So it begins...DC Ent Universe announcement next week?

[Admiral_Young]

It appears that DC Ent is getting ready to announce their superhero film line up as soon as next week and is even prepping a spread sheet presentation to demonstrate their plan to incorporate them!!! It will be most fascinating to see their plans.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=69902

 

[Procutus]

The article mentioned how the various superheroes will be re-introduced; I know that the plans are for Superman to get a reboot, but I assume that Bale is still in as Batman?

 

[Admiral_Young]

Unless we're told otherwise yes. I expect Batman 3 official confirmation to come as part of their package.

 

[JoeZhang]

All you are getting next week is news that DC Comics is relocating (from what I understand), the film stuff is not for another month, and the article says as much.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

Wow, a spreadsheet? For real?

 

[Skywalker]

Wow, a spreadsheet? For real?

DC's pulling out all the stops on this one.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Given what we already know from prior DC prounciamentoes (such as the female lead ban), I am not encouraged.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I thought the female lead ban only pertained to animated features and not live action? How can you be discouraged when you've not even read what is on their list yet? "Wonder Woman" has been on Geoff Johns 'to do' list since he mentioned it back at comic con. Yeah as Joe Zhang pointed out, the spread sheet presentation won't be coming for another month.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I thought the female lead ban only pertained to animated features and not live action?

My understanding is that it applied to all media tie ins. Admittedly my information may be outdated or now otherwise incorrect.

How can you be discouraged when you've not even read what is on their list yet?

Based on the situation as I understand it from previous anouncements. I reserve the right to be pleasently surprised if they've done a 180 on some of their dumb moves.

 

[Kaijima]

Personally, I expect that Nolan's Batman films will be kept as a private continuity. Nolan has already stated more or less that the 3rd film is supposed to be an ending to that Batman's story arc. The films are great for what they are, but there's no real way to fit them in to the DC movie universe they might be building.

What I'd expect are, after Green Lantern, a few films building up the DC theatrical universe such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and maybe 2 more between 2011 and 2013. Then, after BatNolan 3 has had a chance to clear out of popular view (it comes out in 2012) a Batman Year One movie in 2014 or a Justice League movie that takes Batman's existence as a given and introduces a version of him that fits in with the theatrical movies.

In a sense, the amazing success of Nolan's Batman franchise is a bit of a spanner in the works of DC following Marvel's cinematic universe, since Nolan's realistic world can't work with all the characters required - and it's the hottest thing DC has had since the original Superman film. So I guess they'll try to work scheduling around Nolan exiting the stage and hopefully not confuse audiences too much by having another version of Batman show up relatively quickly. (One reason Batman Begins worked is that the original Batman films were given nearly a decade to settle.)

 

[FPAlpha]

They have a very tall order to match Marvel's success in the film industry and are apparently taking a big cue from them as to how to bring everything together.

Marvel had their breakout hits which firmly established the superhero genre in mainstream cinema (X-Men, Spiderman, Iron Man) and DC has also an interesting stable of characters to play with (some of the best known that is.. Superman and Batman).

Maybe Green Lantern will be their breakout hit and the DC universe will be able to take a grander scope than Marvel by including cosmic events and villains something Marvel has been shying away from (apart from FF 2). I just hope that we get to see Superman kick some intergalactic ass so to speak.. i'm sick of him just having Lex Luthor to deal with when there are entities out there who can match him blow to blow (Darkseid for example).

I'll be definitely interested to see the movie DC universe although i was never much of a DC man when i still read comics regularly.

 

[Admiral_Young]

So this seems like it was a big fail...

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=70004

 

[darkwing_duck1]

^Still some interesting news in that release, like "no shared universe"...guess that means "Justice League" is out of the picture, because they're not going to want TWO Supermen, Batmen, GLs, etc competing for viewership.

DC's problem is that, while it arguably has the more "recognizable" lineup of superheroes, it lacks the stones to do all that much with them.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Which is interesting because the rumors on the internet for the last year or so from various sources online have indicated that a shared universe like Marvel is the direction they were intending to go in. I actually like that they're not going to compete with Marvel in this case. They just need to focus on their individual film franchises and make them the best movies they can be (as cliched as that is). "Green Lantern" seems to be a great start.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I just don't understand why they're being so timid about it. The market is there for good superhero films, but they're gunshy about putting them out there.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Most likely due to the fact that their previous films have been bungled or not performed to expectations.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

^Fair point. Then the question becomes, why? How can Marvel hit homer after homer with their films but DC not be able to do the same with arguably MORE iconic and recognizeable characters?

Esp when you factor in that on the TV side, it's the other way around: DC eats Marvel's lunch on a regular basis in terms of quantity and quality.

 

[Admiral_Young]

It is a subject that has baffled me as well. Part of the problem and blame has to go to incompetent Warner Bros executives (Jon Peters is culprit number one) for not understand the basic parts of what make up these great characters and what it takes to bring them to fruition on screen. Peters was on the "Superman Returns" documentary on set during the filming of the hospital scene I think standing next to Bryan Singer and says into the camera something like "at first I didn't understand what he was trying to do with Superman but now I see that I was wrong and he knows exactly what he was doing". Couple this with Kevin Smith's famous comments about Peters wanting a robot spider and a abominable snowman sidekick for Brainiac and you see my point. Now that DC Ent has been created and has competent people in the creative division like Geoff Johns and Jim Lee who know and are passionate about the source material...and the studios are able to attract top notch directors like Martin Campbell and Christopher Nolan I think we will start to see a change. "Green Lantern" is going to be an extremely important movie to follow. We already know the type of success that Batman has done under Nolan this is the next big flick to follow though as I predict that it will become the prototype film for the studio to follow their future films from.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I actually think that DC may be wise not to simply ape Marvel and aim for a shared universe. I don't think that Chris Nolan's take on Batman would sit well with the likes of Green Lantern or even Superman. And I certainly think that Iron Man 2 suffered from being used too much to set up The Avengers movie. They forgot to make a decent standalone movie, as far as I can see!

Besides which, Marvel's best known heroes are all outside of the shared Marvel Movieverse. Spider-man, the X-Men, Fantastic Four. No reason why WB/ DC can't keep Superman, Batman or Green Lantern separate from other franchises. There may well be scope for a multi-hero DC movie with some of the B-listers but if they cram all their best known heroes into a JLA movie and it tanks, then not only is the JLA franchise dead, but it will take Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman with it.

 

[davejames]

Yeah, I think it's probably better to take it one movie at a time.

If they do ANY kind of team-up movie, I'd much rather see it with just a couple characters teaming up (like Flash and Green Lantern, or Superman and Wonder Woman), where you could really explore the different dynamics and do something fun with the idea.

Just like in the comics, I think those kind of stories work a LOT better than some huge JLA/Avengers kind of thing, where the characters would just get lost in a sea of special effects and action sequences.