This morning, we told you about the rumor that Warner Bros.
might be considering a major change in their superhero movie production by adding a great many smaller superhero movies to their schedule. I’m inclined to believe this rumor is true, because it’s a terrible idea, and WB/DC specializes in
those.
https://gizmodo.com/what-are-the-possible-fates-of-baby-judith-in-the-walki-1475191391
If you’ll recall, the plan called for WB to release three
movies per year, with budgets of about $20-40 million each, based on lesser-known
DC characters like Booster Gold, Deathstroke, and teams like Suicide Squad and
Team 7. At first glance, this appears like a good idea — getting more superheroes
on screen, expanding the DC movie universe quickly, and making money while doing it.
But it’s not a good idea, on many, many levels. First of
all, while Warner Bros. certainly has its strengths, making smaller motion
pictures — at least successful ones — is not one of them. The studio is just
too big to make small movies well, and the company is too dependent on major blockbusters
to keep afloat for them to want to spend the time to get better at them. Minimizing their resources on these comic book movies will doom them to
fail from the very beginning — we can look to Jonah Hex and Catwoman for
proof.
And those two box office bombs were made far apart. Does anyone really think that
DC/WB can handle three lesser superhero movies a year, when they still can’t do
Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, or Justice League? (Or do Green Lantern
right?) Trying to create that high output when they can’t do more than one big
budget Batman or Superman movie every couple of years is preposterous.
Even if they did manage to release three of these movies in
a single year, who do they think is going to make them? Marvel has been kicking
ass by planning ahead so they can hire the right people for the right superhero
movies — Game of Thrones’ Alan Taylor for Thor 2, Shane Black for Iron Man 3,
Joe Johnston for Captain America. Does Warner Bros. think they’re going to find
three great directors for these small movies per year? Do they think they’ll find three
good directors for these movies? And all this goes double for the casts. This
plan is a clear recipe for ending up with a Booster Gold movie starring Seann
William Scott and directed by the guy who did The Expendables 2.
But say Warner Bros. makes these movies, and say they’re
actually good (because even in my wildest imagination I can’t in good conscience pretend they’ll be great). Here’s the problem: Making three good DC movies about these
lesser-known superheroes will not achieve the same things as one successful
major DC movie. That is to say, Deathstroke, Booster Gold and Suicide Squad
movies, no matter how good they are, will ever equal one good Wonder Woman
movie. They won’t make more money. They won’t raise brand awareness. They won’t
get the attention, or the acclaim, or the press, or the love. Period.
So divvying up Warner Bros.’ time and resources in this way is
counter-productive in the extreme. It’s like a Warner Bros. executive finally
noticed Marvel was putting out two major superhero movies per year, and
suddenly decided Warner Bros. needed to put out three! But then another
executive told him they didn’t have the money to make three major superhero
movies per year, and then the first executive yelled, “We can if we make ’em
quick and cheap!” And then they both went back to doing giant mounds of cocaine.
Warner Bros. is obviously putting quantity over quality, but quantity is not going to solve WB’s DC problems. Churning out a bunch of
mediocre superhero movies won’t do anything but lose money and lose fans; it
won’t benefit Warner Bros., it won’t benefit DC, it won’t benefit the viewers,
and it certainly won’t benefit the characters. Hopefully, this rumor stays a
rumor, and WB isn’t really planning this. Because of they are, they’re not
going to finally succeed, they’re just going to fail more often.
