[Movies] The DC Cinematic Universe - The David Zazlav Dumpster Fire.

Yeah, I really can't foresee how that could possibly be made into a movie without severely butchering it, even if they only base it on Preludes and Nocturnes.

Now, if Guillermo del Toro wanted to do an HBO series based on Sandman, well... I'd be totally down for that.
Gaiman has creative control over the property, and has killed movie attempts before, so that's something. If they try and just adapt the/a story I agree it will probably be bad, but if they would just let Gaiman write a story/screenplay for the movie it would have a much better chance.

I'll never understand why they want David Goyer writing the screenplay, instead of the incredibly talented writer who created the work and has written for multiple mediums with success.
 
I was thinking about the Wonder Woman thing and I saw this picture of Man of Steel actress Antje Traue:



It's too bad she was wasted on Man of Steel, she's very Wonder Woman.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
If these rumors are true, then it doesn't matter to me who plays Wonder Woman in the film, the part is ruined anyway.

"With all that said, I’d bet a year’s pay – in MONOPOLY money, of course – that the “Amazons” of this cinematic DCU will be descendants of those “ancient Kryptonians” who attempted to set up Kryptonian outposts throughout spacedom thousands and thousands of years ago. Furthermore, I say that Wonder Woman will be powered-down, if you will, relative to Superman because these Amazons have evolved and adapted to living on Earth for hundreds of centuries."

Not sure how much stock to put in this speculation, but... Wrong on two counts. Making Wonder Woman Kryptonian is bad enough, but not making her power levels on par with Superman would completely sour me on the character.

EDIT: Wait, a Kryptonian female whose colony wasn't part of the destruction of Krypton, and who is weaker than Superman. That sounds familiar... Oh, right. SUPERGIRL. Good grief, if that's the story you wanted, then why not just use Supergirl?
 
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If these rumors are true, then it doesn't matter to me who plays Wonder Woman in the film, the part is ruined anyway.

"With all that said, I’d bet a year’s pay – in MONOPOLY money, of course – that the “Amazons” of this cinematic DCU will be descendants of those “ancient Kryptonians” who attempted to set up Kryptonian outposts throughout spacedom thousands and thousands of years ago. Furthermore, I say that Wonder Woman will be powered-down, if you will, relative to Superman because these Amazons have evolved and adapted to living on Earth for hundreds of centuries."

Not sure how much stock to put in this speculation, but... Wrong on two counts. Making Wonder Woman Kryptonian is bad enough, but not making her power levels on par with Superman would completely sour me on the character.

EDIT: Wait, a Kryptonian female whose colony wasn't part of the destruction of Krypton, and who is weaker than Superman. That sounds familiar... Oh, right. SUPERGIRL. Good grief, if that's the story you wanted, then why not just use Supergirl?
If they "power down" Wonder Woman significantly, it'll just give rise to claims that, once again, comicdom/DC/"those superhero nerds"/... are mysoginistic and so forth. There's no sensible reason why she should be any weaker than Supes besides "it's a woman, she can't be as strong!" - someithng comics are riddled with anyway.

And yeah...If you're goign to use Supergirl's backstory, make a Supergirl movie.
 
I...actually don't mind altering the backstory to incorporate Kryptonian mythology, as long as it began long enough ago to embrace greek mythology as well.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I...actually don't mind altering the backstory to incorporate Kryptonian mythology, as long as it began long enough ago to embrace greek mythology as well.
Actually, I'm far more bothered by her being made weaker than Superman. That's the part that really gets to me.
 
To be fair, this is nothing but 100% speculation. It's a single guy claiming he thinks this is what will happen.

Man of Steel showed that they have no problem with a female character every bit as strong as Superman. Superman spent half the movie getting the ever loving shit kicked out of him by one.
 
There's a lot of scrutiny to this because it's the first time ever one of the most icon characters in comicdom/modern myth is being portrayed in a live-action theatrical release. We've been promised a WW movie for decades and all we get told is adapting her story is "problematic", yet there has been how many Superman and Batman movies of varying quality? Who knows when we'll ever get to see her on screen again, and Hollywood doesn't exactly have a great track record for treating their heroines as equals. (It's slowly getting better, but there's a lot of ground to be made up.) These are (arguably) the three most famous names in comics and most fans don't want to see Diana diluted because she has the distinction of "woman" in her title.

I'm less worried about Batfleck and more concerned that Zack Snyder's concept of "girl power" is Sucker Punch. :facepalm:
 
There's a lot of scrutiny to this because it's the first time ever one of the most icon characters in comicdom/modern myth is being portrayed in a live-action theatrical release. We've been promised a WW movie for decades and all we get told is adapting her story is "problematic", yet there has been how many Superman and Batman movies of varying quality? Who knows when we'll ever get to see her on screen again, and Hollywood doesn't exactly have a great track record for treating their heroines as equals. (It's slowly getting better, but there's a lot of ground to be made up.) These are (arguably) the three most famous names in comics and most fans don't want to see Diana diluted because she has the distinction of "woman" in her title.

I'm less worried about Batfleck and more concerned that Zack Snyder's concept of "girl power" is Sucker Punch. :facepalm:
Oh, I have no doubt that it will suck and be done in the worst way possible, I just think it's too early yet to claim which worse way will happen.
 
If they remove the mythical aspect of Wonder Woman, then they might as well remove the aspect of Batman where his parents are dead. It's that important to the core aspect of the character.
 
