This is what happens when somebody tells me that something unproven is a certainty and I disagree.
In this case the email in question said “the reason there are so few DC movies is because nobody wants to see anything but batman and maybe superman. wonder woman never gets made because she sucks. green lantern and flash are too complicated, so is justice league. and nothing else would make their money back after they made it. you can’t make a movie about elongated man or guys like that.”
I disagree, and my argument is thus:
But I am sure that the varied talents of the comics blogospheric fandom (which needs a shorter name – I nominate “the Crunklehood”) can make the point even
better. So my challenge to all of you is thus: better my visual argument. Do up a mock poster for the movie you wish DC would just
make already. Or Marvel, why not (although given Marvel’s releasing schedule I’m pretty sure
Rocket Racer is on tap for 2012). Photoshop it, draw it, do a Claymation trailer, whatever. Email me your link and I’ll put it up here.(Also, a valuable lesson learned: making Question’s no-face is
goddamned hard to do.)
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Just for the record, the problem isn’t DC vs. Marvel. DC doesn’t make movies at all and would be happy to have the extra exposure.
It’s that one studio, Warner Bros, controls all the DC character and lots of studios control different Marvel characters.
Given the choice between taking a risk on a Blue Devil movie or just doing Batman and Superman over and over, Warner will go with the known properties. On the other hand, Fox will do X-Men but Sony has Spider-Man and Universal has the Hulk, so Fox will also do Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. If they could do X-Men AND Spider-Man, believe me, they’d do nothing but that.
Might have to pick up that challenge at some point. And your Question poster makes me think of the abortive Orson Welles Batman movie…now there’s a flick I’d pay full price to see.
You should tell this person that the popularity of a character isn’t an issue. Take Blade, for example. The Blade movies were successful not because moviegoers were attracted to the idea of seeing a comic book character on the big screen, but because Blade was a good character to write a movie around. He was also more believable than somebody like Spider-Man because he didn’t have some unexplained desire to wear a skin-tight costume into battle; he dressed like a normal guy, albeit a normal guy heading into a war zone. Chances are that a number of people who went to see that movie didn’t even know he was based on a comic book character. So a big-name superhero is not required to rake it in at the box office.
Gotta agree with oh Noes!, before I got back into comics, I had no idea Blade was based on them. It was just a well put together movie (and then one could argue, franchise).
And for the love of God, how is Flash more complicated than Superman? Or Green Lantern?
Flash: Criminologist/nephew of criminologist is in the lab working, freak accident with lightning occurs, super speed, the end. No more complex than a radioactive spider.
Green Lantern: A pilot (I hate Hal Jordan, but his origin is more appealing than Kyle’s) investigates a crash site, and discovers a dying alien who bestows upon him great power. Or if you want Kyle’s, a starving artist takes a shortcut through an alley and happens upon a dying alien. In Hal’s case, the ring saves him from what should have been a fatal crash, inexplicably to all but him. For Kyle, he uses the ring to get back on his feet, but then being a big superhero fan (cite Superman here I’d think) he decides to do good with his power.
I mean, these aren’t hard things to explain. And if the right director can spend half a movie fleshing out Batman, someone can certainly do an origin in 20-30 minutes for Hal, Kyle, Wally or Barry.
There are so many movies based on comics that people had no idea was the case. Ultraviolet, Tank Girl, Barb Wire, Judge Dread — and there are a number of clearly comic-based moves that did outstandingly well that most people hadn’t heard of before — things like Hellboy, and the like.
I’m more ticked about the movies that should have been great, but got mangled when they DID get the big-picture treatment….
Mr. Bird, thank you for starting off with The Question. Vic Sage is my favorite literary character, and honestly, out of so many DC superheroes to choose from, would make the best movie. I’m not just saying that as a fanboy – his world is based in reality enough that a director steeped in crime dramas or psychological thrillers could make a great film of his. His martial artists and placement in a city full of tough guys could make a great action flick. Toss in a few DC supervillains with superpowers and you have a sci-fi/crime twist that would be 52 meets Jackie Brown. Team him up with the Huntress, or Renee Montoya, or make him a secondary character in a Green Arrow or Batgirl movie.
I couldn’t find your email address, so I hope this is good enough.
The Vixen!
The problem with a Question movie is that the character is only popular because Jeffrey Combs rocked his voice in the Justice League Unlimited.
The problem with DC is that, with the exception of Batman’s rogue gallery and Lex Luthor, their villains don’t translate well off the page into anything other than animation. Look at the Flash TV show. Here was a relatively simple, iconic character to portray. Unfortunately they couldn’t give him an effective rogue’s gallery because his comic villains couldn’t translate well to the screen. The best they could do was Mark Hamill as the Prankster, who was portrayed more like Caesar Romero’s Joker than anything. However, Mark Hamill did a far better job with the Prankster in JLU.
With any Superman series, the only character they could ever do well was Lex Luthor, which was why he just had to show up in Smallville (that’s why I never watched the series). With Batman in the 60’s, the translation was easy. All his villains were humans with their own little iconic fetishes.
