no Earth-2 expert - was this the first time they showed Lois and Clark as married? If so, this might be the real starting point.
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I'm pretty sure there were imaginary stories and the like where Lois married Superman. I found a link to a CBR article that mention two such stories. One in the Superman comic strip and one in the comics.
 
Commander Troi said:
Slightly before the Reeves movie came out in December 1978, the Great Love Story was portrayed in Action Comics #484, in which we saw how the Earth-2 Clark and Lois fell in love and got married. It was the 40th anniversary issue of Action Comics. It's a wonderful story.

I'm no Earth-2 expert - was this the first time they showed Lois and Clark as married? If so, this might be the real starting point.
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There were plenty of imaginary and alternate stories that did that sort of thing as one-shots, but they were separate from the main continuity, and thus not treated as a central part of the overall Superman narrative. That's what I'm talking about. The Realist referenced their signature quote that "Superman is inherently a love story." That's not talking about the occasional single story, it's talking about the core definition of the entire series. My point is that today we see the relationship between Clark and Lois as a fundamental, inseparable part of what defines Superman as a character and a franchise, but that was not always the case. The potential for romance was always there, but it was relegated to occasional maybes and might-have-beens.

So the question is, how did it evolve from a potential romance as a secondary element to an actual, ongoing romance as an "inherent" element? It seems to me that the central role the romance played in the first two Reeve movies -- with Superman loving Lois so much that he was even willing to give up his powers for her -- was a key precedent for that.
 
Anwar said:
Here's hoping they don't drag out the Superman/Lois/Clark Triangle thing, because it's NOT romantic...it's creepy.
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It'll be interesting to see how Gunn handles this. Superman: Legacy is apparently set early in Superman's career, when Clark might well have not yet revealed his identity to Lois. But most recent film and TV adaptations of the characters have seen the classic "triangle for two" as something to be avoided. Man of Steel had Lois figure it out shortly after their first meeting. The Supergirl TV series was set well into Superman's career, and its Clark and Lois are already an established couple when we first encounter them. And Superman & Lois made the smart and charming decision to have Lois fall hard for Clark, not Superman, to the extent she doesn't even care that Superman might be interested in her -- though Clark reveals the truth to her anyway as soon as their relationship starts to get serious.

Ideally, Gunn will be at least as clever and creative as the writers of these adaptations. Not only is the "triangle for two" rather dated and potentially problematic as you note, I think narratively it's always better when Lois knows, so she and Clark can function as full and equal partners.
 
It is funny that Gunn said this whole new Superman is set in his early days as Superman when MoS was the very start, the future movies being his early days. Not really reinventing the character there.

I just wish Marvel felt the same way with Parker and Mary Jane. I’m getting really fed up with all these contrived stories of keeping them apart.
 
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