Warner bros announce superhero films through 2020

^^
True, poor Ellen is just a forgotten memory ever since she came out...

I don't think it's that big a deal anymore. It seems every other celebrity is [fill in the blank] these days.

 

^These days, yes, but it's a fairly recent state of affairs. Just because we've come to our senses now, that doesn't mean there was never persecution or discrimination. When I was looking over Wikipedia to put together my list of out superhero actors, I found very few who'd come out publicly before 2005 or so.

 

Was when DOFP came out

 

Character recognition is important when trying to appeal on the Nolan level. Batman v. Superman has to be on that level, and if the flagship characters under perform, what general audience member is going to care about weak B or "Huh?" -inspiring C list characters?

WB is trying too hard to ape Marvel, instead of focusing on the top characters even non-comic fans have some cultural association with. That means characters such as Green Lantern & Aquaman are not "that guy," otherwise, either character would have enjoyed some sort of significant TV or movie success by now (approaching anything like the numerous Superman & Batman TV and movie successes over the span of three generations).

WB has to start there, and win big there in order to ensure the creation of a valid (meaning audience embraced) "DC film universe." Jumping out of the gates with plans for Cyborg, GL, Suicide Squad and Aquaman--piled on the back of a new Batman and lukewarm Superman does not appear to be a wise move.

 

Well, the Avengers certainly are enjoying global popularity now, but before their respective movies most mainstream movie-goers who are not also comic book fans knew next to nothing about the characters. It's easy to forget that Iron Man and Thor were not always household names. Whereas Superman and Batman? You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the world who is not familiar with them. It's about how good the movies are, not necessarily how well-known the characters are.

 

Name-recognition matters, sure, but it's hardly the only deciding factor. If name-recognition was all that mattered, then SUPERMAN RETURNS would have been a monster hit. And both HULK movies should have outperformed IRON MAN or THOR.

And then there are characters like THE MASK or HELLBOY or BLADE who were virtually unknown to the general public before they hit it big at the movies. And need I mention THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY?

There are also generational factors here. My father grew up on Golden Age heroes like Superman and Captain America and the Sub-Mariner, but didn't have a clue who the X-Men were when I dragged him to one of the movies. And I imagine that, say, Cyborg or John Stewart are possibly a much bigger deal to kids who grew up on the various cartoon series than to some of us older comics fans.

The average moviegoer doesn't care if a comic-book character is "A-List" or "D-List" or what their storied history in comics is. They just want a fun time at the movies.

If MATTER-EATER LAD:THE MOVIE is more fun than, say, ROBIN THE BOY WONDER, then Matter-Eater Lad will devour Robin at the box office--even if Aquaman is far and away the more famous comic-book character.

 

Blade's a superhero?? I guess the term is a bit more fluid these days. I guess John Constantine's a super hero these days, too.

 

Blade is a Marvel Comics character who fights supernatural threats and who, in the movies at least, has powers far beyond those of mortal men. To my mind, that makes him as much a superhero as, say, the Spectre or Swamp Thing.

Granted, most of the people who bought tickets to the first BLADE movie probably had no idea that he was a comic-book hero. They just thought he was a cool vampire-slayer . . . .

As for Constantine . . . well, given that he's currently leading the Justice League Dark in the comics and teaming up with Zatanna and Deadman . . . . .

 

Ellen isn't a movie star.

 

People tend to think all comic book characters are superheroes. As you mentioned Blade was successful while keeping his comic book origins on the down low. My exposure to Blade is from the 70s, where he's a character in the Tomb of Dracula book. So I tend to think of him as a Horror character. The Spectre is/was a superhero. Swamp Thing, not so much.

If hanging out with superheroes makes you a superhero, then Snapper Carr was a superhero in his mascot days.

 

Except, of course, that Constantine is a lead character and not a sidekick. Comparing Constantine to Snapper Carr is like comparing Superman to Perry White . . . .

But we can spit the difference and call them them comic-book heroes instead of super-heroes. Certainly, at the supernatural end of the comic-book spectrum, there's a blurry line between superheroes and horror characters: The Spectre, Morbius, the Phantom Stranger, Man-Thing, and so on.

(Says the guy who once got to write a fight scene between Wonder Woman and Frankenstein!)

But, to get back OT, my point was that the fact that most moviegoers didn't even know that there were BLADE comics, and yet the movie was still a success, indicates that name-recognition value is not always a good indicator of whether the the movie will strike gold or not.

Big-name comic-book heroes have disappointed at the box-office. Incredibly obscure comics (MEN IN BLACK, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY) have hit it big. In the end, the execution seems to matter more than the marquee value of character.

 

Just joking with the Snapper Carr line.

Yeah, the line can get blurry. Though Morbius is a Science Fiction Vampire introduced in a superhero book, rather than a supernatural one. I suppose that how I draw the line: "point of origin". If they're introduce in a superhero title, I'm more inclined to think of them as superheroes.

 

Although Morbius went on to star in Vampire Tales and Adventures Into Fear, and has battled Blade, which also demonstrates just how blurry things can get. And where do we put Ghost Rider or Son of Satan? Or The Demon?

When you're dealing with universes in which Spider-Man has teamed up with Werewolf By Night, and the X-Men have fought Dracula more than once, and where Constantine recently fought the JLA for possession of Pandora's Box . . . well, it's not like either Marvel or DC has ever tried to keep their horror and superhero lines from mingling.

Trying to remember if Blade has ever teamed up with Spider-Man or the Defenders, but my memory is failing me.

Ooh, here's another interesting case: Moon Knight's very first appearance--his "point of origin" as it were--was in WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, but it's hard to deny that he's regarded mostly as a superhero now. Heck, I think he was even an Avenger at one point . . . .

 

I'm all for blending the genres. Horror characters can appear in superhero books. SF characters can appear in superhero books. But that doesn't make them superheroes. Moon Knight changed a bit from that first appearance. A lot of which was retconned away. But lets call him the exception to the rule.

 

Perhaps. But I'm inclined to think that trying to maintain a clear distinction between "superheroes" and "supernatural comic-book heroes" is probably a losing battle . . . .

Is the upcoming iZombie TV show a "superhero" show or just a "comic-book" show? Is brain-eating and coming back from the dead considered a super-power if you're solving murders and fighting crime as well?

 

Horror-crime show based on a comic book. A twist on the "special" detective trope. Like immortal detectives, vampire detectives or occult detectives. ( Or even OCD detective or Serial killer detective)

 

I like to think of it of "GHOST WHISPERER with more brain-eating." Which sounds like fun, actually.

And, honestly, I think "comic-book hero with secret powers" reads as "superhero" to most people.

 

The thing is, the superhero genre has always borrowed from or incorporated so many other genres that it can't really be defined in exclusionistic terms. The Golden Age comics drew on pulp traditions from sci-fi to crime to horror to Western; then there were plenty of war stories during WWII and after; and in creating the Marvel Universe, Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Romita, and the rest drew on their work in horror comics, romance comics, and the like and folded elements of those into their superhero stories. And superhero tales have only continued to diversify since then, since comics have always been the great melting pot of genres. Practically any type of character can be a superhero. Even a villain can be one, sometimes. I'd say it basically means any character who's heroic in an unconventional, colorful, or extraordinary way.

 

I nothing about iZombie other than it was a comic book. But having read the wiki entry it sounds more like Being Human than a crime show.