DC Comics on Film

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
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Brian C
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#251 Post by Brian C » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:06 pm

captveg wrote:Take the *quality* out of the equation:
Why? The quality is the only thing anyone should care about.
All I did was propose a possibility to counter this idea that they've literally done nothing for months.
Literally no one said this. You're being weird.

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domino harvey
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#252 Post by domino harvey » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:10 pm

I don't understand this defense, captveg. Are we to be reassured by the mere virtue that the filmmakers are in fact making a film? Sausage is clearly speaking to questions of quality, not existence, so why are you trying to remove the only important component here? Also, any argument where someone will only accept a binary answer is usually one not going well

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#253 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:11 pm

captveg wrote:Are Johns and Berg making plans?
I don't know and I don't care.

I'm very sure you don't know, either.
Brian C wrote:Why? The quality is the only thing anyone should care about.
I know, right?

Why would any of us want to discuss the fact a couple of producers plan to make movies? All the interesting questions happen after that.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#254 Post by captveg » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:14 pm

Brian C wrote:
captveg wrote:Take the *quality* out of the equation:
Why? The quality is the only thing anyone should care about.
But like I said before - the quality of a Johns/Berg developed/produced film won't be known until Aquaman. So without that unknown variable all we have is positive or negative speculation.
Brian C wrote:
captveg wrote:All I did was propose a possibility to counter this idea that they've literally done nothing for months.
Literally no one said this. You're being weird.
Me: I don't buy the idea that they just sit in a room mashing beetles all day without any plan whatsoever.

You: And yet, the standalone film for their most important character just fell apart and had to be reconstituted on the fly.

Conclusion: You are saying that the recent problems with Batman is evidence that they have no plan whatsoever.


Do you see where this part of the discussion diverted now?

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domino harvey
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#255 Post by domino harvey » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:17 pm

What evidence is there that these films will be good?

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#256 Post by captveg » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:26 pm

domino harvey wrote:I don't understand this defense, captveg. Are we to be reassured by the mere virtue that the filmmakers are in fact making a film? Sausage is clearly speaking to questions of quality, not existence, so why are you trying to remove the only important component here? Also, any argument where someone will only accept a binary answer is usually one not going well
I was arguing two separate points.

One was a factual one (see my last post).

One is the speculative/opinion one.

The answer to your question - " Are we to be reassured by the mere virtue that the filmmakers are in fact making a film?" - is No.

In relation to being optimistic/pessimistic about Johns/Berg as developers/producers of the DC films going forward, I don't think there's enough evidence to make a solid conclusions either way without an end product to evaluate how people react. Others may see trickles of development news as enough to draw conclusions from. To me that's too vague. Seeing an actual reaction by the public to a movie is more concrete, and it's too far off to know what that will be.

I do think there's enough bits and pieces to glean what a plan of theirs *may* be, and how it might be designed to play out, but that's again speculative, and the actually quality of any such plan is easily able to fall on any range of the quality scale in the end.

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Brian C
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#257 Post by Brian C » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:31 pm

captveg wrote:
Brian C wrote:
captveg wrote:All I did was propose a possibility to counter this idea that they've literally done nothing for months.
Literally no one said this. You're being weird.
Me: I don't buy the idea that they just sit in a room mashing beetles all day without any plan whatsoever.

You: And yet, the standalone film for their most important character just fell apart and had to be reconstituted on the fly.

Conclusion: You are saying that the recent problems with Batman is evidence that they have no plan whatsoever.


Do you see where this part of the discussion diverted now?
Me: It's silly to think that Jim isn't making an effort, he made twice as many sales calls as I did.
Coworker: And yet, his production is way behind yours.

captveg's conclusion: I'm lying about Jim's sales calls.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#258 Post by captveg » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:33 pm

domino harvey wrote:What evidence is there that these films will be good?
None of any cinematic substance outside of the people they hire to write/direct/etc. And that is rarely a guarantee of anything (Jon Berg has produced Meet Dave and Edge of Tomorrow, for example. Hard to draw a solid conclusion on his ability for a DC based series on those extremes).

The source material is also too varied in quality to draw any concrete conclusions from.

So we revert to default states of optimistic/pessimistic speculation based on very minimal information.
Last edited by captveg on Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#259 Post by captveg » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:42 pm

Me: I don't buy the idea that they just sit in a room mashing beetles all day without any plan whatsoever.

You: And yet, the standalone film for their most important character just fell apart and had to be reconstituted on the fly.

Conclusion: You are saying that the recent problems with Batman is evidence that they have no plan whatsoever.


Do you see where this part of the discussion diverted now?
Me: It's silly to think that Jim isn't making an effort, he made twice as many sales calls as I did.
Coworker: And yet, his production is way behind yours.

captveg's conclusion: I'm lying about Jim's sales calls.
You removed the key word of "idea".

