WB plan on delivering several reboots of their comic-book characters for the future, with completely different versions of Batman and Superman mainly announced as well as a 2015
Justice League film, with this news it's extremely obvious that they fail to see that the more time they put into getting a consistent set of characters and evolving stories within that universe, the better it will pay off for them in the end. Much like the way they treated the Harry Potter series, they have to do the same with the rest of their comic-book films and treat them like the on-going film series they deserve to be. Maybe "they have to" is a little too strong though, so how about "it would be smart to do the same with the rest of their comic-book films"? Yeah, that works fine.
With
Man of Steel on the way, and it does look great, I can't tell you how disappointed I am in seeing that DC refuse to have it be a part of a wider universe of characters. Basically what they're doing is they are making a
Justice League movie solely to compete with
Marvel's The Avengers 2. Of course, they must be laughing at the people who make these assumptions, but how could that possibly not be true?
Zack Synder even said himself that his Superman movie has absolutely nothing to do with what DC are doing with the Justice League."
Are they absurd? Have the executives gone completely mad, or is this just some elaborate coy to make us THINK that this
Justice League film will turn out to be a complete mess? Either way, they're meddling in things that ought not to be meddled with and it could turn out to be a complete suicide attempt if they try to make audiences endure two different types of Batman and Superman all at once. I for one like a bit of consistency and continuity with my movies, or anything else for that matter, so hearing the news that Warner wants to throw out the playbook and make whatever, whenever is ridiculous.
But, wait! What does the Boy Who Lived have anything to do with this? Well, in case you forgot, Warner Brothers honoured audiences and fans around the globe with eight amazing
Harry Potter films... which only begs the question:
Why aren't they looking to recreate that kind of historic success anytime soon? Are they stupid, or are they just too afraid of taking their time with building up the main players before the big game? They did so with
Harry Potter, and that proved to be very profitable.
In order for a film like this to work, you NEED TO DEVELOP THESE CHARACTERS PROPERLY. Now, that's not to say that they need to take Marvel's route by making solo films for all of their main players, but what it means is that we need to care about these characters for the duration of the film and, if we don't, then we're just watching mindless action (we've already seen the ending to these kind of adaptations more than a dozen times over: the heroes win, but lose along the way as well). Where the
Justice League could look to a franchise like
Harry Potter for inspiration is in the franchise's coherent storyline, ever-evolving characters and constant references to keep folks entertained and wholly immersed in the experience.
With the
Potter films and books as well, it was so easy to find yourself getting lost in all the tiny details laid throughout the universe. The makers always left you on your toes with all the subtle nods to later events and references to the past instalments that make you grin when you catch sight of them. It was often times quite amazing seeing how they made people keep up with the wide spectrum of characters, their quarrels and all, and it would be wise of Warner Brothers to want to re-create that kind of magic with the potential of a film series as awesome as the
Justice League could be.
Personally speaking, I love the very idea of a movie about these outstanding DC characters. Knowing that this movie may be the one-and-only time that I may ever get to see The Flash on the big-screen, in live-action for the first-time ever (outside of the television world), is incredible. And yet, I'm worried about him simply getting lost in the shuffle of all the other elements that the writers would have to focus on with a
Justice League film. They would need to, within a 3-hour runtime, develop a main villain, a reason why the villain(s) is (are) causing chaos, an understanding of each character's quest and their reason to be (and simply "to fight bad guys" doesn't count,
The Avengers clearly developed why these heroes are together for the first-time), the list goes on-and-on.
To sum it all up, I do hope for the best for this potentially fatal attempt on the part of Warner Brothers to keep up with the historic awesomeness of Marvel's on-screen adventures recently, but my instincts tell me that this may just be a little too soon to happen. With the wide-range of characters they have, for whatever reason, Warner has decided to only give their two main players (Superman and Batman) the faithful adaptations that they deserve. It's time to move on, and it's time to deploy more characters like The Flash to help mix things up a bit. The future could be very bright for DC and Warner, they only need to focus on what's wiser to do (instead of what's just greedy).