Why is DC trying to be Marvel?

[Jastall]

The problem lies in the fact that DC's A-line is a list of some of the most horribly unrelatable characters ever written. This has always been the reason for DC's failure at the box office, you simply cannot make a big-budget film about characters who have squat for personality. DC's B-line? There's some characters I'd watch movies about, but since DC is obsessed with getting their A-line made into movies and continually failing, their B-line will never see screen time.

I don't think every character has to be relatable to make a good story. There's room for some larger than life personas, especially in superhero movies. But don't try to bring them down to our level. The whole story about Superman being angsty because he's a demigod alien that shoots lasers out of his eyes got old at some point. Spend less time dwelling on the implications of eye lasers, and more on the eye lasers themselves. That's what people want to see when they go see a Superman movie.

It's the same reason I'm puzzled at the Wonder Woman movie. WW1, of all things? Why do you have her fight bog-standard humans? Not only does it seems unfair, but Wonder Woman is the kind of character that should be punching mecha-gorillas on the moon or something. Doesn't have to be this silly, and you can still construct a good narrative out of a larger than life plot, but don't try to bring them into our world, they're demigods, they don't fit into the real world by design. It's like when FOX tried to fit Deadpool into their ''serious'' narrative in X-Men Origins. The character just didn't fit the story they wanted to tell at all. Same for trying to make Superman and co. gritty and grounded.

[Sunseeker]

I don't think every character has to be relatable to make a good story. There's room for some larger than life personas, especially in superhero movies. But don't try to bring them down to our level. The whole story about Superman being angsty because he's a demigod alien that shoots lasers out of his eyes got old at some point. Spend less time dwelling on the implications of eye lasers, and more on the eye lasers themselves. That's what people want to see when they go see a Superman movie.

Lasers and lightshows won't save a movie. People love Transformers for the characters not the light shows.

Noone wants Superman to be angsty because he's having a hard time dealing with bring a god among insects. That's not good writing either. Superman isn't relatable because he's poorly written. Even his attempts to be "normal" are just painful to watch. I mean, what problems does Superman really have in life? ..... Yeah. Exactly my point.

He had a great home life with loving "foster" parents, he was friends with a hot babe who totally wanted him (Lana Lang) he has that whole "sexy farmboy" sthick going for him. He's doing his dream job while pretending to slum it up. And what's his biggest problem in life? That's right, he can't get into Lois' pants. It's just dumb.

Shooty eye-laser-thingies are cool...until you realize they're pointless. Unless the bad guy gets their hands on some kryptonite or turns out to be Darkseid or Doomsday, the bad guys are just meaningless. Superman is faster, stronger, smarter, sexier and just generally all around better than everyone else.

The same is true for almost every A-line DC hero. Batman? Rich sexy playboy who owns the biggest company in Gotham (and quite possibly one of the world's largest) who lives in a giant house with a personal butler...and what's his deal? His parents got shot in front of him so he decided to travel the world for 30 years learning kung-fu so that he could come back home and wear a funny costume and beat up poor people in funny costumes. What is Bruce Wayne's biggest problem? He needs THERAPY. What does he do instead? Adopt kids and spread is trauma.

Wonder Woman? An amazingly sexy giantess-princess-dominatrix-fetish of a woman who is actually the daughter of an actual god, blessing her with super-strength, super-reflexes and did I mention super T&A? She's sent to the "human world" as an ambassador for her people and what does she decide to do there? Beat up crazy people. What's her biggest problem? She doesn't understand "men"...oh, and the politics of an area with a population greater than 200.

Green Lantern? There's good reason why fighter pilots are known to be assholes. There's been one count it, one good Green Lantern and guess what? It wasn't the wealthy white guy with nothing better to do with his time than figure out what color of the emo-rainbow fit him best.

Flash? This guy's sthick is that he actually is and asshole. And not in the charming, goofball, loveable nerd way that Spiderman is, but his whole character is that he's a nerd who got super-powers and is now a sexist glory hog. And he's probably got the most character of any of them.

And that's it. There are no other DC characters. Every other DC character is a spin-off of one of these 4 characters, and that sad thing is? The spin-offs are better. I hate Damian Wayne but ya know what? That little shit is a way better character than Bruce.

But really ALL the interesting characters in the DC universe are the villains. They are the reason people keep coming back to DC. Heck, DC has even made a couple strikes at making fucking Cheetah an interesting character. But it's all the villains. The "crazy people" who are clearly written as people with problems, crazy powers and trying to deal with the two of those things. The villains are you and me. They're people with problems, who have fallen in with the wrong crowd, or are just so sick of always being shit on that they finally decide to blow something up.

The problem isn't that these characters aren't "gritty" or "grounded", we're well past the 90's here thank you. They're just plain unrelatable, not because they have magic powers, but because they're flat characters. And yes, a character must be relatable, a character must make you feel for them, to share in their joys, their pain, their loss, their growth. That's what makes a good character. Which, ironically is why Flash is one of the best of them, because he's got character, personality, even if his character and personality is that he's a douche.

