itt: consternation and wailing about Zach Snyder's upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film/sequel to MAN OF STEEL -- official title: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

jesse eisenberg

Keep parsing this as Pinefox trying to refer to Aaron Paul.

tuomas you're moving the goalposts around. thor made $450m globally (and 2x the budget is the traditionally perceived breakeven point for a movie like this), which while not a mindblowing success, was still A Profitable Movie Lots Of People Saw and quite good for a film that introduced a norse god played by an unknown as a superhero. And with a boost from the avengers, the sequel made $644m (while only raising the budget to $170m - marvel's tight like that).

Er, my only point was that the Iron Man movies were huge successes mostly because of Downey, while Thor wasn't. I wasn't saying it didn't make profit, just that it wasn't a big hit in the way Iron Man was.

actually iron man 2 and thor 2 did about equal numbers, and i don't think it was just because they decided to shoot more loki footage

def not denying that downey's charisma and surprise success was the engine of the whole marvel kaboodle, just that you're overstating the alleged lack of charisma/success of the viking

actually got thrown off - thor 2 and iron man 2 did the same globally, but 100m more of iron man 2 came from america. so yeah, thor is definitely smaller scale, though not unpopular.

and here's the thing, they went into the avengers with four heroes who at the very least had films that made north of 200m globally (one with new actor). they're going to into supes/bat/justice league with two heroes in that league, one with a new actor.

Well maybe not, but The Avengers had already done a lot of heavy lifting for Thor 2, it being the first Marvel movie to follow, and featuring one of the heroes and the villain of one of the biggest movies of all time. Iron Man 2 did the same numbers without any support like that, and I really do think Downey is the biggest reason why.

(xxpost)

obv we disagree on the degree to which chris hemsworth's a lucky drip hanging on downey's coattails, but the important thing is that you realize DC is flying without a net if this slate is true

Keep parsing this as Pinefox trying to refer to Aaron Paul.

I don't think so

but the important thing is that you realize DC is flying without a net if this slate is true

Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make above.

obv we disagree on the degree to which chris hemsworth's a lucky drip hanging on downey's coattails, but the important thing is that you realize DC is flying without a net if this slate is true

― da croupier, Friday, June 13, 2014 4:22 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, and a slate this ambitious could doom warner bros forever, presuming they are distributing. at least the first slate of marvel films were spread among different distributors.

"shazam: the movie" should just be a loop of dave chappelle saying "shazam!" for 80 minutes.

casting ben affleck seems like such a creative misstep that i assume the whole enterprise is going to be a major fiasco, but then again i'm not really in touch with the volk.

Are they going to do little teasers & easter eggs with these, like a scene where Bruce Wayne's having a nightmare about his parents and he sees a mysterious goth dude in the background?

They couldn't even follow through on the Sinestro post-credits thing in Green Lantern, let's not give them ideas.

I think the thing that baffles me the most about this memo (assuming the memo is at all accurate) is that it suggests that they intend to integrate Sandman into the rest of this mess. I was under the assumption that it was initially intended to be its own thing (which is a questionable endeavor in and of itself). And it may still be, but given DC's current contempt for its readership and their overeagerness in tearing down the barriers separating their different and previously-unrelated (or mostly unrelated) properties, I'm inclined to believe that they intend to go down whichever road is the most ill-advised.

The bit where Batman and Martian Manhunter show up for Morpheus' funeral is gold - 2 panels is enough to build a film franchise out of, fear not.

post-avengers, marvel's worked out this great plan where they'll have one sequel followed by one original each year. Captain-America 2, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers 2, Ant-Man, Cap'n 3, Dr. Strange...which they'll bump up to 3 a year if so many of the originals do well that they gotta make a Rocket Raccoon solo movie or some shit. But the current schedule means that even if Ant-Man's a turd, it has no affect on anything other property - just no Ant-Man 2.

Meanwhile DC is allegedly going to release its two not-necessarily-Justice-League movies in 2016 (Sandman, Shazam) and then drop two justice league spin-offs MONTHS after Justice League in 2017, despite having no idea whether america is on board at all.

Madness!

the worst case scenario for marvel post-iron man 2 and pre-avengers (aside from RDJ melting down from the pressure) was that thor or captain america would have bombed the year before, forcing them to cut down the character's presence in Avengers and scrap sequel plans for that character.

the worst case scenario for dc/wb now is that Bat vs Sups is hated, Shazam's a Kazaam, Sandman fails to turn everyone goth and they go into 2017 with a super team-up nobody is excited for (they're shooting concurrently so they can't scrap it). Aside from being costly as fuck, that would leave them with NOTHING as far as potential super-franchises, unless they drove a money truck to Chris Nolan's house to make The Dark Knight Is Sorry.

Legion of Superheroes movie!

Teen Titans?

uh... Suicide Squad?

