Justice League Dark

[Evildrider]

This is currently in development with Guillermo Del Tor set to direct.

Team will include John Constantine (Blind and with blonde hair this time), Swamp Thing, The Demon, Deadman, The Spectre, and Zatanna.  Not much other info right now other than that.

[Tannhauser]

Guy Pearce to play Constantine.  If there's any justice. It's certainly an interesting idea for a JL movie and with GDT directing?  Promises to be pretty wild.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Rated R or GTFO.

[Ironwood]

Guy Pearce ?

Not seeing that myself.  Not that I don't think he could act it, just, it doesn't seem right.

[Fordel]

The only hero I know on that list is Zatanna.

[Lakov_Sanite]

You don't know swamp thing?!

[Khaldun]

I will be profoundly surprised if this actually gets made. Especially if it gets made when a Justice League Not-Dark picture can't seem to be. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually changes into something that *started* as JL Dark but isn't when it actually gets produced. You know, "a creature, a demon from hell, a ghost, a vengeful spirit, a sorceress and a cynical con man team up to fight some bad guy", without any real reference to the DC Universe.

[angry.bob]

Apparently this is a comic book now? The team reads like a list of pre-vertigo DC characters that got put in Vertigo when they thought it up. Not that that's a bad thing, at the time I read pretty much anything that had those characters, especially Swamp Thing and Hellblazer. Del Toro says the plot book is already written, so who knows. I agree that it's going to be sort of tough to stick with the characters acting in character and having an action movie. Maybe they can go to hell and rescue Abigail Arcane from Anton again. That's probably happened a lot in the 20 years I haven't read a book that wasn't written by Evan Dorkin.

[Rendakor]

I never knew Swamp Thing was a comic character; I just thought it was a cheesy movie/show from the 80s/90s. Constantine is the only other one on the list I know, but again only from the Keanu movie.

[Raguel]

What, no Phantom Stranger? Boo Hiss

Although I suppose he's not much of a joiner, but then only Zatanna really is.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, it's one of the new 52 titles. It's not very good but then almost none of them are. It's essentially "slightly safer for general audiences Vertigo", yeah. Vertigo is more or less being closed down anyway--Hellblazer was cancelled and will be rebooted as a "DC Universe Constantine", who is Constantine without so much sex, swearing, horror-violence and Britishness.

Swamp Thing has had a lot of character development since his generic swamp monster beginnings (which is what the cheesy movies/TV worked off of). Basically Alan Moore totally rethought the character in a rather mind-blowing way, and without the noise and bother of an editor-controlled 'reboot', and that rethink has more or less been status quo ever since. Essentially Moore decided that the character was not a man who had been turned into a swamp creature (which is basically the standard Wolfman/Hulk/Mr. Hyde sort of thing) but a plant elemental that mistakenly had come to think of itself as a man. Once the character recognized the truth, lots of interesting things started to happen: he could let his 'body' fall apart and recreate it anywhere on earth (and eventually in space or in the afterlife); he could create a body out of the intestinal flora inside the human body or out of redwood trees; etc. And he could have sex with a human woman by making hallucinogenic tubers and letting her 'eat' his body and commune with his spirit.

[Samwise]

"DC Universe Constantine", who is Constantine without so much sex, swearing, horror-violence and Britishness.

So not at all Constantine?

[HaemishM]

I will be profoundly surprised if this actually gets made.

This. An animated straight to video feature I could see. A big budget movie with the Justice League brand name that Warners is trying to use as a tentpole? Not a chance in hell.

[Evildrider]

Apparently Del Toro planned on calling it Dark Universe.  I'm assuming the higher ups thought it would make more money as Justice League Dark.

[Tannhauser]

Might be a decent plan.  Let Marvel put out the glam pop super hero movies.  Batman has made lots of money and maybe Warner Bros. wants to continue with the grimdark.  Sort of super hero counter-programming.

I really don't think this is going to get made though. 

[Venkman]

But like others said, I don't see them going from household name to who-the-fuck? They've got more than enough characters to make the progression Marvel did, but they kinda need to make good movies for not-Batman characters first, then Justice League, then see who emerges popular from that, then potentially fringe stuff with the results.

Assuming of course they want more than just adding more direct-to-Netflix animated stuff that they keep stuffing in the Sci-fi/Fantasy section (if I wanting animation, I'd fucking queue up animation, stop padding the catalog!)

Edit: belated bbcode fix

[Khaldun]

I think basically they may be saying, "Hey, here's another Hellboy, only not with those characters". If it gets made, I'm thinking they won't even *call* the characters by their DC names, nor even remotely pretend that it happens in the same universe as Batman, Superman and all that. At which point it's the supernatural adventures of a swamp creature, a sorceress, a magical conman, two ghosts and a demon. Which could be ok or could suck.

[Sir T]

The only hero I know on that list is Zatanna.

Basically "a sarcastic mage in a trenchcoat," "a walking plant," dunno, "a ghost that can posses people", "a ghost WITH ALL THE POWER IN THE UNIVERSE FOR JUSTICE and a cape"

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm guessing this will be much more a watchmen spiritual successor than an avengers.

[Fordel]

You don't know swamp thing?!

Honestly, no, not really.


I'll only know about Zatanna because she shows up in all the Batman/JusticeLeague cartoons.

[Tannhauser]

Swamp Thing was a lame ass monster until Alan Moore did his epic run back in the 80's.  Just before he did Watchmen IIRC.