Me: It's a silly idea that Jim isn't making an effort, he made twice as many sales calls as I did.
Coworker: And yet, his production is way behind yours.

Conclusion: I'm lying about the the very idea/concept of Jim making an effort.

So, we've cleared that up, and see where the disconnect over language was. I feel better now that I know you weren't trying to argue the very idea of Johns/Berg making an effort. That was frustratingly distracting me. *head stops spinning over this*

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#260 Post by captveg » Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:10 am

OK, back to an actual normal film conversation now. Specifically, back to this point:
MrSausage wrote:Marvel is lucky: it is only ever compared to itself, and it spends most of its time mimicking itself, so the comparison is in its favour--when you don't like it, you still like it. DC is only ever compared to Marvel (or hard-to-duplicate past success like Nolan's Batmans), so it's always stuck either failing to imitate another company's successes, or alienating the audience by breaking another company's mold too strongly. It's dancing around someone else's standard.
I do wonder how the trends are going to ebb and flow for comic book properties from major studios in the context of the standards you've very keenly outlined here. Fox seems to be having success with a more niche approach if Deadpool and Logan are an indication. So they're crafting a new identity that is not being compared to the MCU, yet is being embraced by critics and audiences. Highly likely the main X-Men series pulls closer to this approach in the next few years.

DC tried to repeat the Nolan approach but also roll in the MCU approach half way, and Snyder/Ayer could not pull it off for their films for critics and audiences alike. Now all indications are that they are going to move closer to that MCU model, but as you state the comparisons are to standards they didn't establish. So while they try to bring Wonder Woman and Justice League closer to that MCU standard, because of their production timing they are unlikely to do more than close the gap in the best of circumstances, a low-ish standard that people are skeptical of them accomplishing due to not liking BvS and SS.

That makes the Aquaman / Batman type projects all the more crucial. Will it be enough for them to simply be good in the MCU standards sense, even allowing for them to get to that particular level? I think that will make people willing to see the films, but only matter-of-factly. General audiences won't be enthusiastic about DC films unless they can hit an even higher, far tougher bar - setting a new standard that makes people not only enthusiastic about their films, but enough to where such an identity makes it seem to be another viable unique flavor.

Right now DC seems to be moving from from disliked black licorice (Snyder/Ayer) into hoping to be serviceable MCU red licorice. But that won't be really truly satisfactory since it'll always be an imitation until they hit upon their own licorice flavor that is distinctly theirs and also liked by a majority. Maybe Johns/Berg and Wan/Reeves/et al pull that off. It would be a real against the odds tale, even to this optimistic observer.
Last edited by captveg on Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:17 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Brian C
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#261 Post by Brian C » Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:15 am

captveg wrote:So, we've cleared that up, and see where the disconnect over language was. I feel better now that I know you weren't trying to argue the very idea of Johns/Berg making an effort. That was frustratingly distracting me. *head stops spinning over this*
Um ............. OK fine. But in the future, if you're curious about what I mean, try reading everything I subsequently say.

But if you're satisfied now, good, I guess.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#262 Post by captveg » Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:30 am

Talking past one another is gonna happen in the internet from time to time. We all want to keep it to a minimum.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#263 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Feb 25, 2017 1:56 am

Continuing the part of this conversation that side stepped the weird Kremlinology of trying to determine what DC thinks it's doing: I have to say, even once Snyder's loathly touch is removed from the equation, I kind of hope the overall project of a conjoined DC film universe will fail. Nothing against the ip (I am a big Bat-fan generally and I loved the Timm/Dini DCAU) but because the idea that in doing something like this with popular enough properties, producers could finally have a totally safe, predictable money machine is terrifying. Franchises and sequels aren't great, creatively, but we seem stuck with them, and they've been a feature of filmgoing since I was a kid, but a world in which every $100m+ movie had to be part of some interconnected universe is genuinely upsetting; like, just look at the endless mess that got DC and Marvel the comic book publishers into.

Marvel, in particular, has a habit of launching some new, clean version of itself every little while- the Ultimate Marvel line, for instance- which shortly thereafter grows so overweighted with continuity that it's totally uninviting and impossible to pick up midstream, and it killed the Ultimate line altogether. It's not hard to see that happening with the movies, and some of the movies seem like they suffer because of it (Avengers 2 in particular. So if something like the DC version- which clearly wasn't put together as a smooth machine the way Marvel looks, at least in retrospect- could still become a monster of equal size, I feel like everyone would be chasing that dragon. If DC fails, maybe it will be written off as something only Disney really excels at, a conclusion which I would be pretty happy about.