Crazy light shows? Yeah Michael Bay has given us 5 Transformers movies. And yeah, people may go watch them for the light shows. But it's that classic battle of good vs evil. Of good attempting to stay good while evil runs rampant, of trying to walk that line of fighting for what you believe in, of choosing to save your new friends or your old home. Of being forced to fight your old mentor who turned to the Dark Side. That's why there's 5 Transformers movies, and 3 Batman movies.

- - - Updated - - -

Young Justice is more relatable than the A-line DC characters.

Yup, and not because they're "gritty" or "dark and brooding" but because they're not flat, boring characters. They have problems and imperfections and are generally "human" in personality if not DNA.

[eschatological]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I thought the whole point is that DC was too grimdark with MoS and BvS. Suicide Squad was going for the same thing, and they got so scared by BvS they forced (bad, awful) comedy into it to make it actually cringeworthy. I still thought MoS and BvS were okay movies, but yeah, I definitely didn't think they were trying to copy Marvel. Those were their attempts to differentiate themselves from the light, goofy Marvel. Even the WW trailer doesn't look like typical Marvel fare, it's shot in the same earth tones that MoS and BvS seem to be shot in.

I agree, the only way to make DC good is to make it the serious counterpart to Marvel's goofiness. I haven't seen a Marvel movie since Iron Man 2 when they basically said, "Yep, this is what we're going to do." But making it a serious counterpart doesn't mean deviating from their characters. A Batman who blatantly murders people is going to be jarring. A moody Superman is going to be jarring. Either lean into those new interpretations, or stick to the convention of the character (which is what Nolan's Batman, for all its grimdark tone, did: in spite of many nameless mooks dying - he didn't kill a single one of his named adversaries).

I agree with Snyder's feeling about Superman, btw, just not his execution. The only way to make the Boy Scout interesting is for him to doubt himself, and perhaps be afraid of what his presence means, with the hero worship, and whatnot.

[ati87]

The problem lies in the fact that DC's A-line is a list of some of the most horribly unrelatable characters ever written. This has always been the reason for DC's failure at the box office, you simply cannot make a big-budget film about characters who have squat for personality. DC's B-line? There's some characters I'd watch movies about, but since DC is obsessed with getting their A-line made into movies and continually failing, their B-line will never see screen time.

Seriously? Like are we going to ignore the original superman and batman movies and the Dark Knight trilogy? And just saying Man of Steel was no worse then Iron Man 2, 3 both Thor movies, Captain America 1 and 2, Dr Strange, Ant Man, and whatever non Avengers and Guardians movie I missed who is owned by Marvel.

DC's has some really strong character roster and some of the best villains who don't need superpowers to be good.

Problem is god dam writing and directing you don't make a suicide squad movie, a so called special ops team that you send to do dirty work, and have them save the word, that's the work of the Justice League.

You don't make a Batman v SUperman movie and throw in 2 major plots and 4 subplots without hurting the overall story, for example Cap 3 was almost the same exact movie but they didn't throw in a dozen subplots.

DC isn't trying to be like Marvel if they did we wouldn't have a middle-age batman that tries to beat the shit out Superman and we wouldn't have a punk Joker.

[Zeek Daniels]

I would Caution people looking at worldwide gross instead of domestic. American studios see far less of the profits from international distribution. Also the longer a movie is in theaters the less of those profits the studio sees as well. So the big things are Opening weekends domestic and how quickly it drops in the coming weeks.

From its opening weekend of 179 million Civil War dropped 60% to 72 million. BVS on the other hand had an opening weekend of 166 million and drop almost 70% to 51 million. Also BVS lasted 12 weeks in theaters while Civil War lasted 20 weeks. What that tells you is first off all most ppl that went to see BVS saw it in the first couple weeks of release. 2nd it tells you not many wanted to see it after that or at all. Civil War on the other hand had a ton of repeat business. Which is what these movies want. You want new viewers and old viewers to keep coming to your movie. So when a movie that has a hugh 150mil+ opening the trend is to have a big drop of around 60%-65%. Anything higher and that means its front loaded. Any lower and you got a hit on your hands.

Few more examples of front loaded vs a hit. Rogue one 58% drop opened to 155, 11 less than BVS but it didnt drop as much on subsequent weekends, ppl kept going to see it. Transformers 4 63% drop, Fast 6 63% drop, Age of ultron 60% drop. The Force Awakens 40% drop followed by another 40% drop, from an insanely high opening weekend of 247.9 million.

[Deleted]

The pinnacle of DC's achievement on film is encapsulated with The Dark Knight trilogy. It's not flashy. It's not goofy. It's dark, gritty and realistic.

for YOU. I prefered Reeves Superman and Tim Burtons Batman over this Nolan crap.

A lot of DC fans would disagree that the Dark Knight was a good Batman trilogy. A good series of movies featuring a guy that looks a whole lot like Batman....but not a good version of Batman himself.

Amen to that!

Actually... most of Marvels characters were stolen from DC. Plenty of proof of that

Sorry that is utter bullshit. Marvel and DC have over the decades made clones of the other universe.

I haven't read this whole thread, but I thought the whole point is that DC was too grimdark with MoS and BvS. Suicide Squad was going for the same thing, and they got so scared by BvS they forced (bad, awful) comedy into it to make it actually cringeworthy for me.

