Warner Bros. announces their plans for DC Comics movies (through 2020) (1 Viewer)

[*]“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)
[*]“Suicide Squad” (August 5, 2016)
[*]“Wonder Woman” (June 23, 2017)
[*]“Justice League Part One” (November 10, 2017)
[*]“The Flash” (March 23, 2018)
[*]“Aquaman” (July 27, 2018)
[*]“Shazam” (April 5, 2019)
[*]“Justice League Part Two” (June 14, 2019)
[*]“Cyborg” (April 3,2020)
[*]“Green Lantern” (June 19, 2020)
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They reportedly also have plans for solo films for Batman and Superman in there, but no dates have been set.

I hope they don't go all "dark, gritty and real" for every film, at least keep the tone right for each individual character. I wasn't too happy with Man of Steel. Not sure I like Justice League being two parts either, could work, we'll see. Most excited for the Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern solo films, but will see them all. If decide not to go with Hal Jordan as GL, he was the one I grew up with and my favourite, I'd be happy with Jon Stewart in the movie.

It reportedly hasn't yet dawned on Warner that letting Zack Snyder direct both Justice League movies might NOT necessarily be a good thing...
(No, really, what was the last smash hit he had, and that's assuming we're not counting Man of Steel? Because there are Warner execs who will gladly tell you it wasn't "Watchmen".)

...Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Putting out a Flash movie that's unrelated to the TV show that just premiered seems stupid to me. That's going to simultaneously confuse and piss off your audience.

It's an ambitious slate of movies. Let's see how many get made. (I personally don't think the series can be successful if they sustain the humorless tone of Man of Steel.)

Snooze.

With Godzilla, Man of Steel, 300, Watchmen and the Dark Knight trilogy, Legendary Pictures is rapidly getting a reputation as the ponderous and overproduced Studio of Gray Doom.
Fortunately, Legendary and Warner have reportedly split, and Warner's handling their DC movies themselves, hence the sudden "Marvel-style universe" rush.
The one problem?: They still think we LIKE Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan, and they want "their own piece of it". That's not helping the problem, and it's only emphasizing what Marvel was doing right all along. Joss Whedon isn't Zack Snyder or Chris Nolan, and oh, boy, is Zack Snyder not Joss Whedon or James Gunn.

(When we had the one fan-made YouTube Wonder Woman movie, made by an obvious DC/Legendary fan,

it sort of prophecied what a gray, ponderous, morose, Wagnerian, slo-mo, CGI-painted, perpetually-rainy Snyder WW movie would look like. And with the recent photo of Gal Godot's WW in gray and bronze instead of red, white and blue, the prophecy seems to be coming true...)

So much negativity, LOL. Bring 'em all on, I say.

Brandon Conway said:

So much negativity, LOL.

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I'll continue that negativity on by wondering how are they going to do Shazam without it coming across as a copy of Superman to the general public?

Now I'll try to inject some optimism by saying that if they lighten up and have some fun with these movies, they might do some cool stuff.

TravisR said:

Now I'll try to inject some optimism by saying that if they lighten up and have some fun with these movies, they might do some cool stuff.

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And I'll quickly crush that by saying, it's Warner: If they knew how to have fun, and still make as much money as they think the Dark Knights still make, they would have done it by now.

(Oh, wait, there was the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern, that was their "fun" movie. And the '20 one on their slate is clearly going to "apologize" to the fans for that mistake by taking the character really, really seriously, this time!)

I don't need my comic films to be comedies to enjoy them. I happen to like that the DC films will be a bit less jokey than the Marvel ones. There's room for both franchises on my shelf.

Brandon Conway said:

I don't need my comic films to be comedies to enjoy them. I happen to like that the DC films will be a bit less jokey than the Marvel ones. There's room for both franchises on my shelf.

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Overall, I liked Man Of Steel but I thought the tone was too dark for a Superman movie. They didn't need a wisecracking sidekick or to have Superman make jokes to lighten things up but having thousands of people getting killed in the destruction of Metropolis was too grim for a movie featuring that character. I realize that they were trying to make Zod a serious threat for Superman to overcome but that much death and destruction would rank as one of the worst events in human history. For me, that's too serious and too dark for a Superman movie.

Just maybe the massive success of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy will encourage Warner to take a more gentle approach.

"Lighten up, Francis!"

I think Warner Bros. may be leary of lighter tones after this: Ugh, so many missteps with that movie. But I hope they can find a better balance and bring more fun into some of their films.

