How is DC Entertainment Going to Pull off 'Justice League?'

I've touched on it before, and since the release of Man of Steel to theaters, what the heck, let's talk about it again...

Now that WB's Superman movie has come along (setting box office records with it's modern day, higher prices), Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment have an interesting road ahead of them.

That road being the one to a Justice League movie.

MoS Slight SPOILERS:

Now in Man of Steel, there were a few incidental moments that could be construed as hints to other characters from the DC Universe.  LexCorp, Blaze Comics (Booster Gold), Carrie Farris, a relative or what have you to Carol Ferris.  And that empty stasis pod in the ship Kal El found, possibly hinting at Supergirl?  The Man of Steel prequel comics put that in readers heads.

END SPOILERS

And Man of Steel was pretty good, but geared towards the more adult fan.  (Kids in my movie audience were bored out of their minds.)  And even though I liked how they did Superman in this movie, and how they added vulnerability to his existence with the challenges he faced, he is a hard package to sell.  I mean, he's dang near invulnerable!  What is there to worry about with him?

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But now we have the Batman reboot that WB will be looking to do to bring that character back into the fold of their movies.  (Remember, Christopher Nolan's Batman lived in a world all unto himself.)

And Wonder Woman also seems to be a hard sell.  I say that because I think we would have seen a Wonder Woman movie already, if it was viable.  Hell, it didn't even make it back to the small screen on TV, when they tried on the CW a few years ago.

Green Lantern.  We saw what already happened there.  Between the writing and what I think was non-optimal casting, that didn't do that character any good.

The Flash?  Again, super fast, what threats are there to this guy?

If you compare the Marvel movie characters to the DC movie characters, the difference is that the Marvel characters all have a weakness that can be exploited.

Thor has Loki's meddling.  Iron Man, as Cap called him, is just a man in a suit.  Captain American can be beat around.  He's just a wee bit stronger and faster than most men.  Black Widow, Hawkeye... both mostly human and very vulnerable.

The Hulk can be an issue, but he has his severely limited human side and that anger thing that gets in the way of any decent logical decision making.  So his wild card factor is always a problem or weakness.

And the all too human SHIELD agents.  Again, vulnerable, all with something to lose.  (Their lives)

But DC Entertainment has a problem.

OK, Batman is human.  But Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman...  all a bit more human than most and don't have that same vulnerability that can be taken advantage of in a movie.

The only way to give them that sense of vulnerability is to throw a huge super powered bad guy at them that will threaten to destroy the Earth... again.  How many times have we seen this?  How tiring can it be?

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With this hard sell stable of characters, I have to wonder just how WB/DC will pull this off?  I liked Man of Steel, but it took other Kryptonians to bring the threat to him and his love of Earth.  Otherwise, meh.

So I'm not sure how WB is going to pull this off.

I thought Nolan left them in potentially capable hands, by handing off the mantle of the bat to a younger player who can keep the cape flying, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  But word is that he's not part of the future picture. Too bad, that would have been awesome.

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On top of all this, over the last year or so we've seen various news reports on the Justice League script has been going through multiple hands.  Whatever that means.  I'm assuming they yanked the guy or team that let the Green Lantern story through the gaps.

And since Marvel already took that leap of faith and introduced their characters in single-character films, will DC be willing to do that too, hoping the movies perform well enough to detract from the copycat syndrome?

All good questions, but there is one thing for sure...  WB/DC cannot fail in this effort or this could threaten their entire film inventory of characters.  I mean, face it, how many more times will we be willing to see an origins movie for Superman or where he faces off with Lex Luthor?  It's been done so often, I think that might thin out the home entertainment market, making these yet more repeats for TV.

DC has already taken a shot at Marvel by saying their characters are all well grounded, serious characters while Marvel is a bit more flippant.  (Crap, I can't find the link to where I read that, but that was the gist of the comment)  And that kind of marketing, to me, is weak.  Stick to your own front lawn and tend to that grass rather than dissing the neighbors grass!

Eh, all these are just thoughts in my head, pondering out-loud what's going to happen with this franchise.  I'd love to see a good Justice League movie happen, but it's probably going to be a hard sell.  No matter what.

We'll see.  I'd love your thoughts on the matter!!

-- Bruce

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