Discovery Wants To Revitalize Superman

[JAK]

I think we need to take box office from 2020 onwards with a grain of salt. Lots of stuff in the mix to mess with the numbers and skew results. Not just the pandemic (which is still a major concern for lots of people), but streaming, growing economic uncertainty, etc.

With The Batman, everyone knew it'd hit HBOMax quickly, and while I have no idea how much that factored into the box office, I suspect it played a factor in things just like Black Widow's same-day-streaming reduced that film's box office. I know that was part of why I skipped it.

The MCU doing billion dollar releases right now says far less about the movie industry in general, and far more about the popularity of the MCU itself. It seems like box office is low for everybody who isn't an Avenger, but that doesn't mean people hate those other films, it just means everyone really loves the Avengers.

This. It's going to be hard, going forward, to really tell profit from movies due to the splintered revenue streams. MCU is, very likely, an outlier. That may change going forward, but I do remember that The Batman had a good number of articles all talking about "when it's coming to HBO Max - release date leaked!" and the like even before it hit theaters, and a good number of people we know waited for that like we did.

There are other factors that play into all this, of course: WB being so bad at marketing and usually so bad a selecting people to helm their IPs certainly doesn't help; MCU has a proven track record and now they have Disney behind them. All of those things don't help DC properties right now.

But I'd be interested to see how the Bluray/4k sales go for The Batman. That may be part of the picture, too... but if search results on Amazon and Walmart are any indication, there's not a lot of pre-order push for it. So that's certainly interesting.

[Vakanai]

Alpha is not wrong. The trailers did make it seem like it was a similar movie to the last few Batman movies. Crime, corruption, fear as a tool, etc.. Marvel tone may feel the same but the basis of their marketing is always something new every time. The one time I think they messed up with that was Age of Ultron where it just seemed like more Avengers from the first movie and it underperformed to Disney's expectations.

The Batman obviously did well but I think there has been some fatigue a la The Amazing Spider-Man movies which also didn't feel fresh to the general audience. Look at MCU Spidey. The first one is built on marketing a Spider-Man in the MCU now. The second as an epilogue to Endgame and obviously NWH as a crossover of all Spider-Man movies. That's how the MCU has marketed the Spider-Man movies and kept them from feeling stale despite us having gotten a new Spidey film almost every 3 years for two decades straight. There's no reason a Batman film with great reviews and no competition didn't break 800 million unless there was some flaws in the marketing.

Disagree, I think Alpha is wrong. I saw the same trailers and I never felt like it was a rehash.

[Ascended]

This. It's going to be hard, going forward, to really tell profit from movies due to the splintered revenue streams. MCU is, very likely, an outlier. That may change going forward, but I do remember that The Batman had a good number of articles all talking about "when it's coming to HBO Max - release date leaked!" and the like even before it hit theaters, and a good number of people we know waited for that like we did.

There are other factors that play into all this, of course: WB being so bad at marketing and usually so bad a selecting people to helm their IPs certainly doesn't help; MCU has a proven track record and now they have Disney behind them. All of those things don't help DC properties right now.

But I'd be interested to see how the Bluray/4k sales go for The Batman. That may be part of the picture, too... but if search results on Amazon and Walmart are any indication, there's not a lot of pre-order push for it. So that's certainly interesting.

I don't expect much from blu-ray sales. Those seem to be a smaller and smaller slice of the pie these days, and I don't expect Batman to be any different, especially with the early HBOMax access. But those are supposed to be long-term profits right, not something we're supposed to add to the initial gross.

And I think WB hiring the wrong people to helm these properties is the vast majority of the problem. The marketing could be better, absolutely, and WB often feels like they're hedging their bets, with limited merchandise, etc., which just makes the studio look like they have no faith in their own product. But all of that could be overcome with relative ease, if the movies themselves caught on with audiences.

And yes, we're going to have a harder time telling if a film is successful or not because of these other platforms and viewing avenues, which don't make their numbers public. Just like we're having a harder time telling what comic sales actually look like now. But that's fine, as long as the people in charge know what they're earning, and have clear enough vision to see what they can do differently to earn even more. We can still get a decent enough ballpark estimate, I think, if we keep those other options in mind and make allowances for them, but that's all it'll be. Hell an estimate is all it's ever been really, but it'll be even looser now.

