The Avengers, The Justice League and the future of CBM

The Avengers, The Justice League and the future of CBM

With The Avengers breaking new ground with comicbook adaptations and Christopher Nolan finishing his Dark Knight Trilogy we are truly heading into uncharted territory.

Editorial Opinion
By Alejandro260 - Aug 04, 2012 04:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Fan Fic

Note: I am a Marvel guy collectively. But a bigger Batman fan individually.

Now that we know a great comic book mashup such as The Avengers can be made and with Christopher Nolan saying goodbye to the Batman, comicbook movies will be taking a brand new route and will be exploring exciting new grounds, some of which many will like, but if not taken care of properly, will truly dispel anger among readers of these characters.

Our next comicbook movie will be Man of Steel, Superman's rebirth in the post Raimi/Nolan/Avengers era. The character, as we can see from trailers and film maker's descriptions, will be darker, more emotional, "gritty" and majestic. The character will have the "Nolan Seal of Approval" so it has the "Dark Knight touch". But the decision to go forth with this interpretation was made before The Avenger's impact. Before we, as an audience, knew of the "fun comic book factor" that was sacrificed so that comic book movies could be taken seriously (see Hulk (failure), Batman Begins (success) ). So, now we have a Superman movie that is darker, in an age of lighter, more aggressive and true-to-source interpretations. Is that what we as an audience want? We were satisfied with this method in The Dark Knight Trilogy, but does each comic book character NEED to do this? See The Amazing Spiderman, met with mixed results, no questions about that.

The problem with this new adaptation, is that DC Comics, now has pressured themselves into giving us a Justice League movie, something that was pondered for years, but do to Marvel's extreme success, is now trying to rush. Yes RUSH. We all now what that means. RUSH FROM EXECUTIVES. BAD. Yet Man of Steel, the apparent kickoff to this franchise, was conceived before this decision. How will a JL movie play out? As a serious interpretation? I consider the DC characters much less realistic and sillier than the Marvel characters seen in The Avengers. Even though Batman and Superman are above all of the assembled characters, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Flash, truly seem a lot sillier and less adaptable than all others. And even if they manage to bring them to life well enough, they will still seem to silly for a true "dark adaptation", so DC might want to consider the "fun, action packed" method of the Avengers, something that would seem as a tone change to the Man of Steel.

Now the true elephant in the room is, what are they going to do with Batman? Is Blake the true next Batman? Or was just that a device used for CN to truly cement his "undying legend" theme from BB? I am all for JGL playing Batman, even though he is a bit short and skinny. But the reason I do not want him to play Batman, is to maintain CN's trilogy intact, without compromising it's own legacy. So who else would replace Batman? Question, questions and questions: LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

So after this, we also want need to analyze the fact that Avengers 2 is going to be huge. Not only do we have the current characters, but we have Ant-Man, Guardians and the new characters from IM3, CA2 and Thor2. That movie is going to have a really huge suspension of disbelief. The same thing that to me, made the ending of the Avengers a bit hard to swallow. Marvel did a great job at grounding it's Phase 1 movies, to really send them sky high in the climax of the Avengers. I know this is what happens in the CBs its just a strong change that at least I can observe. And now with Guardians and Ant-Man, they are really going to blow the lid off of the fantasy bottle. And I really do think the movie is going to be packed, great, but packed. Yet, the Avengers 2 NEEDS to have a better plot. Ok, we gave it to them on the first one, but if they stick to the same dumb plot lines, they are not going to have the same success. We all know that.

So now that each company is moving forward with their own plans, each one faces the challenges to bring their characters into cohesion, present us with a great package, do justice to them and respect us, the audience and the comic book readers. DC's main challenge is going to be pacing. Making the movies skillfully and not rush them, such as Marvel did. They said the JL movie would come out in about 3 to 4 years and we don't even have one movie from their "phase 1" until a year from now. And the best Batman ever has just ended. People are not going to go down lightly. They stayed true to Spiderman and that was after 5 years and a really bad last movie.

