Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

[Ginaz]

I remember people saying Heath Ledger was all wrong for the Joker.  How did that turn out?   Its one of the reasons why I don't take comic book nerds very seriously when they bitch about casting choices.

[jgsugden]

I remember people saying Heath Ledger was all wrong for the Joker.  How did that turn out?   Its one of the reasons why I don't take comic book nerds very seriously when they bitch about casting choices.

There is a difference between:

* We don't think Actor X can pull it off, and
* We don't think Actor X has the right look for the part.

For the most part, I don't care about race, frame, or even gender for a role.  If you wanted to remake TJ Hooker with a 380 lb Hispanic female in Shatner's role - bring it on.  I'm open minded.  I had no problem with Joan Watson on Elementary and
However, if there are physical aspects to the role that are central to the core of the character, you can't brush them aside.  I'm closed off t those types of changes.  Wonder Woman must be a woman.  Further, she needs to be an Amazon.  She needs to look like a truck hitting her is going to bend around her, not like she'll bend around a feather that falls on her.

And before someone says something about the acting being more important - there are many actresses with the right look that can also act the socks off the role.  It doesn't need to be one or the other... but Hollywood is so desperate to get Megan Foxes in almost every role to sell sex, they sacrifice both the right physicality and the right acting to get their sex.

[sickrubik]

A LOT of the Ledger bullshit was based squarely on Brokeback Mountain and stupid homophobic BS.

But yes, there is a GULF of difference between this situation and Ledger as Joker.

[eldaec]

Also, while there was a lot of ledger bullshit, it wasn't on forums like this. Here on f13, one regular poster had an issue with it, and he got over it in about 24 hours.

Nothing abo,,ut this film is like the dark knight.

[sickrubik]

Yarp.

[SurfD]

However, if there are physical aspects to the role that are central to the core of the character, you can't brush them aside.  I'm closed off t those types of changes.  Wonder Woman must be a woman.  Further, she needs to be an Amazon.  She needs to look like a truck hitting her is going to bend around her, not like she'll bend around a feather that falls on her.

So much this.   It took me all of 10 seconds to get over Kingpin in Daredevil being a big mean black man, instead of a big mean white man.   Now try to picture Kevin Heart being the kingpin.   It's practically impossible.

[sickrubik]

Eh. A better analogy would be a terrible SKINNY comedic actor.

[MahrinSkel]

Eh. A better analogy would be a terrible SKINNY comedic actor.

Steve Buscemi as The Kingpin?  He's not a terrible actor, but there's just no way.

--Dave

[Ironwood]

Quite.  And as I remember it most of the outrage over Ledger was also due to the Glasgow Grin.

[sickrubik]

The outrage stuff we are talking about was during casting, long before we knew what he would look like.

[jgsugden]

The outrage stuff we are talking about was during casting, long before we knew what he would look like.

People also overstate the resistance on that for some reason.  The vast majority approached it more questioningly than objectingly.

[MediumHigh]

How to fix superman vs batman.

1. Stop calling it superman vs batman
2. Stop casting justice league
3. 1 villain per hero. No minor villains.

Chances that they'll take any of this advice? 0%

[jgsugden]

In the end, I think they're screwed regardless of their approach.

DC characters just don't work on screen.  They're 'bigger than life', and when you have the Flash, Green Lantern, Shazam, and Superman in live action, their powers look ridiculous.  Most of them are artifacts that were conevied of in an era that is ridiculously out of place in modern sensibilities.

If I were DC, I'd stick to the animated movies and TV series and leave the live action to Marvel - their characters work better on film.

[Tannhauser]

That's a great point and I tend to agree BUT surely they could find someone who could update these iconic heroes to a modern sensibility.  Sadly, I don't think anyone at WB has 'The Vision' Marvel has to make these heroes relateable and cool.

It strikes me as they don't really have an overall plan like Marvel does and they are foundering.  Marvel is digging down deep in their gold mine while DC is smacking at the creek water with their gold pan.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Marvel(or disney in the case of the movies) didn't have much of a plan before Iron man either, really.  They needed a comic book hero that wasn't spiderman or the fantastic four and let's be honest way back in the day the argument was "will people even know who iron man is?"

DC had the same opportunity with batman begins and dark knight and they tried, god bless em.  They released a terrible green lantern movie and a superman darker than anyone was comfortable with.  They had all the same chances as marvel to build up a justice league movie on par with avengers but they've squandered that.

