What is their problem?

They are taking too long to make decent movies.

By the time they get their act together it will be too late and the movie going public will have moved on to something else.

Not sure, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because of their parent company, Warner Brothers. With Marvel, they can shop around to the other studios to get a picture deal and now they've started making them on their own.

DC is owned by the WB and all movie deals go through them and them alone. It seems they keep going back and forth and can't seem to make up their minds on how to handle the properties.

I think Zomibie is on to something as DC's characters are more iconic and thus harder to translate onto the screen. These days the stuidos have to think in terms of franchises and multi-picture deals but that's hard to come by with an established actor, and even harder with an unproven one. Regardless, you will start to see more and more of the DC movies get made as they've just stepped up their film development. Also, remember that DC is part of the Warner Brothers Studio umbrella so it's hard for them to develop several properties at once unlike Marvel which can shop their characters around.

With the exception of Superman and Batman, the DC heroes can't bring in the kind of money the way Marvel has because of the popularity of Marvel's licensed property. So a lot of DC ideas for film never see production, plain and simple.

They've taken a few chances: Constantine, Swamp Thing... add up the loss of revenue from these films, coupled with the success of a couple Batman/Superman movies and compare with the output of Marvel Entertainment.

Since Blade I, the number of viewers as a ratio who see Marvel films vs DC has been high. Look at the number of DC posts compared to Marvel posts in this forum, for instance. Or... have a look at jaryd1241's poll on favorite Marvel/DC superhero and compare the number of responses. And we read comics.

As a matter of taste, there has also been a CCL argument months ago that Marvel Comics make for better films. In any event, the movie houses support the popular characters (rightfully, since there's no such thing as a low budget superhero film. That works.)

Hellboy was a pleasant exception. Rocketeer, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... I'm sure there are a few more, but I can only dig up four DC characters that made it to the big screen, and only two of them earned enough media credibility for a repeated comeback.

I completely disagree with that Dementia. DC's characters are MORE recognizable than Marvel's, not less. I mean think about it: EVERYONE knows Batman is Bruce Wayne, yet not everyone knows that Wolverine's real name is Logan. And Wolverine is arguably one of, if not the most popular Marvel character out there. Let's compare top characters too: Marvel's got: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America...vs. DC's Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. Some guy in Japan knows everyone on the DC list, yet only half of the guys on the Marvel list.

My point being, that DC is absolutly full of movie potential, it just seems Warner Bros. can't handle the idea of a super-hero movie right. They want to change things so it "fits the mainstream audiece." Pffftt. Why? Do they really think America is so stupid that they couldn't follow a plot from a comic book? They think they have to dumb down a comic book?! The real reason DC isn't churning them out is cause they have business men making the decisions, while Marvel leaves the movie making to the creators.

-Nate-

RECOGNIZABLE, perhaps... but I said popular. I would argue that less people care about Wolverine's identity than who he is and what he does. His Q factor is mighty high.

Who outside this forum knows the alter-egos for the Flash, Wonder Woman or (any of the) Green Lanterns? Not even sure everyone HERE knows, for that matter. Who remembers the FLash TV series over the Incredible Hulk, etc... I'm just not convinced the public is dying to see a Green Lantern film, even if they knew who he was, over a Silver Surfer film or a Captain America film.

It's a popularity contest. And it's always about the bottom line... would you take a chance on a Lobo film or Wolverine film?

This is just my opinion but, I think part of it is the characters themselves. Marvels characters are more edgy while DC's are more old school and cornball. Marvel takes more chances with their writing then DC does which translates better onto the big screen. DC has stuck to writing for kids (which is what comics were meant for in the very begining) while Marvel writes more for adults. I mean, what would you rather see? I hated the last Superman movie. All it was, was the same truth, justice and good moral issues as the 80's movies (I was pleasantly surprised by Batman Begins though). Granted, I havn't read anything new since the late 90's, so I have no idea what DC is doing these days.

Who's Lobo?

I'm not sure why DC comics are not being released in theatres like Marvels, but I do believe that DC characters are not as good as Marvel's. Yes, everyone knows who's Superman and Batman, but I don't see many kids playing with them. I see they playing with Spider-Man, X-Men and Transformers toys. Damn, my girlfriend, who knows nothing about comics, seen the X-Men and Spider-Man movies and watches them with me all the time. She has no interest with Superman and Batman after watching them.
I also think that DC's villains don't really compare to Marvel's villains. In the 3 Spider-Man movies, all the villains are top notch villains. They can actually give Spidey a fight. Then there's the X-Men against Magneto and Dark Phoenix. No offense to Lex Luthor, but I see him more of a villain for Batman then a powerful Superman. Now if they had a Superman vs Doomsday movie, or maybe Darkseid or something, that would be different. That last Superman movie sucked. It was the worst of all 5 movies from the late 70's. Now Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Begins were the best out of the Batman series.
Just my opinion.