IF they are only going to give us ONE movie before the JL, I suggest they should do something in the vein of Watchmen: Present the group as a whole organism and then individually explore them. Thoughtfully and carefully.

Now Marvel truly has freedom, but they need to manage that freedom correctly and not let them abuse the power. The guardians are a tough group, very fantastical, we are going to have aliens and anthropomorphic characters fighting side by side with Iron Man. Would we have imagined that in the first Iron Man? They need to make the transition easy and correctly. If not, they are going to blow this thing out of the water and loose their "wide-audience". And they are not going to give as a really direct interpretation from the comics, because that would just alienate the whole population. The resulting question is, where is Spiderman going to fit in? Phase 3?

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billytwohats
billytwohats - 8/4/2012, 4:57 PM
I think the whole CBM craze is just that all hollywood needs is two flops in a row and they'll be very nervous about funding any CBMs in the future. The question for Marvel is how are they gonna cope without Robert Downy Jnr? Who for me has carried the Marvel franchises so far. DC in my opinion has a bleaker future WB has no rrespect for their comic source material. You only have to read about the Tim Burton Superman move.
SageMode
SageMode - 8/4/2012, 7:30 PM
Something tells me that Robert Downey Jr is gonna renew his contract with MS to bein more films.
Alphadog
Alphadog - 8/5/2012, 12:20 AM
Wonder woman and aquaman are very dark characters. Wonder woman is an amazon a warrior princes she was trained to kill in dozens of ways and she is gifted with the powers of the gods. Aquaman is the king of atlantis, a master in many styles of fighting and has the abilities the surpass the best athletes which include controling the monster of the deep sea and carries a trident with many lethal abilities.
o6untouchable
o6untouchable - 8/5/2012, 8:45 AM
I think it was actually Kiss Kiss Bang Bang that started his career back up. That said, I don't see him turning his back on the franchise any time soon.

One of the big advantages that Marvel has with RDJ is that, when in action, his character's face is never seen. Even when RDJ starts getting too old for all the action and stunts, they can still keep the character going without placing that kind of strain on him.

It'll be interesting to see if Marvel tries for an Iron Man 4 movie during it's next phase of production; or if they treat Tony's ongoing exploits as Avengers-only territory. In terms of villains, many of those left over are just variations on the themes already covered. It would be interesting to see them bring back a villain for a change: aside from Lex Luthor, the only other villain I can think of who has been a major antagonist more than once in a CBM is Loki. It'd be interesting to see if the Mandarin also makes the transition from Solo Threat to Avengers Threat at some point down the line.
sikwon
sikwon - 8/5/2012, 1:00 PM
I think that marvels long term planning is fantastic. Something that goes unsaid, that really isnt touched on very much about the Avengers is the roster of the team. They are always changing. Always. this gives marvel incredibly flexability when it comes to story lines and character introduction. It also means that no one character or actor can halt production with the possible exception of RDJ. and they can even work around a lack of iron man issue. Yes rdj holds it together but its not out of the question to think that if rdj leaves that another character/actor isnt inserted and steps up and takes the reigns. Thats what makes the avengers as a movie univers such a win for marvel. As long as they continue to come up with good storys and quality actors / directors etc. they should be able to keep pumping out quality cbm's. Its not like the fantastic 4 ware u have the same 4 heroes. The avengers roster flexability is their secret weapon.
dnno1
dnno1 - 8/5/2012, 10:05 PM
I don't know if they are rushing anything. Remember, Justice League was a project that has been in development for more than 5 years now. Sure, the project is getting a different treatment, but they certainly aren't rushing this. For crying out loud, they haven't even set release date or named a director yet.
dezdigi
dezdigi - 8/6/2012, 8:21 AM
I agree, you gotta love Marvel Studio's planning.

I wonder what WB has planned for the DC cinematic universe. I think these plans are held in a secure vault at the center of the earth!
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