[JAK]

I don't expect much from blu-ray sales. Those seem to be a smaller and smaller slice of the pie these days, and I don't expect Batman to be any different, especially with the early HBOMax access. But those are supposed to be long-term profits right, not something we're supposed to add to the initial gross.

And I think WB hiring the wrong people to helm these properties is the vast majority of the problem. The marketing could be better, absolutely, and WB often feels like they're hedging their bets, with limited merchandise, etc., which just makes the studio look like they have no faith in their own product. But all of that could be overcome with relative ease, if the movies themselves caught on with audiences.

And yes, we're going to have a harder time telling if a film is successful or not because of these other platforms and viewing avenues, which don't make their numbers public. Just like we're having a harder time telling what comic sales actually look like now. But that's fine, as long as the people in charge know what they're earning, and have clear enough vision to see what they can do differently to earn even more. We can still get a decent enough ballpark estimate, I think, if we keep those other options in mind and make allowances for them, but that's all it'll be. Hell an estimate is all it's ever been really, but it'll be even looser now.

All true, and good points - though I will say, the last paragraph does make the second paragraph more scary. lol

[The World]

It's weird how little anyone learned from the American comic book industry which is dominated by two companies that put being a giant interconnected universe over tell quality stories. Oh well.

[JAK]

It's weird how little anyone learned from the American comic book industry which is dominated by two companies that put being a giant interconnected universe over tell quality stories. Oh well.

I'd say that's not entirely accurate: mid Post-Crisis into Triangle Era Superman showed how well interconnected stories could work. It had it's ups and downs, but largely it was quality - especially considering that DC got "event-itis" after DoS/RoS and made them shoehorn in things they wouldn't have otherwise. The books took a fairly steep dive once that group left and the new group stopped caring about continuity.

If that can be translated into a chunk of movies when comics were able to do it for years, I'd say that'd be a win.... but then, WB often looked at the comics part of the company with disdain, so that'd be a larger part of the problem.

[Jon Clark]

It's weird how little anyone learned from the American comic book industry which is dominated by two companies that put being a giant interconnected universe over tell quality stories. Oh well.

Or to put it the other way round- where no one NOT using an interconnected continuity has managed to dominate the industry.

[Ascended]

It's weird how little anyone learned from the American comic book industry which is dominated by two companies that put being a giant interconnected universe over tell quality stories. Oh well.

I think its more the fact that other publishers don't have massive corporate entities backing them, complete with fully staffed and furnished film studios. Plus DC and Marvel control all of the big name IP; convincing someone outside your company to make Atomic Robo must be a lot harder than getting someone who's under the same corporate umbrella to make Superman.

But we've still got stuff like The Boys, Invincible, Hellboy, Walking Dead, Jupiter's Legacy, Umbrella Academy, and plenty of other adaptations from indie publishers. Image is getting really good at making that happen, actually. And a lot of that stuff is at least as good as the typical DC or Marvel fare.

I do agree that keeping everything within a shared universe is a limitation. I think even Marvel's realized this with What If; that's part of the MCU multiverse and benefits from that brand recognition but the whole point of it is to tell stories the main 'verse never could. There's pro's and con's no matter how you slice it though. A DCEU or MCU is somewhat trapped in what it can and can't do; we'd never have gotten things like Joker, The Batman, or the Harley Quinn cartoon if everything was within the same shared narrative (even What If can only dare so much). But that shared narrative has helped turn the MCU into the biggest juggernaut Hollywood has ever seen and it's helped enrich their characters in way stand-alone content couldn't.

I'd think DC would be well served by sticking with the occasional self-contained movie, even as they try to rebuild the shared 'verse. Call it an Elseworlds in the marketing even, offering it up as an alternative to the complexity and viewing investment of a shared 'verse. Unlike Marvel, a lot of DC's best stuff are Elseworld type stories; Dark Knight Returns, All-Star Superman, etc. Why not make the most of that? Sure, you can take elements from a story like DKR and squeeze it into a shared 'verse, but you're only gonna get a taste.