[Rendakor]

Well, DC is doing pretty good with Arrow and I believe they plan on doing Flash after this season of Arrow ends (since they've introduced and origin'd him). I'm not sure if those characters are slated to appear in a future JL movie, but Arrow is the first DC thing other than Nolan's Batman trilogy that I've enjoyed.

[sickrubik]

The outrage stuff we are talking about was during casting, long before we knew what he would look like.

People also overstate the resistance on that for some reason.  The vast majority approached it more questioningly than objectingly.

Right, but we weren't talking about them. We were talking about the people openly bitching.

[HaemishM]

Marvel(or disney in the case of the movies) didn't have much of a plan before Iron man either, really.  They needed a comic book hero that wasn't spiderman or the fantastic four and let's be honest way back in the day the argument was "will people even know who iron man is?"

DC had the same opportunity with batman begins and dark knight and they tried, god bless em.  They released a terrible green lantern movie and a superman darker than anyone was comfortable with.  They had all the same chances as marvel to build up a justice league movie on par with avengers but they've squandered that.

Marvel actually was in a worse position before the success of Iron Man because of how many different companies they had sold licenses to. Spider-Man is at Sony, Fox has the X-Men line so they couldn't (and still can't) control all their brands cohesively. DC, OTOH, was all owned by Warner Bros. and could have pulled all their properties into one universe/one brand and made a killing. Hell, they even have the more iconic characters - Superman and Batman have been around for more than 75 years and were infinitely more recognizable than Iron Man. The problem was they didn't (and don't) have executives who think about it that way. They were thinking about 1 franchise, not 1 universe of multiple franchises. They are still floundering with it. They need a guy like Avi Arad or Kevin Feige, an executive who understands the properties as individuals and as a whole.

Good luck with that.

[jgsugden]

That's a great point and I tend to agree BUT surely they could find someone who could update these iconic heroes to a modern sensibility.  Sadly, I don't think anyone at WB has 'The Vision' Marvel has to make these heroes relateable and cool...

I'm not sure you can have that vision, as it is inherently inconsistent.  The majority of main DC heroes are defined by the insane power levels.  If you depower them enough to make them fit with a modern relatable sensibility, they stop being the characters we know.  There are obvious exceptions, but when it comes to Supes, Shazam, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern(s), Spectre, Dr. Fate, etc... there are too many massively powerful characters to accept.

Yes, Marvel has a few of these issues.  Swallowing GotG, Thor and Dr. Strange is quite a bit different than accepting Hulk, Iron Man and Ant-man.  However, it is not on the same scale - and Marvel barely made Thor work in the eyes of most people.  GotG and Dr. Strange have yet to be pulled off.

[eldaec]

To my mind Thor is the most impressive film of the lot, allowing for the quality of the material they had to work with.

[eldaec]

Answering Haemish's point, while I'm all in favour of piling on DC, they don't really have more recognisable characters beyond superman and batman. Superman is a terrible premise in the first place and neither plays well with others.

The idea of trying to make Batman and Superman grind through the back and forth banter of a buddy movie fills me with dread even before you get Zac Snyder and Ben Affleck involved.

Sometimes the sum of the parts really is worth more than the whole.

Even the avengers is far from certain to work out ok twice.

[sickrubik]

The fact that Bats and Sups don't play well together or anyone else is largely the premise of all of their teamup stuff as well as JL. The title has been Superman vs Batman, not BUDDY ACTION THEATER.

Zac Snyder is the thing to worry about most, especially if there are female characters involved.

[Khaldun]

The answer is simple: these characters "don't work" until someone comes along who can make them work. There is no character in DC or Marvel's canon who could categorically cannot be in a film and be enjoyed by mainstream audiences. Every character is locked up until a screenwriter, director and actors comes along with a key.

This includes characters with "insane power levels", characters in a world full of superheroes, and so on.  There have already BEEN movies enjoyed by mainstream audiences where there are or have been lots of superpowered people with complex relationships. The Incredibles is the best example.

It's stupid to make dictates or rule things out. Geeks are fond of ruling things out as impossible and then quickly forgetting that they said so once it happens.

However, if you're going to use an existing character, you have to both get the character right--in that they have some specific spirit or nature that distinguishes them that is the reason for working with them--and you have to be willing to shuck off anything that doesn't work, to reshape and modernize the character.

If you're working with a character who is inherently referential--e.g., requires a universe full of superheroes who they contrast against or relate to--you have to not make them the first property you're working with or not try to shoehorn in everything else. You have to do it the way The Incredibles did--quick strokes that establish the genre and setting, then get to work on your main guy.

