Re: The Avengers: The Motion Picture Discussion Thread
Another Batman reboot? Fuuuuhhh.... Getting sick of these Batman flicks. I don't mind the Nolan Batman flicks so much. But do we really need a new Batman franchise after two in the past 20 years? Man, it's like the Star Trek franchises. Holy McCroly!
A Batman reboot was planned even before TDK. Nolan has firm established that he would only do three and that he wanted his character to exist in a vacuum with no other heroes involved. After BB was a success, they gave in even though cameos were planned for TDK and after TDK damn near destroyed the box offices, Nolan was given a blank check.
WB/DC wants a Batman that can co-exist within a joined universe and Nolan doesn't want his to.
As for the Star Trek Franchise parallel it's not fitting, each Star Trek film only took what was current and put a story on screen. The recent reboot was the first of its kind in that universe since inception, they are reboots but continuations of the stories at times including the previous casts in cameo roles.
I'm sure DC is kicking themselves for not making the Justice League movie when they had the chance. Marvel is way ahead of them when it comes to a larger movie universe with the chance for crossovers or a Justice League movie on the level of the Avengers.
When Marvel Studios announced with Iron Man that this was the path folks at DC were quoted as saying it'd never work. All of the things they posted about keeping cast, keeping interest, etc were proven doable by Marvel but when Norton scoffed after ITH, people over at WB already had "I Told You So" attitudes which is why cameos weren't pushed in their projects including the groundwork for Green Lantern.
Imagine if Green Lantern had been a hit and Superman Returns had been given a sequel and we were anticipating a movie with those characters teaming up with Bale's Batman on the big screen this year.
Superman maybe, it's possible you would have seen Routh up there but Nolan's Batman never. Nolan said it would never happen and he and Bale were signed for three films, Bale could have been offered a contract for another film and paid as such but WB wouldn't want to piss off the layer of the Golden Eggs and so the compromise would be that a new Batman would be introduced that could co-exist with Nolan as a producer.
The original Justice League idea didn't have Superman or Batman included because WB didn't want to infringe on their own franchises (Nolan's and Singer's), the original concept had Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter as the roster. Then it was the JL standalone: "Mortal" that recasted everyone and then finally a JL film that would use GL as the introduction to the film DCU like Iron Man did for Marvel but obviously that didn't work.
Marvel seems to have really planned things well, and DC is way behind with Nolan's Batman ending, Green Lantern failing, and a lot of pressure on the new Superman to perform. But all of Marvel's groundwork over the last few years building up to Avengers is about to pay off, I think.
Even if the new Superman is a hit, Nolan has been quoted as saying that Superman would function under the same vacuum as Batman and that it wouldn't feature any other heroes so there isn't even groundwork there to build. It seems like DC is planning on starting down the Avengersesque path with the new Batman film with The Flash in preproduction and either a GL sequel or a reboot continuing the path. Joel Silver still owns the rights to Wonder Woman so that is in development hell until he agrees to either work with them or start down this path himself.
Yeah but DC's Justice League movie was going to be a standalone franchise and not a crossover.
That was one idea, crossovers were pitched twice both without Superman or Batman on the teams though.
Personally I think WB pretty much has to go all out with Man of Steel. If that fails, forget JLA movie anytime in the next 10 years.
Even if MoS is a huge box office smash I still think you have 10 years before a JLA film (that is if there isn't a standalone). Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman would still need to have their own introductories most likely another side character like GL or Flash just so you don't have to deal with 7 new characters.
There was a rumor going around that WB is looking to the New 52 way of introducing a prequelish kind of JL team and exercising picture deals on the new Batman actor (whomever that is) and Cavill in order to do a JL film and then have everyone break into their own with that understanding. You most likely won't hear any confirmations really on that until after TDKR and that's if Snyder's Superman is to be part of it.
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