[Lightning Rider]

I'd think DC would be well served by sticking with the occasional self-contained movie, even as they try to rebuild the shared 'verse. Call it an Elseworlds in the marketing even, offering it up as an alternative to the complexity and viewing investment of a shared 'verse. Unlike Marvel, a lot of DC's best stuff are Elseworld type stories; Dark Knight Returns, All-Star Superman, etc. Why not make the most of that? Sure, you can take elements from a story like DKR and squeeze it into a shared 'verse, but you're only gonna get a taste.

I'd be down for that. Instead of being seen as an inconvenience or confusion, it could be treated exactly as Elseworlds are in the comics. The marketing would lean into that separation from an otherwise established shared universe, rather than just passively ignore it.

[Vordan]

WSJ put out an article about Zaslov I thought was worth sharing some choice bits from:

Warner Bros. executives conceded they had doubted the movie would turn a profit, people familiar with the meeting said. Why, Mr. Zaslav asked, was "Cry Macho" made if they had reservations? When they replied that Mr. Eastwood had given the studio many hits and never delivered a movie late or over budget, he answered: We don't owe anyone any favors.

"It's not show friends, it's show business," he told them, quoting from the 1996 Tom Cruise movie "Jerry Maguire."

Mr. Zaslav's team is undoing some of the previous regime's programming strategy, specifically plans to make original movies for HBO Max, people familiar with the matter said. The team scratched "The Wonder Twins," a live-action film based on the Warner Bros.-owned DC Comics superhero duo, because Mr. Zaslav deemed its estimated $75 million-plus budget too high and its return too limited for a made-for-streaming movie, the people said.

Some longtime Warner Bros. executives expressed frustration that Mr. Zaslav wasn't considering their views in strategy discussions and was flirting with potential replacements. His mentality, they said, can be summed up as: Can't you crank out just hits?

Mr. Zaslav wants to use more statistics and research to determine what shows and movies the company should make, he said in a memo to employees on Monday. "As we build this new company," he wrote, "we need to be guided by data and insights to understand what's working and what's not."

Key takeaways:
-All the rumors you heard about Zaslov being a penny pincher are true
-He’s not going to be supporting risky “passion projects” that don’t give a return
-He clearly wants to play it sage as possible and even WB thinks the only way to get people into movie theaters is to make crowd pleasers
-He’s already signaling that there may be more changes in leadership

My guess? Hamada and Emmerich may end up leaving WB down the road unless they’re in agreement with him about what needs to be done. The focus on playing it safe and making crowd pleasers could threaten both current Superman projects in dev since neither is doing that. But any real news about Superman’s future is unlikely to come until Fandome.

[superduperman]

This may mean we can kiss that Val Zod project or whatever it was Abrams was working on goodbye.

[Vordan]

This may mean we can kiss that Val Zod project or whatever it was Abrams was working on goodbye.

Two separate projects. I think it’s unlikely the MBJ Val project happens now given I’m sure it would have had to be expensive. But the Coates/Abrams project might still happen depending on the nature of the script and what they do with Superman. If the Flash still ends with Supes erased then they may go with the Abrams project simply because Cavill won’t be an option and they’ll have to cast a new Supes anyway.

[Ascended]

Those are all the right words to say, for someone in his position.

But will he know who to hire to create these big safe hits that he wants, and will those people know who to hire?

This seems to be the eternal catch. These industries are a blend of creativity and business, and you can't be successful if you only understand one or the other. You gotta understand both. Or rather, you need to hire the right people who, collectively, understand both.

Will this guy hire people who understand the appeal of a character, and know how to adapt that properly for a new medium and audience? Or will he hire people good at crunching data, who will decide to make everything into Batman because Batman is successful?

[Robotman]

Two separate projects. I think it’s unlikely the MBJ Val project happens now given I’m sure it would have had to be expensive. But the Coates/Abrams project might still happen depending on the nature of the script and what they do with Superman. If the Flash still ends with Supes erased then they may go with the Abrams project simply because Cavill won’t be an option and they’ll have to cast a new Supes anyway.

Possibly erasing Superman from their superhero movieverse. I can’t believe it’s gotten to this point.

[Robanker]

Corporate exec thinking of everything in cold hard dollars and asking "why can't we just make it good?"

Well, in such turbulent times, I guess something had to be consistent.