Both Marvel/Disney and DC/Warner Bros. have released their release schedule for a whole slew of comic book/superhero movies up until 2020, which by then we'll be ruled by giant alien robots.
I've astrally projected my mind into the future and I have brought back my predictions (10000% guaranteed) to tell you what the future holds:
DC COMICS/WARNER BROTHERS SCHEDULE:
March 25, 2016 – Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
Hoping to bring some of Batman's cool-factor with Superman's penchant for mega-spectacle, and open doors for other characters, and ultimately a Justice League movie franchise.
It makes a shit-ton of money, but so much was spent making and promoting it, it will fail to turn a profit.
August 5, 2016 – Untitled DC Film
The first release date for the Wonder Woman movie, which will be cancelled because the studio can't bring themselves to pull the trigger on a female led superhero franchise.
Replaced by a Green Lantern reboot which is a shot-for-shot remake of the failed Green Lantern movie, but this time Ryan Reynolds is replaced by Russell Brand.
It flops.
June 23, 2017 – Untitled DC Film
AQUAMAN! - starring Jonah Hill.
Flops, because no one really likes Aquaman.
November 17, 2017 – Untitled DC Film
Second cancelled attempt at a Wonder Woman movie. Replaced by a movie about LOBO, starring Mark Wahlberg, a character who was big in the 1990s, but no one gives a shit about anymore.
It flops.
March 23, 2018 – Untitled DC Film
SHAZAM!
But Dwayne Johnson was too expensive, and was replaced by Seth Rogen, with Justin Bieber as Billy Batson, who by this time is working for dime-bags of pot.
May 25, 2018 – Untitled Lego Movie
This movie will be even more egregious in the product placement because they think that's what people want, not realizing that audiences flocked to it because it was a family friendly all-encompassing parody movie.
July 27, 2018 – Untitled DC Film
3rd cancelled Wonder Woman release date.
Replaced with a Lobo reboot, this time starring Zac Efron.
November 16, 2018 – Untitled WB Event Film
Big money Justice League movie, but in the interim everyone introduced in the previous movies has been fired and replaced with cheaper actors.
April 5, 2019 – Untitled DC Film
Supposed to be Aquaman 2, but that flopped, so it was given to finally releasing a Wonder Woman movie, but then cancelled again.
Replaced by a Shazam reboot, this time starring Leonard DiCaprio as Shazam, directed by Martin Scorsese.
May 24, 2019 – Untitled Lego film
Reeling from the negative reaction to the all-product placement Lego movie this film is cancelled and replaced by a movie based on Oreo cookies.
It too flops.
June 14, 2019 – Untitled DC Film
Batman reboot starring Matt Damon.
April 3, 2020 – Untitled DC Film
Superman reboot starring Will Smith, who has recently ballooned to 300 lbs and refuses to lose weight.
June 19, 2020 – Untitled DC Film
Batman reboot starring Tobey Maguire. It replaces the cancelled Wonder Woman movie, this time starring Miley Cyrus. Film was cancelled in pre-production when Cyrus gets her flapping lizard tongue caught on a passing car that drags her all the way to Mexico.
November 20, 2020 – Untitled WB Event Film
Justice League reboot with a $500 million budget, an all black, all female cast, and all references to superpowers and super-villains replaced by discussions of relationships or long montage sequences about shopping. Naturally fans are baffled by a film marketed as a superhero movie turn out to be an unsanctioned remake of the first Sex & The City movie, causing Time-Warner CEO Jeff Zucker to go ballistic and threaten to sue everyone who doesn't buy a ticket to the movie.
No one buys a ticket.
Its failure is used as an excuse by Warner Bros. management to eliminate all female led films or ethnic diversity from its production slate.
MARCH 14, 2021 - Warner Bros. Purchased by News Corp.
After a string of expensive flops, an expensive lawsuit from Sex & The City's creator over the Justice League reboot, and Jeff Zucker's investing of all the corporation's assets into an all Rosie O'Donnell themed national daily newspaper, the whole Time Warner Empire, DC Comics included, goes bankrupt, and is purchased with the change in cyborg-Rupert Murdoch's couch cushions.
That's what's going to happen.
What do you think will happen?
Recent comic book movies have shown that there is a story to be told and that studios can do it right.
ReplyDelete"Batman Rises", "Man of Steel", "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Thor" et al have been butt in the seats and popcorn movies.
