Are Warner Brothers and DC Finally Getting Their Sh*t Together?

Posted by on July 11th, 2008   Filed under: Action, Books/Comics, Industry News, Rumours
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Everyone knows that Warner Brothers nearly killed the comic book movie genre in the late 90’s with their poor handling of the Batman franchise. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Marvel to realize that audiences were still very much interested in seeing superheroes on the big screen, as long as they were done right. Since then, Marvel has continued to turn out blockbuster after blockbuster, while Warner and DC have been forced to play catch up. With the exception of Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot, and Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, they still haven’t had much success getting their big name characters up on the screen again.

The good news is, it looks like they may finally be ready to turn things around. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. head honchos Jeff Robinov and Kevin McCormick have been holding meeting with various executives and artists at DC Comics over the past few weeks. Although the full details of these meetings are not yet known, it is believed that they want co-ordinate new efforts to bring DC properties to the big screen, and strategically link them in the same way that Marvel has been doing.

Well… it’s about damn time! I assume one of the main problems up until now has been the fact that Warner Brothers is such a huge company, and there are way too many hands in the pot. It looks like they are finally ready to give DC more control over their own franchises, which is a smart move. I’m still not convinced about the whole comic book movie crossover thing (I prefer it if they keep them all as standalone franchises), but in general I think they definitely need to develop a strategy and plan ahead. They could be making a lot of money from various other DC characters right now, and all the time and energy that was wasted on that Justice League movie isn’t helping things either. What do you think, is there still hope for DC franchises on the big screen?



  • Who ever directs the next superman film they have to take Superman into todays fear ridden world and have the man of steel deal with the reality of global terrorism. Just please, no more Lex Luthor. Been there done that!

  • Matt

    - What do you think, is there still hope for DC franchises on the big screen?

    Well, you know, a little movie called The Dark Knight will be hitting theaters shortly, so I woubt that NO DC franchises could survive on the big screen. However, nothing else from DC excites me. Even the newest Superman movie had me underwhelmed, and I wouldn’t be suprised if it takes 10 years from the last one to see another Superman movie.

    I gotta admit that the only comics that I really cared about as a kid were Asterix & Obelix and Lucky Luke, so I can’t really say whether or not current comic book movies are living up to their potential. But aside from The Fantastic Four films, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Daredevil, comic book and graphic novel movies have been pretty good. Notice that the four mentioned franchises are all Marvel. While some people might have liked these movies, they prove that Marvel hasn’t perfected a formula for producing blockbusters every time.
    Batman seems like the franchise to beat right now, and to me that signifies that DC and WB are at least doing something right.
    The only concern for DC is that most of their secondary characters are not popular enough to warant their own movies. And the ones that are (Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman) I personally cannot imagine as good movies.
    But I thought the same thing before Iron Man came out. So I could be completely wrong.
    What DC characters do you think they could make a lot of money from, Sean?

    By the way I really enjoyed this related post for people very differing opinions about good comic book movies.
    http://www.filmjunk.com/2008/06/20/open-forum-friday-are-iron-man-and-the-incredible-hulk-the-best-comic-book-movies-ever/#comments

  • Laserbeard

    I think that the direct-to-DVD animation that DC has been doing is great. These movies hit their target audience. What they can do with animation would cost millions in CG. The animated movies can cast as many superheroes as they want. DC should never stop making these animated films. Live action comic book adaptations are meant to appeal to non-comic book readers as well as us fanboys.
    DVD is the way to go.

  • I think Wonder Woman and The Flash could definitely become big franchises. Possibly Green Lantern and Green Arrow as well. For me and a lot of other people, we grew up on the Justice League and those heroes still have big name recognition. I agree that Aquaman might be pushing it though.

  • Ryan M.

    “Just please, no more Lex Luthor. Been there done that!’

    That’s exactly how I feel. Lex Luthor was an enemy for the pre-CG era. I wanna see Superman tussle with a super powered baddie.

    “I think that the direct-to-DVD animation that DC has been doing is great.”

    Same here. If they just took scripts like those and did them in live action they would have commercial AND critical success. If they cast new faces (like they should) it wouldn’t cost too much.

    I’m still not convinced with the crossover thing as it has yet to be fully realized. It could be incredible or suck very badly. All I know is as a fanboy I felt great joy seeing Nick Fury in Iron Man and Tony Stark in The Incredible Hulk.

    I think a JLA movie could be amazing and it wouldn’t be necessary to introduce all the other characters in stand alone movies beforehand.

  • fizzle

    i hope they make an aquaman movie! I think it would rival the batman franchise, and definitely be better than the superman garbage that comes out.

  • Swarez

    IMO aside from Superman and Batman the rest of the DC universe is kind of silly and I think it would be hard to put it up on the screen and make it look cool. I mean Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Green Arrow are all rather stupid looking characters with less that bad ass powers.

    Marvel has more iconic characters that can translate well to the silver screen.
    And to be fair, Daredevil, Punisher, Elektra were all films that other studios produced rather than Marvel, who had a hand in it for sure but weren’t running the show like they do now. Now that they control everything they seem to be making better super hero films.

  • I don’t know, I think Marvel has some pretty silly characters too, it all depends on how it is presented on screen. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, and the movies will suck, but I’m pretty sure they’ll make money if they hire the right people and market it properly.