[The Jewish Cunthead]

Is the guy with the Gary Gnu av talking shit about geeks? Really?

[Jack Quinn]

yes?

Gary Gnu > Superman

[Lucky]

Its past history, Moose. There's an IM chat in the "Hall of Fame" where you freak out on us, I seem to recall you really objecting to comic stuff advancing in the TV/Movie showdowns, and one of Stu's Stickipedia jokes for you is a hatred of comics. So if 3 people come into a comic film thread and say "I have no interest in this" and 2 have no past history of negative comments about the genre or its fans? 1 is gonna stand out.

And I do agree that Hollywood runs in fads and clearly it got to be a fad. And there's plenty of shitty comic films out there made in the last decade. But I actually think comic films has got PAST fad now and is becoming a real genre of film. Or a sub-genre to be more exact of action film. They're money making summer blockbusters. And really, Iron Man is a BIG one getting a LOT of great reviews and making a LOT of money. Its surprising people at how well its doing and how great it supposedly is. Its clearly appealing to a much broader base than the comic geeks. Again, you don't have to care. We've talked about this where I get why you aren't into these big summer movies and all the hype. And part of me is the same way (I couldn't give a fuck about Transformers last summer).

Iron Man obviously isn't Batman or Superman but he IS a cornerstone of the Marvel Comic Universe. More importantly this is the first release from Marvel Films and is clearly intended to be the very first building block of a full fledged Marvel Film Universe and a 5 or 6 film spanning Avengers story. And more than that, its a movie that is clearly just selling as the first blow away "must see" summer blockbuster of the year. So even if Iron Man isn't exactly a household name, the movie seems to legitimately be pretty big and EXTREMELY well received. Its received a 93% positive review rate from Rotten Tomatoes. Last I saw that was the best reviewed comic film of all time and the best reviewed film of 2008.

Now when Ant Man comes out in a couple of years? Comic geeks are already questioning if they're reaching to deep into the well on that one.

[OpTard]

May 12, 2008 15:12:03 GMT -5 Stu said:

May 12, 2008 11:22:53 GMT -5 OpTard said:

and stu, listing a bunch of things DC has "in development" just proves my point further. all they ever have are things in development. tak to me when something actually gets made.

Would you rather they rushed out something, like they were trying to do with the JL movie, which was a disaster waiting to happen?

it just gets to the point where you're no longer "not rushing" and you get into "not doing."

the fact that it's all one studio should not be a hindrance, it should help. the reason it took 13 years to make a spider-man movie is because it was in license rights hell. ever movie marvel's made had to be shopped, negotiated and agreed to with a second party in a way that made everyone happy. all warners has to do is decide they want to make the movie.

and sorry but i'm not one to judge movies before they're even made, so while i didn't have alot of faith in it, i was never ready to call JLA a "disaster waiting to happen." and if it did turn out to be a disaster, i don't think it would've been because warners actually didn't drag their ass on something, but because warners has shown a total inability to manage their properties. they tried for 10 years to make a new superman movie before finally making superman returns (which made over 100 million over it's budget worldwide, not including DVD sales, so i don't know where you're getting that it lost money. not to mention that a 390 mil box office is NOT a failure, though i would argue that a 270 mil budget is a bit fucking dumb.). the wonder woman movie has been in and out of production constantly. and they were too stupid to get it in bale and routh's contracts to appear in a JLA movie. to me they were finally doing something right by being committed to moving forward with JLA. of course they couldn't even follow through with that.

[Stu]

May 13, 2008 11:12:55 GMT -5 OpTard said:

they tried for 10 years to make a new superman movie before finally making superman returns (which made over 100 million over it's budget worldwide, not including DVD sales, so i don't know where you're getting that it lost money. not to mention that a 390 mil box office is NOT a failure, though i would argue that a 270 mil budget is a bit fucking dumb.).

I remember at the time, there was a general sense that it wasn't the SMASH hit that WB were expecting it to be and that to get such a gross, they kept it in theaters longer than movies usually got. And I agree on that budget thing, especially with Singer spending so much money on the original opening scene set in the ruins of Krypton, which he ended up scrapping, then not even bothering to put on the DVD.

the wonder woman movie has been in and out of production constantly. and they were too stupid to get it in bale and routh's contracts to appear in a JLA movie. to me they were finally doing something right by being committed to moving forward with JLA. of course they couldn't even follow through with that.

I thought with Wonder Woman, it was because Joss Whedon pulled out of the development because he couldn't agree with WB what the film should be? That's just unfortunate, and not really something you can put down to WB stupidity, because we don't really know what Whedon's idea was. And JLA was going to have Batman played by a 22 year old who's most prominent role to date was an extra in Arrested Development, and bunch of other shit, like Adam Brody supposedly as The Flash. Try and tell me you can see that working.

And while Marvel are working on an Avengers movie, even they are waiting until they establish some of the characters in their own movies before doing it.

[Lucky]

But whatever the reason for the WW and JL delays, Tard's point is that its just more of what we've become used to. DC/WB products seem to just hang in developmental hell forever. That's the impression they've left on us. So hearing that Green Lantern is "in development" falls flat when I go looking and see no script written, no director connected, and no actors contracted. And I remember a year or two ago when GL was so totally gonna come out as a comedy starring Jack Black. And GL is supposed to be in a JL film. So it just feels like another in a long line of DC/WB developmental ideas that never seem to go anywhere.

When some of those movies in development start getting filmed or start contracting major players... THEN I'll really start to believe in them and get interested. Until then its just 8 years of rumors about a Wonder Woman film and 20 actresses being randomly mentioned but there never appearing to actually be anything.

And while Whedon did basically pull out because of disagreements with WB he also said that he would have stuck with it and tried to work out a film if he had gotten the impression that WB cared. But they seemed amazingly unmotivated and uninterested in the project so it wasn't worth wasting his time with. Which is the impression we all have about WB/DC. They have all of these characters, stories, and projects waiting to be used. They don't have to worry about any of the hassles of working with licensing that Marvel did for so long. And yet they're not bothering to capitalize on a genre of film that is REALLY popular and that Marvel is having a ton of success with. Just seems weird and is frustrating from comic fans who want to see their favorites brought to the screen.