A character is defined by the actions he takes. A hero is defined by the obstacles he conquers. The hero has to have good villains to be a greater hero. Sadly, most DC heroes have lousy and unremarkable villains.
Wait…are you dissin’ Captain Boomerang?
http://img.tesco.com/pi/entertainment/DVD/LF/692388_DV_L_F.jpg
http://www.moviecrazed.com/images/catwom2.jpg
http://superherouniverse.com/wallpaper/artists/tyler/images2/V_for_Vendetta.jpg
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/152/501485~The-League-of-Extraordinary-Gentlemen-Posters.jpg
Yes. Yes I am.
One more:
http://www.poster.net/reeves-keanu/reeves-keanu-constantine-9900565.jpg
Yeah, I dunno.
It seems like there are DC properties that can be made into movies.
(We’re not even talking about TV shows like Wonder Woman and The Flash and Shazam!)
Hold on now..let’s not jump to too many conclusions here; the Flash TV show didn’t bomb on the villains alone, lest we forget the abortion that was the first 8 or so books of Flash: Fastest Man Alive. Ye Gods.
Zoom. Or Zolomon. Both translate extremely well, I’d think. Basically, your hero’s antithesis (assuming I spelled that correctly, large assumption). Captain Cold, Weather Wizard and Heatwave could work as well, just make them more gimmicked around their chosen element. For that matter, Trickster, Piper or Abra Kadabra can work as well. You just have to punch them up the right way. If all else fails, make it a city besieged by evil.
And that’s not even touching on the new villains Johns introduced like Tarpit and whoever. Plus there’s the Turtle, and the Top, and all kinds of stuff.
Yes, Flash’s villains tend to the silly a lot of the time, but they also can pack a punch in the right hands.
“Might have to pick up that challenge at some point. And your Question poster makes me think of the abortive Orson Welles Batman movie…now there’s a flick I’d pay full price to see.”
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/05/17/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-103/
V for Vendetta is currently my favorite comic book movie. I think it was a great movie, regardless of what Moore put in his book. The reality is that producers will change an abstract concept to match a more mainstream audience to which an intelligent reader’s perspective is, sadly, still a minority.
If anything, however, it can be agreed upon that the Wachowski Brothers can only make good cinema with other people’s work.
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/515B1B6QDXL._AA280_.jpg
In most cases a comic book movie is a punishment for the people that love the comic… I am still recovering from “Constantine” thank you very much…
This is how it should have been!
Bloody Hollywood….
Speed has never looked this good.
==The problem with a Question movie is that the character is only popular because Jeffrey Combs rocked his voice in the Justice League Unlimited.==
I call bull on this, with all due respect. The Question has been an underground favorite for years. Most of the current architects of the DCU speak of the character in high terms, with folks like Rucka putting O’Neil’s version of the character as one of their inspirations for getting into the field. I think Q?’s appearance on JLU was a symptom of his rising popularity. Bruce Timm, Alan Moore, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, Christopher Priest, Dwayne McDuffie, Brad Metzler – writers and creators who have spoken of the question with glowing praise, or incorporated him unexpectedly in their work, showing their love of the character.
==The problem with DC is that, with the exception of Batman’s rogue gallery and Lex Luthor, their villains don’t translate well off the page into anything other than animation. Look at the Flash TV show. Here was a relatively simple, iconic character to portray. Unfortunately they couldn’t give him an effective rogue’s gallery because his comic villains couldn’t translate well to the screen. The best they could do was Mark Hamill as the Prankster, who was portrayed more like Caesar Romero’s Joker than anything. However, Mark Hamill did a far better job with the Prankster in JLU.==
Once again, the Flash show was poor overall, not just in how it portrayed the villains. Beyond that, how many DC villains have appeared in live action in high profile appearances? Not many for the past two decades.
Oh yeah, and The Question had a very visible part in Frank Miller’s last Dark Knight book. And when “All-Star Batman and Robin” was announced, Jim Lee did a piece for Wizard where he drew sketches of various DCU characters that might be seen – The Question was one of them, and he did a damn fine job illustrating a dark Question skulking in the shadows.
While the Flashes rouges might be kind of goofy, are they more goofy than the Joker, Scarecrow, Venom, Sandman, Green Goblin, the Toad or any number of villains to appear recently in movies? You just have to take out some of the pastels in their costumes and rough them up a bit, make them a bit more realistic, and bam, there is loads of potential. Hell, good comic book writers polish off hokey old concepts all the time and make them cool again.
They also take perfectly valid ones and screw them over completely. *coughAhnoldFreezecough*
wait, so, you want DC to make a movie about somebody asking Harry Lime a question? Oh, his face is sort of removed, I see, it’s like The Question. You know, I never finished 54. Is he dead? I kind of doubt it.
[…] can somebody tell me why this post in particular gets so much goddamned spam? I get at least a dozen spam comments per day on that post. I even […]
You know you’re old when you remember when DC made all the best movies and Marvel couldn’t come up with a single hit to save their lives.
Eh. 2012, 2013. Remarkably close guess.
Admitted, there’ll be other characters in it, but Rocket’s going to be the one putting butts in the seats.
Wait. Racer, not Raccoon. Never mind.