Despite the fact that The Dark Knight has made roughly eighty-five kerjillion dollars on its way to breaking nearly every box office record since the dawn of motion photography, DC Comics -- and, by extention, their parent company Warner Brothers -- is widely perceived as the big loser in the battle of superhero movies. Much as Marvel Comics did in the early '60s, Marvel Films -- the people responsible for Iron Man, Spider-Man and the X-Men franchise -- has largely trounced what it used to call its "Distinguished Competition". Although both companies have turned their franchise characters into successful movies, Marvel's have generally been seen as more successful, more entertaining, more true to their comic book origins, and most of all, easier to get made. While DC continues to farm its characters out to various studios, Marvel has consolidated its filmmaking power into its studio arm, ensuring a production continuity that provides another curious parallel to the '60s, when the more coherent continuity of Marvel's comics appealed to readers.
This is a situation that Warner Brothers, who's been making movies even longer than DC has been making comics, is eager to change. In an article in the latest Variety, Warner execs and DC bigwigs alike discuss what's being done to avoid the sort of missteps that have led to their being thought of as the second-tier player in superhero films. From greenlighting unprofitable tripe like Catwoman to dragging its feet on potential blockbusters like Wonder Woman and Justice League, DC's film development players have made a number of high-profile mistakes (let's not even speak of the botch-job that was the making and marketing of Superman Returns) that have led them to be seen as failures despite having put out the biggest blockbuster in four decades.
DC development executives Jeff Robinov (production vice-president) and Gregory Noveck (senior VP of creative affairs) describe their recent meetings with Warner Brothers head Alan Horn in terms of a visit to the woodshed with an angry dad. Horn doesn't deny it: "If you do it wrong," he says of developing sucessful films from the billion-dollar DC empire, "you're dead, you're out of there." In a line that will bring power-mad smiles to the faces of geeks everywhere, Robinov talks about no wanting to piss off the Comic-Con contingent, and speaks of the difficulty of making a good film while keeping the fanboys happy. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comic book industry, and it takes time to understand the characters and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their worlds are," says Robinov, who probably spent high school going outdoors and dating girls, in the understatement of the year, "That's part of the education that we're going through." It's an education that Horn no doubt hopes won't prove too costly.
Hey, how about that? A whole post about superhero movies, and no mention of Watchmen! I may get out of this year alive after all...