BadAss2961
Member
The DCU references are no more hidden than the ones of Superman lore -- the LexCorp signs, Utopia Casino, or Kara's empty pod.
Captain America 3 to square off against Batman/Superman in 2016
- Thread starter richiek
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b&jy77VjiKn$#F
Member
There was even a Watchmen easter egg. Superman vs. Dr. Manhattan confirmed.
I think the Kara's empty pod is more then just an easter egg, it's too ambiguous to be an easter egg imo.
Father_Brain
Banned
Obviously, I'm pretty much convinced that Man of Steel wasn't originally intended as part of a broader shared DC film universe, and I'm not going to convince everyone else here of that, but that wouldn't be much of an issue in the long run if:
(a) MoS had actually been good;
(b) DC weren't transparently intent on leapfrogging to a Justice League film in as few steps as possible.
Ideally, I'd say there should have been an MoS solo sequel and at least one other solo film before DC even considered doing a team-up movie, but nope, they want to try to get that $1.5 billion global Avengers money as soon as they can, without taking any unseemly risks on characters that aren't Superman or Batman.
(a) MoS had actually been good;
(b) DC weren't transparently intent on leapfrogging to a Justice League film in as few steps as possible.
Ideally, I'd say there should have been an MoS solo sequel and at least one other solo film before DC even considered doing a team-up movie, but nope, they want to try to get that $1.5 billion global Avengers money as soon as they can, without taking any unseemly risks on characters that aren't Superman or Batman.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I see this point brought up during discussions where people are discussing the business side of making movies, and this sentiment is almost always brought up as a negative of some sort.
I don't get that.
They want to try and make 1.5 billion with a minimum of risk using the two most popular superhero characters in comics history.
Why is this "Desperate?"
The notion of desperation has shifted quite a bit over the last decade or so. I distinctly remember people thinking Marvel was being kinda desperate trying to make a movie about Iron Man with the ex-cokehead guy from the 90s. And this plan to tie a bunch of movies together? What? What audience is going to have the patience for all that shit?
Nobody really knows anything until after it's happened. And then everyone's a fuckin' expert
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
I see this point brought up during discussions where people are discussing the business side of making movies, and this sentiment is almost always brought up as a negative of some sort.
I don't get that.
They want to try and make 1.5 billion with a minimum of risk using the two most popular superhero characters in comics history.
Why is this "Desperate?"
The notion of desperation has shifted quite a bit over the last decade or so. I distinctly remember people thinking Marvel was being kinda desperate trying to make a movie about Iron Man with the ex-cokehead guy from the 90s. And this plan to tie a bunch of movies together? What? What audience is going to have the patience for all that shit?
Nobody really knows anything until after it's happened. And then everyone's a fuckin' expert
If it weren't for comic book fans on forums the avg movie goer wouldnt be concerned with all the tie ins and one shots , they'd just go see a movie if they were interested in it, the extra stuff is for the people who know the content before hand.
Thatonemoor
Member
Haters gonna hate
Wiktor
Member
God no. There's no reason why DC has to copy Marvel on 1:1 basis and Marvel is the last company they should take inspiration from when it comes to tv shows.
Father_Brain
Banned
I see this point brought up during discussions where people are discussing the business side of making movies, and this sentiment is almost always brought up as a negative of some sort.
I don't get that.
They want to try and make 1.5 billion with a minimum of risk using the two most popular superhero characters in comics history.
Why is this "Desperate?"
The notion of desperation has shifted quite a bit over the last decade or so. I distinctly remember people thinking Marvel was being kinda desperate trying to make a movie about Iron Man with the ex-cokehead guy from the 90s. And this plan to tie a bunch of movies together? What? What audience is going to have the patience for all that shit?
Nobody really knows anything until after it's happened. And then everyone's a fuckin' expert
Well, you're obviously right that I don't have a crystal ball.
That said, Marvel Studios owes not only its success, but arguably the entire existence of the MCU, to the fact that they had to take chances on B-list characters. If they had retained the rights to Spider-Man and X-Men, they likely would have focused their film efforts on the most traditionally popular characters, and wouldn't have seen any need to come up with a shared-universe hook to distinguish their films from other superhero adaptations.
In that context, I don't think DC's extreme risk aversion is something to be celebrated, and I think it's going to end up biting them in the ass in a few years.* But sure, I could be wrong here.
*Well, even more than it is already, given that by the end of 2016, WB will have released two DC superhero films since 2013 compared to Marvel's seven or eight.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I don't see why you're acting like that's a given. I think Marvel would have combined film universes regardless. It wasn't so much "we have to" as "we want to, and nobody's successfully tried this before."