What if Wonder Woman starts out weaker than Superman, possibly due to no one training her or even telling her about her powers, but at the end of the movie she's on par with Supes? The movie could chart her growth, and possibly contrasting it against Clark's development, to show the differences between the characters.
 
What if Wonder Woman starts out weaker than Superman, possibly due to no one training her or even telling her about her powers, but at the end of the movie she's on par with Supes? The movie could chart her growth, and possibly contrasting it against Clark's development, to show the differences between the characters.
That would be a nice idea, except I believe she's only supposed to have a cameo, so I doubt their going to get her that much backstory.
 
DC really needs to stop all this bullcrap and do exactly what Marvel has done. They need to embrace their characters for exactly what they are, not keep trying to "Nolan-ize" everyone. Unfortunately, it seems like they think that everything that works for Batman will work for the entire DCU, and I mean this for the whole DCU, not just the movies. Dear DC Comics/Warner Brothers: "Quit trying to make all your characters Batman." Seriously, I could write an entire essay on how Batman is destroying the DC comics brand. DC comics are even more cartoonish and ridiculous than the Marvel universe and they need to just take that and run with it. They need to just go insane and do something out of left field, like a Plastic Man movie, or something that could be fun and a little serious, like the new Blue Beetle. And if they really WANT to do grimdark, they have an entire staple of Vertigo characters to choose from.

As for Wonder Woman, I wish they would just not bother having her at all if they're going to just make her some throwaway character. I honestly don't understand why they find it so hard to adapt Wonder Woman. It's been successfully done before. I also find it lame that in today's day and age it is a very real possibility that one of the reasons is that studio execs still think that a woman can't pull off being a strong lead in a traditionally male field. It would be even sadder if that's actually the case, but I'm pretty sure that audiences, with a few exceptions, are fine with strong female protagonists nowadays.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
What if Wonder Woman starts out weaker than Superman, possibly due to no one training her or even telling her about her powers, but at the end of the movie she's on par with Supes? The movie could chart her growth, and possibly contrasting it against Clark's development, to show the differences between the characters.
The daughter of a tribe of warriors, not trained?

Just how much are we going to mess up the Wonder Woman character? I could deal with her tribe being genetically altered offshoots of Krypton, I could. If they established that they are the Amazons of legend, and really have been here on Earth, and work them into the Greek mythos. That I could deal with. I can't deal with Wonder Woman not being the daughter of the queen of the Amazons, not being a trained warrior who is none-the-less a compassionate, caring the the embodiment of the spirit of peace.
 
The daughter of a tribe of warriors, not trained?

Just how much are we going to mess up the Wonder Woman character? I could deal with her tribe being genetically altered offshoots of Krypton, I could. If they established that they are the Amazons of legend, and really have been here on Earth, and work them into the Greek mythos. That I could deal with. I can't deal with Wonder Woman not being the daughter of the queen of the Amazons, not being a trained warrior who is none-the-less a compassionate, caring the the embodiment of the spirit of peace.
True, true. My idea would fit Supergirl more.
 
DC really needs to stop all this bullcrap and do exactly what Marvel has done. They need to embrace their characters for exactly what they are, not keep trying to "Nolan-ize" everyone. Unfortunately, it seems like they think that everything that works for Batman will work for the entire DCU, and I mean this for the whole DCU, not just the movies. Dear DC Comics/Warner Brothers: "Quit trying to make all your characters Batman."
This quote reminded me so much of the beginning of the Man of Steel NC review.

 
DC really needs to stop all this bullcrap and do exactly what Marvel has done. They need to embrace their characters for exactly what they are, not keep trying to "Nolan-ize" everyone. Unfortunately, it seems like they think that everything that works for Batman will work for the entire DCU, and I mean this for the whole DCU, not just the movies. Dear DC Comics/Warner Brothers: "Quit trying to make all your characters Batman." Seriously, I could write an entire essay on how Batman is destroying the DC comics brand. DC comics are even more cartoonish and ridiculous than the Marvel universe and they need to just take that and run with it. They need to just go insane and do something out of left field, like a Plastic Man movie, or something that could be fun and a little serious, like the new Blue Beetle. And if they really WANT to do grimdark, they have an entire staple of Vertigo characters to choose from.
I say this EVERY. TIME. we talk about this kind of thing here: They need to do a family friendly Power of Shazam movie. I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet... it's got the kid stuff for kids, the depressing stuff for adults, AND it's got a huge fan base from the 50's and 60's who remember the character fondly. It'd be the perfect counter to the Avengers: a movie about a kid, told from the kid's perspective, dealing with kid issues WHILE protecting his home town.
 
This is a bit different than the topic, but some might find it interesting. Apparently, screenwriter Max Landis was approached by DC with doing a weekly series rebooting the Death and Return of Superman. While his schedule and internal comflicts at DC prevented it from happening, here's his pitch on how he would approach the Death and Return of Superman.

 
And now the movie has been pushed back a year and will premiere in May 2016 against Marvel Phase 3....
It stands no chance. How many times is DC going to kill the Superman and Batman franchises. I don't understand how their animated universe can be so good and their live action stuff can be so bad. I think it's largely because DC themselves aren't exerting the same amount of creative control as Marvel is. Even though WB is the parent company for DC, if the actual comic folks aren't involved in the process, it's pretty much equivalent to the Sony movies for Marvel.
 
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