If you're working with an iconic character who can potentially stand alone, strip them down to the essential idea and build it back again.

If you want more than one character, though? Then you've got to start making a world where that makes sense. You can't make Lord of the Rings and have elves and dwarves meet for the first time--it has to be a world where elves and dwarves have been there for thousands of years. If you're going to have a Justice League, you need to have an idea about why suddenly there are seven people who wear costumes and fight bad guys.

[sickrubik]

I agree with everything you said.

[MediumHigh]

There is no physical reason why DC can't make one shared universe for its superhero movies. Or feature other heroes besides batman and superman. Or create a justice league movie.

The problem here is that folks with the money are far too old to do anything with the license except mimic what the marketing executives feed them through IV.

At this point I don't even want to see them attempt to tie the entirety of DC into one filming franchise.I think their better off with a more oceans 11 approach to justice league than a "Look see? Remember that guy in the blue suit you saw 2 movies ago? He's back but with more superfriends who may or may not have gotten their own movies." They don't know what to do with what they have so their flaundering on executive orders to make the marvel hat dollars.

[tazelbain]

Which requires talent and vision on the executive level not just in the directors chair.

[jgsugden]

If you'd rather characterize the situation by saying it is far, far, far more difficult to make a live action DC film with the larger than life heroes than it is to makie movies about the more grounded Marvel heroes, I think that is fair.  

I just think it is hard to a degree that exceeds a reasonable expectation for what a studio can produce.  I thought the Superman movie they made was pretty darn good for a Superman movie - but it was not great overall.

On a different note: Stephen Arnell has confirmed to Fandango that his Green Arrow could make the leap to a Justice League movie and establish that his Greeb Arrow and the new Flash are part of the movie continuity...

http://www.fandango.com/movieblog/bam-pow-zap-talking-superhero-rumors-with-steven-amell-jason-momoa-and-sam-l-jackson-746510.html

[eldaec]

I don't disagree it is possible in the way Khaldun suggests.

I just don't see why you'd want to, seems to be an awful waste of creative effort, and don't agree there is any automatic premium on putting these characters in the same film.

[Tannhauser]

Arrow is the best thing DC has done since Bats 2.  They should get the show runners to come up with a comprehensive plan for the JL heroes. Also, no hero origins, here's an example.

Superman:  "So Batman right?  What's your story?"
Batman:  "None of your business."

Done.

[Furiously]

They need to let Bruce Timm and Paul Dini direct :P

[MediumHigh]

Bruce Timm directing this with complete god like authority would be the only thing saving this crap wheel that's on fire.

[Khaldun]

Part of the problem is that most of the executives green-lighting superhero movies, and even some of the directors, are actually kind of embarrassed by superheroes and comic-books. That can work if you're trying to work with a grittier 'real-life' vigilante pulp character like Batman. It can't work if you're dealing with a four-color spandex guy who has superpowers. It just can't. You can't be embarrassed by the gaudy unreality of a guy who could move the Moon from its orbit flying around saving cats from trees and stopping muggers and still green-light the movie.

You have to actually love the idea of a world full of men and women who wear their underwear on the outside doing mighty deeds and stoping evil-doers. That's why The Incredibles worked--it had not even one ounce of chagrin about a super-hero world. It's ultimately why The Avengers worked--it's more "real world" than The Incredibles, but Whedon basically loves the core tropes of superhero team-up books and reworks them beautifully. He's not in the least ashamed of them.

Watchmen--the book at least--was the final word on what you have to do with superheroes if you're embarrassed by them: you have to recognize that in a world like our world, a guy who dressed up in form-fitting spandex and beat up criminals would be a sex fetishist or a mental case of one kind or another, and a person with genuine super-powers would change literally everything about geopolitics and society.

The problem so far with the Superman lead-in to a Justice League film is that it's ashamed of the character and the genre. "Man of Steel" tried so hard to show that it's "grown-up" and in the process just killed all the fun out of it. They narrowcast their sense of being "grown up" at the kind of post-adolescent who got an erection looking at Rob Liefield illustrations of Cable carrying an even bigger gun and wearing even bigger pouches. If they don't fix that basic issue, none of the rest of it is going to be even a teeny bit fun or right.

[jgsugden]

Absolutely Agree with the problem you see, but still disagree that there is a solution with mass appeal for a wide audience.   

[Tannhauser]

I felt the same about Thor.  True, it may not look like comic book Martian Manhunter, etc. but it can be done.

[sickrubik]

Khaldun's point was not that it couldn't work.