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Re: Comic Books on Film

#264 Post by captveg » Sat Feb 25, 2017 4:43 pm

Well, as a fan of DC characters more than Marvel characters I'd prefer they not be such a sacrificial lamb. And the reality is that the more expensive theatrical productions become the less risk they will take, and the serialized IPs will dominate further. More and more people are treating the theatrical experience as a theme park - tickets only to be bought for the biggest thrill ride experience. People pay to see the next $150m episode, while the $10m drama is seen less and less outside of the home.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#265 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:39 am

Is that actually true, though? If you look at the top 10 grossers last year, there are surely a fair number of mega franchise entries- the yearly Star Wars up top, and Civil War at number 3 (and number 1 worldwide), with the two DC entries and Deadpool all showing up- but more strikingly, and more profitably, the list is packed with kids' movies, which were cheaper to make. Number 11 is one, too, Moana- and a lot of these are original IP (Secret Life of Pets, Sing, Zootopia, Moana) or only connected to one other movie (the other two.) Of the big cluster franchise movies, Deadpool is kind of iffy, since it's not really clear how exactly it connects to any of the other X-Men movies; if you leave that out, we've got the admitted champion of the format, Disney, sitting up top with two powerhouses, and DC bringing up the rear with a semi success and a disappointment.

Now, I'll grant that it's rough going to find any adult oriented original IP anywhere in the top grossers- basically only Hidden Figures and La La Land in the top 20 (though both are phenomenal moneymakers in terms of roi)- but I don't think the list necessarily reflects a lot of success at managing the shared-universe concept outside of Disney, which is the point at issue, nor do I think it's one that I would look at as a studio exec and decide to move forward with my massive Beetle Bailey/Hi and Lois universe set of blockbusters.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#266 Post by captveg » Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:27 am

There's no singular way for success, but there are some models that are more successful on average. 3D animation is one of those more common and successful types, alongside the big IP franchises. In the case of animation, the IP is the studio who brought you Toy Story (Pixar), Minions (Illumination), Frozen (Disney) and such.

But yes, I was mostly speaking to dramas, as the ones with box office success in the last decade or so are definitely outliers. And even then movie studios would much rather spend $250m and make $800m then spend $25m and make 80m. That's why more often than not they'd rather let indie production companies do the hard work and then just buy distribution rights at film festivals. They certainly don't develop these movies themselves anymore.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#267 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sun Feb 26, 2017 11:43 am

By the time you broaden the concept of ip to include studio identity, it's meaningless- of course nearly every movie has SOME connection to other successful movies, through studio or actor or director or whatever else. The issue at hand isn't that, or leaning in tentpoles, it's specifically the shared universe nonlinear sequel idea that Marvel popularized. Like, Rogue One is the first Star Wars movie that fits the criteria- everything else is not a new phenomenon.

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Re: Comic Books on Film

#268 Post by captveg » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:22 pm

I never claimed it was outright new, only that it was increasing in market share.

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knives
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#269 Post by knives » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:24 pm

You're talking accounting; everyone else is talking movies.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#270 Post by captveg » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:32 pm

We were talking both. They're intrinsicly connected once one starts referring to IPs, budgets, box office, studios chasing the highest popularity, etc.

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Brian C
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#271 Post by Brian C » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:38 pm

captveg wrote:We were talking both. They're intrinsicly connected once one starts referring to IPs, budgets, box office, studios chasing the highest popularity, etc.
But none of that has anything to do with the Marvel-type model of shared universes linking multiple movies together, which is quite clearly what matrixschmatrix is griping about.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#272 Post by captveg » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:41 pm

So, goal posts of what I'm allowed to bring into the conversation as relative moved again. Gotcha.

If one is going to make discussion of *why* studios chase certain production models off limits than there's no point in discussing their behavior to begin with.

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domino harvey
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#273 Post by domino harvey » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:45 pm

No one is disallowing you to take your argument in that direction. It is however increasingly apparent that you are an uncritical fanboy who is unwilling to offer much more than token feints at clear and apparent negatives in the existent and future films in this series

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Brian C
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#274 Post by Brian C » Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:54 pm

captveg wrote:So, goal posts of what I'm allowed to bring into the conversation as relative moved again. Gotcha.

If one is going to make discussion of *why* studios chase certain production models off limits than there's no point in discussing their behavior to begin with.
You have an obligation if you're going to argue with someone to make your argument relevant. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and trying everyone's patience.

Besides which, every 4-year-old can understand *why* these movies get made. Studios are chasing lots of dollars. We get it. This does not qualify as an insight on your behalf.

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captveg
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Re: Comic Books on Film

#275 Post by captveg » Sun Feb 26, 2017 1:10 pm

You guys sure like to belittle and name call to make yourselves feel more important

Sausage brought up an idea about the establishing of audiences drawing comparisons between brand standards, on which I made a comment. Matrix then moved that conversation into one concerning success/failure, and that shifted to include "accounting".

So sorry to make offense to your delicate sensibilities.

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