Time Warner Inc. recently held their annual shareholder meeting in which the biggest news was really concerning the future of their CEO. None of us care about that part. Well, maybe some do, I don't know. What we all took interest in was what Warner Brothers' Kevin Tsujihara had to say about possible female driven superhero movies among other franchises.
Hidden in the LA Times article was something that I had been unaware of before. Along with Warner Brothers, Time Warner Inc. owns HBO! Most of you probably already knew this, but I was completely oblivious. So my question is, why have they not put a comic book property on HBO by now?
I want to take a minute to list some of HBO's fantastic shows:
and my personal favorite (so far):
Other GOAT shows that have been on HBO include 'The Wire', 'Rome' and of course 'Sopranos'. I'm sure there are others, but these are ones that I have seen. I point out these shows because HBO has a proven track record of providing quality television.
HBO's lineup runs the full gamut of genres and comic book based shows shouldn't be excluded. What if this were on HBO:
I like Arrow and all, but we do have to realize its cheese factor by being on the CW. I have a feeling show creators would pick better actors (Colton Haynes and Caity Lotz), more epic feeling story lines and overall dialogue. LIke I said, I like Arrow, a lot, but it does miss in some areas that I think HBO would clean up.
Other characters that would flourish on cable television:
For that matter, the entire Justice League Dark would work. And of course:
I know that Constantine has a TV show coming up, but damn, if put on HBO, it'd be killer. Penny Dreadful on Showtime comes to mind here. Also, yes Wonder Woman is getting her own movie, but if HBO can manage to give True Blood all those seasons, imagine what they could do with Wonder Woman in, say, just 4 or 5 seasons. The very thought of all this seriously makes me wonder why they haven't tried it. The Walking Dead is all the proof they need to know it works!
Some may say it could be a ratings issue. True Detective's season finale drew 3.5 million viewers. I believe this is more than Arrow has on CW. Hell, Game of Thrones is up to 7 million! Is it necessary for me to bring up Walkind Dead's ratings?
I'm only bringing up HBO because Time Warner Inc. owns it same as they do Warner Brothers. We all know AMC puts out good stuff: Walking Dead, Mad Men and...
(Sorry for the use of this logo, but I effing love this show and it deserves it!) In addition to AMC, Showtime has been known to create quality programming as well. Cinemax is coming around with Banshee and Starz had Spartacus. The talent is definitely there for comic book based properties to be given a proper treatment and pick up a vast audience.
I believe it goes without saying that Marvel should tap into this as well. I know everyone is excited about their upcoming movieverse slate, but imagine Dr. Strange on one of these channels. I actually think it would serve him better than to give him a movie. Marvel is currently getting into Netflix, and though I haven't seen any of their originial programming, everything I'm hearing is good, so I think it's safe to say Marvel's properties will flourish as well.
Like I said, many of you probably already knew this. If this was something that has been common knowledge, I apologize for living under a rock. My point of all this is that comic book based shows would be taken way more seriously by airing on cable television as opposed to network. Here's to hoping it happens soon.