Here's an idea - how about if Warner simply focuses on making GOOD movies instead of what's come before? You know, concentrate on story, script, casting, etc.?

Nah. Looks like wet, gray, and gloomy Dawn of Justice is already doomed since Snyder is driving the bus, but they still have time to redeem themselves. Too bad they've already pretty much effed up Superman.

They should just hire Whedon as a consultant on the sly and be done with it.

dpippel said:

Here's an idea - how about if Warner simply focuses on making GOOD movies instead of what's come before? You know, concentrate on story, script, casting, etc.?

Nah. Looks like wet, gray, and gloomy Dawn of Justice is already doomed since Snyder is driving the bus, but they still have time to redeem themselves. Too bad they've already pretty much effed up Superman.

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Thing is, while Marvel always knew it was about linked mythologies and "real superheroes in NYC", and could translate that appeal to the movies, Warner--stepping in between DC and their movies--screwed up their own evolution early on:
Back when Cartoon Network was on their '99-'02 "Die Juden Scooby" propaganda campaign to demonize all vintage 70's-80's Hanna-Barbera reruns on their network, jabs at Superfriends was a particularly easy, no-miss stoner-friendly target--No matter when you turned on the network, you literally couldn't watch for ten minutes without getting some more than passively hostile attack at the Wonder Twins, Apache Chief or "Aquaman talks to fish!", and the obsession was genuinely starting to get a little disturbing.
Did it work? Yes: It utterly convinced Warner boardroom execs that nobody was taking DC Heroes seriously, and that whatever they did, they'd better leave themselves a back-door exit of kitschy, self-aware camp just in case. (Hence the Green Lantern movie.)

And then...the Dark Knight followed up on Batman Begins' attempt to make us forget about Joel Schumacher. And critics had to say those fateful words we now rue to this day: "It's dark and gritty, and doesn't look like a comic book movie!"
What did they mean, it "didn't look like one"? Well, have to remember, it was '08, and by "A comic book movie", they meant Fox's Fantastic Four movie, seeing as we'd just suffered through the sequel a year before...Oh, and Spiderman 3, which we were still trying to forget. It had been a long time since X-Men and Spiderman 1, with Catwoman, Ang Lee's Hulk and Ghost Rider/Daredevil in between, and fans and critics were pretty much giving the genre up for dead, since nobody could follow Raimi and Singer's curse-busting acts. Oh, and it was June, so mainstream folk were only starting to see that neato Iron Man movie that all the fans were giving good word of mouth to in May, but it wasn't getting as many glowing important grownup critic reviews as the one with the dead actor playing the revisionist villain!
It convinced the neurotic Warner that there was only one way the audience would ever love the Cape and the Bat again: "If we make it dark and gritty like the Dark Knights, will you still like us? "

(Well, maybe, but there's these new Avengers and Captain America movies we've gotten to like--It's what a comic-book movie looks like!)

Not sure your "important grownup critics reviews" theory holds much water. The Dark Knight is only one percentage point ahead of Iron Man at Rotten Tomatoes as far as the top critics reviews are concerned - 91% and 90% respectively.

Is there a super hero who will protect us against superhero movies?

Of all the superhero movies I've seen, the only one to get it capital "R" Right is Richard Donner with the original Superman. Just the right mix of adventure, humor and respect for the original.

As for the rest, I quote Miss Piggy: "B-o-r-i-n-g!"

dpippel said:

Not sure your "important grownup critics reviews" theory holds much water. The Dark Knight is only one percentage point ahead of Iron Man at Rotten Tomatoes as far as the top critics reviews are concerned - 91% and 90% respectively.

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Yes, but like the Guardians, it took a delayed-reaction while for Iron Man's populist-summer-audience word of mouth to spread outside the core audience:
Critics were saying it was a jolt of energy and treated the hero intelligently, but mainstream non-fans were doing a double-take as to whether you could make a fun movie out of what was then an outdated B-hero nobody really knew, and maybe it was just the geek fans getting overexcited...Besides there was still the Indiana Jones movie in theaters, and you could only take your kids to one of them.

Now, Dark Knight, OTOH, following on its critical reputation from Begins, a name director given the keys to the studio, and following up on that sequel tease that we were all drooling for after the earlier movie, well, that was the movie you HAD to see first on your list!
(And it addressed the issue of cyber-privacy, that's so current and social, in our post-9/11 world, it must be for grownups!)

I'm still not buying it. IMO there are simply two different corporate cultures at work here. Marvel has the mojo. Warner isn't sure what it has or what do to with it.