If Justice League bombs I dunno if Kid Justice League and Future Justice League are worth spending hundreds of millions on.

and where marvel quickly accrued a writing brain-trust and quality crowdpleasing directors to diminish the odds of a true turkey, DC has Zack Snyder and the guy who thinks Hulk fucks She-Hulk.

i read some WB honcho quote where he said he loves putting money down on Zack Snyder, which is funny considering every movie he did between 300 and Man Of Steel lost WB money

xxp METAL MEN

what's great is that Marvel IS down their Metal Men...just for happy "everything's coming up roses" reasons

down to their Metal Men, i mean

i should make a correction, though. justice league has THREE characters from $200m+ grossing movies, though the third will also be portrayed by a new actor, as while Green Lantern made 200m globally it also cost 200m pre-advertising.

what's great is that Marvel IS down their Metal Men...just for happy "everything's coming up roses" reasons

― da croupier, Friday, June 13, 2014

lest we forget...

Announced in November, the unprecedented 60-episode deal with Netflix calls for four 13-episode solo series featuring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, followed by a Defenders miniseries.

btw i totally hope this will be awesome

the guy who thinks Hulk fucks She-Hulk.

The thing I don't get is that David Goyer has actually written some pretty decent superhero comics (with James Robinson), plus his whole filmwriting career is based on superhero movies, so him being so disdainful of the genre sounds kinda weird and hypocritical.

maybe less disdainful of the genre than cynical abt its audience, a fine line

xxp METAL MEN

― Disagree. And im not into firey solos chief. (Phil D.), Friday, June 13, 2014 6:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't care about any of these forthcoming DC releases, but a CGI Metal Men film by the people who made The Incredibles would be the best thing ever (also, I had no idea it's nearly 10 YEARS since The Incredibles was released, that's horrifying)

worst part about all this is all these movies are gonna be GRITTY AS FUCK GRITFESTS OF GRIT cause WB thinks that's the only way these things can work now

just cast david eckstein as everyone

some unintentionally hilarious/tragic pondering at the end of this

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Kevin-Smith-Confirms-Warner-Bros-DC-Stage-I-Line-Up-Accurate-43489.html

More outlandishly, I'd like to think that Warner Bros is keeping Kevin Smith in the information pool not only because of his ability to drum up fan interest, but also because they'll eventually want to offer him the chance to direct a DC Comics film. Think about it: Zack Snyder is the DC equivalent of Jon Favreau, the man who kickstarts everything and lays down a solid couple of films for the rest to take off from. Kevin Smith is the Joss Whedon of DC, the man with the knowledge and the passion to take the groundwork and push it to the next level, weaving everything into one gigantic arc of awesome. Bringing Smith into the fold, even if it was just for a movie or two, would benefit Warner Bros/DC, and would almost guarantee box office and fan credibility. It's the type of shot to the arm the DC cinematic continuum needs, and it's not too out of the realm of possibility. Unless Kevin Smith has progressed to the point where he'd turn down the chance to direct Ben Affleck in a standalone Batman movie, in which case all this is for naught.

If the world can just make it to 2019...yes...maybe we'll see Kevin Smith's Batman starring Ben Affleck.

I have never been happier for the bubble I choose to live in than I am reading that paragraph, because things could be so much worse for me and I could be thinking things like that

lol @ the person assuming kevin smith has the ability to deliver like that on any level

lol @ kevin smith

lost me at "Think about it:"

Zach Snyder and solid films

guy jacking off to a crayon drawing of kevin smith dressed as batman

if i were a crotchety conservative intellectual writing an allen-bloom-style book abt critical decadence i'd call it one gigantic arc of awesome

Kevin Smith is the Joss Whedon of DC

first i was like lol but the more i think abt it the more otm this is tho maybe not for the reasons the author had in mind

I don't see any other point in the comparison except that they've both written supehero comics? Other than that, their directing styles and careers are totally different... Smith is like the least visually-oriented director there is, whereas Whedon can at least handle that bit (which should be pretty essential for a superhero director) competently. And all the actual Smith comics that I've read have been totally meh, whereas Whedon's X-Men was pretty good. I still like Smith's early movies, but what he's good at is so different than what is required of these movies.

They are both fond of smarty-pants pop culture referencing dialogue I guess.

Tuomas, that's the joke. Smith is terrible and so is DC/Warner.

they should both be smothered with a pair of jorts

Also, hasn't Smith recently proved unable to even finish the minseries he writes? If you can't do one or two 23-page comic scripts, I'm not sure you can handle the pressure of managing some vast multimillion-dollar movie which relies for its success on several iffy-looking films beforehand and which has to lead into other iff-looking films beingh made at the same time.

the rumor is DC wants Affleck to wear the cowl and the puffy director pants in 2019

OK I caught the first 30 min of Man of Steel last night, it's pretty fucking bad. The stuff on Krypton looked like some Timelords dropped in on Attack of the Clones. I can't speak for the rest of it but it doesn't strike me as something to build a bunch of other stuff around.

Its more like a shitpile that you add shit to