Warner Bros / DC Movies News (Updated)

[Geekyfanboy]

"Superman" Future Remains Uncertain
By Garth FranklinTuesday, August 19th 2008 12:08am

The future of "Superman" remains undecided for now as debates within Warner Brothers continues about the direction of the franchise.

Indeed, there's been a lot of ink put to paper in the last week about Warners and DC who continue to have issues with the feature film development of their superhero properties.

The "Batman" franchise remains safely soaring in the hands of Chris Nolan. "Batman Begins" remains the poster child for both superhero origin films and successful rebooting of a franchise, while the "Dark Knight" sequel is a film everyone wants to achieve - a gigantic success both critically and financially.

Its been such a success that it has shone a harsh light on such other projects as the long-troubled Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash films along with the beleaguered "Justice League" project.

DC creative affairs senior VP Gregory Noveck swore to Variety over the weekend that "We're going to make a Justice League movie, whether it's now or 10 years from now. But we're not going to do it and Warners is not going to do it until we know it's right." Yet others in the studio don't seem to be pushing hard on it, despite constant unfounded rumors that the project is not dead (it very much is for now folks).

One project that isn't technically dead, but remains on severe life support, is the "Superman Returns" sequel. The Bryan Singer-directed 2006 feature is generally regarded as a nobile misfire with very mixed reactions and only moderate box-office numbers. There's always been talk of sequel, but the question has been more what form will it take.

Now, the crown queen of quality entertainment journalism, Anne Thompson, posted a piece in her On Hollywood Blog today saying that within the Warner halls "they too believe that the last movie didn't break the mold and wound up in some kind of middle limbo."

The result is that no writers are currently working on the project as the studio doesn't know what they want - either a direct sequel, or the possibility of another reboot (ala "The Incredible Hulk").

Sources tell Thompson that "It is a priority at the studio to find the right direction and if Bryan Singer is willing to do that, fine, but if he gets in the way, he may not stay on the project....It might be better to start from scratch."

Despite the delays, the general reasons for the delays though seem to be good - the studio is taking time to develop the properties right and is concerned more with their quality than reaching a specific date.

[Geekyfanboy]

Warners Plans For "Superman" & Beyond

By Garth FranklinFriday, August 22nd 2008 2:58am

Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov has revealed to The Wall Street Journal that the studio has made up its mind about the future of not just the Superman franchise but much of the DC superhero line-up which it owns the rights to develop.

Rather than doing a sequel to 2006's disappointing "Superman Returns", the studio plans to reboot the feature much like Universal rebooted the "Hulk" franchise this year.

Robinov says "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to, it didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a [previous] Batman and Superman movie at all."

The studio has also nixed the "Batman vs. Superman" and "Justice League" projects for now as they plan to adopt the same model Marvel Studios is doing right now - releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film a few years down the line.

Also like Marvel, the aim is for the DC Comics label to supply two of the 6-8 tentpoles per year that Warners releases by 2011. The studio is aiming to release four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. They presently have Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman projects in development.

Unlike Marvel though with its lighter and more fantasy based approaches (ala "Iron Man," "Spider-Man"), the aim here is the dark realistic tone of "The Dark Knight" for all their heroes - "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it" says Robinov.

Official plans and hopefully dates of these projects will be announced in the next month.

[Meds]

At least there is some movement with Superman. I did find the last film disapointing (not saying i didn't enjoy it). There are a lot of things that can go wrong with coic films. Getting the outfit right is paramount. the last film really screwed it up, and yes i know it is a small gripe but the S was way to small and it just looked wrong. The new batman film is a perfect template on how the outfit should work. It is like the comic (dark knight).
Superman would work well as a dark movie, head back towards the excellent superman 2 and progress from there. I do not however feel we need to see a film based on the origins of Superman, that has been covered perfectly well in the motion picture and of course smallville.

[Darth Gaos]

I thinkof all the characters listed in the article, I would be most excited to see a Green Arrow movie.  I also think it would work the best with the whole "go darker" motif that Warner seems to be after.  It just seems to me that darker films would work better with "superheroes" that don't have some mystic power which would make Green Arrow a perfect fit IMO.  I just can't really see a "dark" Superman movie....he's freaking Superman!

[Meds]

Dark, dark and more dark superman ;)