I really enjoyed it as the best dc movie of the decade and I am still giggling over the fact that it brought dc an oscar

[Pachycrocuta]

I agree with Snyder's feeling about Superman, btw, just not his execution. The only way to make the Boy Scout interesting is for him to doubt himself, and perhaps be afraid of what his presence means, with the hero worship, and whatnot.

I don't agree with Snyder about Superman. Superman and Captain America are close to the same character (minus the powers for the most part). Both are goody two shoes "Liberty, Justice, and the American Way" boy scout paladins. Yet Marvel didn't make Cap some dark brooding emo little bitch whining that everyone he knew is dead and he's nearly a century in age. Superman wasn't that way in the animated series (both the Superman Animated Series and the Justice League ones, and he wasn't some boring character in them), yet Snyder made him a dark brooding emo little bitch whining that he is so superior and a god among ants.

DC is in the same boat as Fox and Sony are with their Marvel movies. They don't stick to the source material, have not-so-good people behind the scenes (writers, directors, producers, editors, etc), and have some questionable choices in casting of actors (though there are some examples in Marvel movies). Fox made a hit with Deadpool because of who they had working on it (a fan, who stayed close to the source material, as well as some other good people attached to it).

And Logan, like the other Wolverine movies and X-Men movies, was a terrible movie. The only decent one was Days of Future Past, and that's only because it nullified the first 3 X-Men movies. Only good thing about Logan was that it was rated R, which works for Wolverine. But it didn't improve the movie. (That last part is complete opinion)

[Shadowferal]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I thought the whole point is that DC was too grimdark with MoS and BvS. Suicide Squad was going for the same thing, and they got so scared by BvS they forced (bad, awful) comedy into it to make it actually cringeworthy. I still thought MoS and BvS were okay movies, but yeah, I definitely didn't think they were trying to copy Marvel. Those were their attempts to differentiate themselves from the light, goofy Marvel. Even the WW trailer doesn't look like typical Marvel fare, it's shot in the same earth tones that MoS and BvS seem to be shot in.

I agree with this part.

I agree with Snyder's feeling about Superman, btw, just not his execution. The only way to make the Boy Scout interesting is for him to doubt himself, and perhaps be afraid of what his presence means, with the hero worship, and whatnot.

*nods* As Supes was raised human, it seemed normal...and more importantly, relatable. Had he been "Capt Perfect" no one would have found him believable, and he would have been boring as hell.

[Blueobelisk]

People love Transformers for the characters not the light shows.

The characters ARE light shows. Everyone goes to see Transformers for CGI robots that fight each other and transform into cars.

The rest of your post was 10/10 though. I really liked what you wrote.

[Valeron]

The characters ARE light shows. Everyone goes to see Transformers for CGI robots that fight each other and transform into cars.

The rest of your post was 10/10 though. I really liked what you wrote.

Yeah, was going to say. People watch Transformers for the spectacle and specifically the robots, not for the characters or story.

[dextersmith]

I loved Marvel but never liked DC. It's weird that some super heroes have every power and others have none but they're still super. Marvel has more depth imo.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Yeah, was going to say. People watch Transformers for the spectacle and specifically the robots, not for the characters or story.

On the same note though, outside of those general expectations, no one ever really has anything good to say about the movies.

[dextersmith]

However I do admit that taking the serious "realistic" route would be more interesting for them and a differentiate themselves from Marvel. And Gorsameth is right about them not taking their time.

The shows and few comics I've read, I liked Marvel better because they're far less cheesy. They're not full of thought bubbles that say KAPOW.

[Moozart]

Sorry that is utter bullshit. Marvel and DC have over the decades made clones of the other universe.

http://comicisland.org/marvel-vs-dc-...at-characters/

[DaGhostDS]

well it is a matter of fact that the marvel movies are making a ton more money then the dc ones.

i guess that make Justin "Beaver" the best musician in the world..

HAHA, more like overused of autotune.

But seriously i have one major issue with the MCU, every time there is something big happening they don't call the team in, i.e. Iron Man 3, time to call in the rest of the team? Nope

Space elves are attacking London, let's do that solo.

Every damn time.

[Gemini Soul]

The money says otherwise, is a matter of facts rather than opinion.

If a move is good or not is subjective and an opinion, therefore it can't be a fact.

[DaGhostDS]

http://comicisland.org/marvel-vs-dc-...at-characters/

To be fair most of those characters were created by someone who left DC comics and went to Marvel comics or the inverse, mainly Jack Kirby.

[Grimbold21]

Because there's a huge market for superhero movies.

And it's nauseating.

[Deleted]

Marvel has more depth imo.

I hope you are okay with me laughing about your opinion

http://comicisland.org/marvel-vs-dc-...at-characters/

Stop your sillyness with picking a post where one showed ONLY the ones marvel cloned. DC did the same over the years.
try this one: https://9gag.com/gag/aKgv6R3/marvel-...ent-characters

ofc they clone of each other. thats what happens when dudes go from marvel to dc or from dc to marvel.

[dextersmith]

I hope you are okay with me laughing about your opinion

It's all good!