Never underestimate Hollywood's ability to mess up a sure thing. Everybody likes a good superhero movie (all good people anyway). I imagine they'll mess it up and give us one or two good ones for each 'flop'.
Question: When it is clear they have a flop at screening, why not cut their losses? Instead of trying to triple the GDP of Brazil on promotion why not send it to the dvd bin?
I know there's got to be some politics involved. You have 'Idiocracy' which love it or hate it is a cult classic which was released in my sister's basement with her school children as the promotional crew then you have turkeys like the new 'Karate Kid' or anything by Matt Damon that doesn't say 'Bourne' in the title that get tons of money when anybody with a pulse that watches the movie can see it's 'crap in a can'.
Why promote something with more money than the actual production when you have a dog? Take old Yeller out back and do the merciful thing.
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy yesterday, and spent the whole movie giggling with pure joy. I so seldom get that from movies now that I literally see only three to four new pictures a year, and I am a massive film buff.
ReplyDeleteMarvel knows that in the long run taking chances is that safest route. This year alone, they released not only their most serious (yet still extremely fun) movie, but followed it with the closest thing they have made to an outright comedy. And both films were fantastic.
I look at Warners' strategy for their DC films, and how they want to (they think) play it safe by making every one of them as grim as Nolan's Batman movies, and I just can't help thinking this is a disaster in the making. People are coming out of Marvel movies exhilarated, but unsatisfied by Warners' movies, even when they see the latter. (See Green Lantern or Jonah Hex. Or rather don't. Why should you be the only one?)
Rainforest Giant notes that Man of Steel made money, and he's right. But how many ticket buyers really liked it, much less loved it? The fact that Batman and Superman (and to a far less degree, Wonder Woman) is in the next one will put butts in seats again. But if that film proves as unsatisfactory as the super grim Man of Steel (Pa frickin' Kent telling Clark that he should have let his young classmates die!), they will have a far harder time getting people to see a Justice League movie. Also, they will have blown their wad by using the Big Three in this film. What's the inducement the next time? "Oh, but now we added Cyborg and Aquaman."
Joel Schumacher made a Batman movie. Riding on the coattails of Tim Burton's movies, it made a lot of money. Seeing that--and ignoring the fact that nobody liked the film--they ordered up the exact same thing again. The movie tanked so badly it brought down the entire franchise.
If you're going to make a grim superhero movie, it better be a masterpiece like The Dark Knight. And for God's sake, know your characters. Nobody goes to see a Superman movie to watch as hundreds of thousands of people are thrown miles into the air and then plummet to their horrible deaths.
Captain America has always been Marvels' Superman, the moral center of their respective universes. (And I would argue, Cap is a better fulfillment of this, because he doesn't have anywhere near Superman's level of power. Indeed, traditional Cap is a Batman-level athlete, not even having the low level of superpowers he has in the movies.) Warners keeps insisting that modern audiences won't accept such an earnest, corny hero, or, for that matter, one who forthrightly champions the American way.
Warners: Please see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Ken - You're right. Warner has staked too much on the grim tone of Batman thinking all superhero stories are interchangable.
ReplyDeleteSuperman covered the right subject matter and themes but got them wrong sometimes 180 degrees wrong. Because serious. And Dark. Pa Kent would never upbraid Clark for saving anyone. He might sympathize or wish Clark didn't need to but never say 'no'. And his death was the worst. The whole point to pa's death is that Superman isn't God. There are things bigger than him he couldn't have saved pa no matter what. Metropolis was the most grim and ugly city ever before it was destroyed. Some of the scenes were right but executed wrong. Others look like they were lit with Death playing chess on the beach in mind not our big-blue.
They want Nolan's gravitas but have the wrong vehicle. Too bad they sepiatoned Wonder Woman to hell too. Surely more of the grim you noted. I give them an A for effort and C for execution. I'll see the next one. Can't wait to see Winter Soldier (worst title ever comics or movie) and Xmen Guardians.
Rainforest: Well, plus when you throw a bunch of characters into a movie (Avengers, Justice League) it probably helps for them to have contrasting personalities. Maybe these differences could serve to, you know, illuminate the various characters and give us insight into make makes each of them tick.
ReplyDeleteThis has always been the (sort of) secret to why Batman / Superman have always worked so well together, that they had such a yin and yang thing happening. Now all of Warners' heroes are yin, no yang.
Or maybe it's the other way around.