I mean, it's what Marvel's always done. DC as well. Superheroes in general. After awhile, you just push all the toys into the same toybox. WB had a couple cracks to beat Marvel to that punch, circumstances (and bad handling) got in the way. But it wasn't a unique idea, and it wasn't born of desperation, either. It's just what you do with Superheroes after people are familiar with them. You make them fight each other.
I think Arrow arguably makes more sense to be tied into a potential JL project though, especially now that they're spinning off for Flash. Also unless I'm mistaken, JL would be released around the same time Arrow is planned to end.
Plus.... Slade curbstomping Batflek. Would be worth all the monies.
Anticitizen One
Banned
DC has a new Amanda Waller:
...and they would be much better served tying the universe to Arrow than Green Lantern.
For heavens sake, Amanda Waller is supposed to be FAT
CW gonna CW.
If DC have any sense, which obviously they don't, it will be CCH Pounder for Waller or no one at all.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Warners already got Angela Bassett for her once.
Also, people need to stop ascribing casting choices to faceless executives as opposed to the directors/producers of the individual films/shows. There's no set WB/Disney casting model that is fundamentally different from the filmmaking norm.
There is the CW thing but isn't Waller younger(and more conventionally attractive) in the New 52?
Wiktor
Member
Maybe if it's done when Arrow ends like you suggested. But definitely not before. It would severly damage the quality of the show.
Wiktor
Member
There are no fat people in Starling City. Or ugly ones. If there were they died
in the earthquake. All part of Malcolm Merlyn's plan.
Father_Brain
Banned
I'm quite aware that DC has tried to put multiple superheroes in the same film at least a couple times (the Petersen Superman/Batman and Miller Justice League projects last decade), but that seems like a fairly unconvincing way to downplay what Marvel has accomplished.
For one thing, putting multiple superheroes in the same film is not necessarily the same thing as building a cohesive shared universe around them. For another, more importantly, none of those films happened, whereas Marvel's output speaks for itself.
I mean, sure, if Miller's Justice League had released several years before Avengers as originally planned and led to GL, Flash, and WW solo spinoff films, things would look very different right now, but that's stating the obvious.
Future Foundation
Member
I guess Warner Bros.doesn't have sense because they cast Angela Bassett in Green Lantern.
But that wouldn't be lazy.
Wiktor
Member
At the same time though. Nolan's Batmans were great and I think they never would have happened if DC would start building shared universe early on.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
But I'm not trying to downplay what Marvel has accomplished. I'm trying to point out how your narrative is busted
Yeah, I agree that it's benefited immensely from the freedom they have right now. But Batman/Superman will be coming out around when the fourth season of Arrow is finishing up and so far they only have five seasons planned so any other potential DC movie would come out after the fifth season.
This is downplaying Marvel's success. There was no indication pre-MCU that Marvel could pull it off, especially with no Spider-Man or Xmen in their stable. It was an enormous gamble that paid off for Marvel.
Revisionist history like that gets shot down pretty quickly on GAF
Bobby Roberts
Banned
How? I don't understand why saying Marvel was probably going to try it regardless is downplaying their success. It doesn't change the outcome in the slightest. It doesn't diminish their choices of Favreau and Downey, it doesn't short-shrift Feige's implementation of the plan, and it doesn't minimize the quality of the movies that came out at all. ESPECIALLY if you're going to compare their output directly to Warner Bros, who COULDN'T implement their similar plans.
If anything, I'd argue that tying the film's successes to the idea that they were some sort of mad genius plan cooked up as a sort of cinematic hail mary does a disservice to the solid work done behind the scenes at Marvel Studios.
I'm not downplaying Marvel's success in the slightest by suggesting the course of action they took was probably on the table even if they'd had Spider-Man and X-Men to play with.
Whether or not some dorks on a messageboard could or couldn't see it coming has nothing to do with how they succeeded. Suggesting that the success means more because people on GAF didn't know it was coming feels more like "revisionist history" than my saying such a move was bound to happen eventually.
That Marvel got there first isn't downplaying their success, and I don't understand the argument that suggests as much.
But then again, there's a lot of arguments in here about the gentle art of moviemaking that don't make much fuckin sense
(edit: at times, mine included)
Father_Brain
Banned
"Hail Mary" may be too harsh, but the point is that Marvel's film self-production and the MCU wasn't conceived in a vacuum all those years ago; it was very much a response to Fox and Columbia's success with Marvel properties, and the minuscule share of those films' profits that Marvel saw. I don't think the outcome would have been remotely similar had Marvel been the first mover with a big-budget, self-produced Spider-Man or X-Men film.