[Ubvman]

I will be profoundly surprised if this actually gets made. Especially if it gets made when a Justice League Not-Dark picture can't seem to be.

.....

This.

If they are really serious about starting to build a movie DC-verse, they had better put a stinger (end of credits teaser) at the end of the latest Superman. Either bring back Christian Bale's Batman and integrate it with Supes, or just reboot Batman. And put out a half-way decent Wonder Woman movie.

I don't know why this is so hard for DC to start it's own DC movie-verse in the first place compared to the rights mess Marvel had (and still has) in it's hands. Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man arguably the most popular superhero in their comics-verse. Fox owns the X-Men rights - the most popular comic-book team (Avengers fans notwithstanding) and the Fantastic Four.  Really, you have to admire the fact that Marvel managed to get so far on their "second tier" super-heroes.

[Furiously]

Because their animated Wonder Woman movie made them rethink the whole female superhero thing?

[Velorath]

I don't know why this is so hard for DC to start it's own DC movie-verse in the first place compared to the rights mess Marvel had (and still has) in it's hands. Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man arguably the most popular superhero in their comics-verse. Fox owns the X-Men rights - the most popular comic-book team (Avengers fans notwithstanding) and the Fantastic Four.  Really, you have to admire the fact that Marvel managed to get so far on their "second tier" super-heroes.

Offhand I'm not sure how much Marvel makes from licensing Spider-man and X-Men vs. what they'd be making if they had the rights back, but from my viewpoint as a fan at least, I'm sorta glad they aren't in a position where they feel compelled to focus on that many more franchises all at once. As it is, they're making two movies a year, interweaving 4 franchises (with 2 more coming in Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man) and working on a TV show.  Even with all their planning and focus, they've had a couple missteps (the Hulk movie being the biggest). Now imagine if they had to be doing Spider-man and X-Men movies on what would probably be a fairly regular basis, and maybe an attempt at Fantastic Four. I get that some people wan't to see Spider-man and Wolverine in Avengers movie, but personally I'd rather that wait for Avengers 3 or 4 or something as a last hurrah when everyone has started to get tired of these movies.

As for DC, I'm not sure if it's worse for them to have a shit-ton of false starts and canceled projects like with Wonder Woman, Flash, and Justice League, or for them to release another movie like Green Lantern. My gut tells me the issue is that whereas Marvel was a comics company that started getting into the movie business, DC is just part of WB which obviously is a much more traditional movie studio.  The people at the top who ultimately have the job of green-lighting projections don't have any sort of emotional investment in getting DC's characters up on screen, and from a business sense a Wonder Woman movie, or a Justice League movie can look like risky financial propositions even in light of the Avengers success.  I'm pretty sure if Marvel had been bought by Disney prior to the first Iron Man movie, it would have been much less likely it would have gotten made as well.

[Merusk]

DCs heroes aren't as relatable as Marvels and their individual stories were never as entertaining as Marvel's, IMO.   That's what I see as their biggest problem. 

That they can't seem to hire anyone to write a screenplay that isn't going, "LOLCOMICMOVIEWHATSLOGIC?!" as they write would be another.  Superman and GL both were suffering from this in big ways.

[Khaldun]

DC's characters take a different approach--which is why Nolan's take on Batman worked so well. They're iconic, mythic figures, not relatable humans. The problem is that their mythologies don't actually mesh all that well, which has been an issue in Justice League comics almost from the beginning.

Anybody wanting to do the Justice League has to look at something like the Greek gods for an example. They live in separate realms, have very different personalities and areas of responsibility, don't always get along (indeed, sometimes war against one another) but they come together if their pantheon or their world is facing an existential threat (the Titans, Typhon and Echidna, etc.)   So a Justice League, or for that matter Justice League Dark, will either need to spend half the movie establishing the differences or rest on movies that are stylistically and narratively very very different (unlike the Marvel movies, which practically follow a house style).

[Velorath]

DCs heroes aren't as relatable as Marvels and their individual stories were never as entertaining as Marvel's, IMO.   That's what I see as their biggest problem. 

That they can't seem to hire anyone to write a screenplay that isn't going, "LOLCOMICMOVIEWHATSLOGIC?!" as they write would be another.  Superman and GL both were suffering from this in big ways.

Well to be fair they did get Whedon on board for a Wonder Woman movie. Of course then they later changed their mind.

[Lantyssa]

DC is also just terrible at writing female characters with the exception of a tiny number of writers.

[Khaldun]

Yup. Though I'm not sure Marvel has a history full of glorious triumph in that respect either. They sure as hell are doing better right now than DC though. I think this is really the biggest issue: there's managerial chaos around DC's properties that extends from the very top of Time-Warner all the way down to the writers and artists on their current books. The only possibility of a good DC movie at the moment is if they just hand over a property to someone really talented and tell them they won't fuck with him in any way (e.g., like Nolan). Maybe Del Toro will get that with something like "JL Dark".

[Merusk]

Thirty year old men attracted to the comics industry have problems writing convincing women characters in a way they don't come off as damsels in distress or rape-bait?

Who knew!?

[Khaldun]

I'm shocked! Shocked!

[Hoax]

I'd like to see new Starfire costume in movie form.





Just saying s'all.

[Evildrider]

I'd like to see new Starfire costume in movie form.





Just saying s'all.

What costume?