Everybody says that because they immeadiatly think of Wonder Woman or Superman. Those are like 2 characters only! DC has TONS of "edgy" characters. Hell, it was DC that started the whole "edgy" trend with Miller's Dark Knight Returns. If DC is all "cornball" then what about characters like Starman, Lobo, L.E.G.I.O.N., Animal Man, Swamp Thing, The Demon, BATMAN, Azrael, Shadowpact, The Secret Six, The Suicide Squad, Hitman, Vigilante, The Guardian, Deathstroke, Sandman, and on and on. The Super-Family and Wonder Woman aren't all DC has to offer.

-Nate-

And comics too! LoL! Maybe that's why there's no good movies!

Oh hell here we go again, I'm not getting into this Marvel vs DC thing. I'm just gonna say that there aren't as many DC movies because Warner Bros. doesn't have their (banned) together. I can thing of a dozen movie ideas for DC that would better than all of the Marvel movies combined, especially Green Lantern, the Flash, and JLA. But I don't work in the movie industry and I doubt anyone who does would listen to any of my ideas. So as long as Warner Bros. owns the rights to DC, we're not gonna see very many movies any time soon. And the movies that we will be seeing will be pretty crappy, except Batman, but especially JLA.

I agree with Dementia5.

But I have to say, I'm looking forward to Dark Knight. Looks like they got their stuff together there. But that's because Batman is the most "Marvel" character DC has.

Oo! Hit a nerve! LoL. I was just taking another cheap DC shot.

Though I'm not a big DC fan, I too thought that a few of their character would make decent movies, if handled by the right people. Nightwing would be amazing, and the Flash would be cool. But like I said before, they have to be handled by the right people. I love Daredevil, HATE the movie. Sooo needs to be redone. I hate the Hulk, but Ed Norton's new script seems good. A good director who is actually a fan of the stories is the best thing that a movie can have!

Speaking of Edward Norton and Daredevil, I always felt he would have made a good DD.

I'm not saying anything about Marvel vs. DC.

However, DC has thousands of characters and they don't have to tell all movie goers that the movie is based on a comic book character.

The hard part would be creating movies that would be open to the possiblility of thousands of costumed heroes and villains running around on the Earth.

I think it goes back to DC being owned by WB. It seems the executives can't get past thinking that their super-hero movies must be made for children. Look at the Batman franchise. Despite the success of the first two movies with Tim Burton, the executives decided that they were too dark and rolled out progressively lighter movies. I didn't think "Batman Forever" was bad, but "Batman and Robin" pulled out the worst Camp elements from the old TV show. Schumaker bore the brunt of the blame, but he has said in interviews that the WB execs wanted more kid-friendly movies. The new series looks like they're back on track, but we'll see if WB keeps it up or dumbs down future movies, thinking they're all for kids.

The Superman franchise fared even worse. The first two movies were great, but 3 & 4 were abysmal. I think that was as much the producers' lack of understanding for the characters as executive interference. Bryan Singer missed the boat in his reboot a couple of years ago. He made it too dark for the character, plus violated canon too much with the whole kid issue.

It will never happen. "Those... two" characters are in the very camp that represents most of DC's popularity. Who knows about these other characters? Outside of Batman, Sandman and Swamp Thing, the rest are cult heros for the rest of you, and some are simply forgettable (Vigilante), even by comic reader standards.

DC has a reputation, and a long, long lasting one, of producing "cornball" material (one of the dregs for being around for so long) with imagery like this:



which I can endear as a humble slice of Americana... but how many blockbuster movies (which WB would only accept for a DC film) can come from this? And this came from a Google search... clearly, a lot of folks still put ol' Supes in the corny camp.

But it is good that DC has some advocates here in CCL. Keeps the other publishers on their toes.




LOL

I'm a Marvel guy, but I would love to see a Green Lantern movie. I don't even read the comics.

Up front I will say, as most know by now, I am strictly a DC fan (even though thanks to my fiancee and the public library I have been reading some Marvel) I like the Marvel movies better. With the two big name DC movies as of late, they just seem to move so slow, where as the Marvel movies (with the exception of Spiderman) move quicker and have more action.
I am probably one of the biggest Superman fans on the boards here, but DC really needs to move away from Lex Luthor in the Superman movies. There is only so much that can be done with him, and I think that they have reached their limit. If The Man of Steel does make it out, a better villan, such as Brainiac or even Metallo would be nice to see.