You're absolutely correct. The shared universe approach definitely has downsides, and one of those is that it means we're unlikely to see another attempt at a "prestige" superhero film, let alone an entire trilogy, anytime soon.
Calamari41
41 > 38
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Marvel put up the film rights to Iron Man etc as collateral in order to get the first wave of movies off the ground? That sounds like a Hail Mary to me, or close to it.
That's not to say that the movies weren't well planned and executed, but it was still a situation of "this is our one chance."
The fact that Marvel is absolutely dominating with a crew of C-List (to the general public) superheroes still blows my mind.
That's not to say that the movies weren't well planned and executed, but it was still a situation of "this is our one chance."
The fact that Marvel is absolutely dominating with a crew of C-List (to the general public) superheroes still blows my mind.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Also, I use the term "in the slightest" way too fucking much, and it's really annoying.
Apologies
Apologies
I remember this being the case. I think it was something like the movies having to pass a certain threshold at the box office or the license would go to the bank. Back in the day it was often used as a possible explanation for why Ant-Man kept getting pushed back.
TacticalFox88
Banned
We live in a world where it's genuinely debatable whether or not movie staring Batman AND Supes, will or will not make more money than a movie with Captain America.
Holy shit son.
Father_Brain
Banned
That's mostly correct. Though it wasn't quite as risky as it might sound, given the details:
Of course, Marvel ended up getting back the rights to those four characters over the next year or so, and the rest is history.
Something's very wrong when a Superman film is barely beating a Thor film (or very right depending on your point of view...)
Calamari41
41 > 38
Thanks for posting that, it's very interesting. I hadn't read up on it since around the time Iron Man 1 came out.
Mighty Chin
Banned
You worked real hard on that one.
I would say "very right". Superman is my all-time favorite but just the fact that we can have successful Thor movies is awesome.
I think these companies forget you can make anything successful/interesting, you just need the right approach. This holds true when you think about Marvel's success with the MCU. I mean shit, there's an Ant-Man movie in the works.
As a Supes fan it pains me they have so much trouble with a character they have 75 years worth of experience with.
TacticalFox88
Banned
I hope Avengers: Age of Ultron has a sequence that can top Smallville in MoS.
Absolutely unparalleled action sequence.
Absolutely unparalleled action sequence.
BadAss2961
Member
Eh, it's whatever.
To be honest, Marvel's more lauded for their success than the movies themselves.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
This is how I look at it, as well.
Excuse me, there are no fat people allowed on the CW
Howard Stark tricked the last Wakanda's king into giving him the last chunk of Vibranium. Black Pather go to Shield to ask for it back.
I'm not seeing why this is a bad thing to be honest. Why is everyone so intent on a bunch of solo movies to get to the big team up movie? Marvel rushed their solo movies to get to that big movie, and in the process, there were just a bunch of mediocre movies aside from Iron Man until we finally got Avengers. I'd rather we don't have to suffer through a bunch of solo movies just so that we can rush into the event movie so a bunch of nerds on the internet are satisfied because there was a 'build up'. Ain't no one got years to wait for that shit. They can still do individual movies afterwards.
Maybe we live in alternate realities, but the success of Avengers makes it pretty clear that the majority of the audience that watched that movie wasn't there watching Iron Man or Captain America or Thor prior to it. I'm pretty glad that WB aren't wasting time and are getting right down to laying the foundation for Justice League with Man of Steel's sequel.
Hell, I'm kind of hoping Marvel doesn't waste too much time with mostly garbage solo movies and gets to Avengers 3 as soon as possible too.
I believe only idiots think that's 'genuinely debatable'. One is a guaranteed billion grosser, the other likely won't reach that mark unless there was some form of miracle.
I don't think that I live in that world.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
1. Wayne Enterprises satellite
2.
(Keep calm and call Batman poster)
2. Watchmen logo as graffiti
3. Blaze Comics building
4. Carol Ferris
Afew others as well.
Father_Brain
Banned
*shrug* I'm surprised that someone who disliked most of the Phase 1 films liked Avengers, but to each his own.
And for now, I predict that UBSF will fall well short of the global $1B mark. If that makes me an idiot, so be it.
I don't think it's all that surprising. Avengers was quite a bit better than most, if not all, of Marvel's movies before and after.
lol this is how I would see things going. Christian Bale seems like the last person you want pissed at you.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
It took me way too long to figure you meant Untitled Batman/Superman Film.
I'm just calling it World's Finest until I have a reason not to do so
b&jy77VjiKn$#F
Member
I'm just calling it World's Finest until I have a reason not to do so
I should start calling it World Finest as well.
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