Thursday, January 8, 2009

Goyer says WB has a lot of DC movies "on hold"

In an interview with IESB, writer-director David Goyer says all the DC Comics adaptations he's working on — including "Supermax/Green Arrow" and "The Flash" — are treading water while the studio decides the best way to handle such movies:
"A lot of the DC movies at Warner Brothers are all on hold while the figure out, they're going to come up with some new plan, methodology, things like that so everything has just been pressed pause on at the moment. It was the double header of both Iron Man and The Dark Knight coming out, so more than ever I think they've realized, I think DC was responsible for 15% of Warner Brother's revenue this year, something crazy like that, so they realized that comic books, it's become a new genre, one of the most successful genres."
It's gratifying to see the success of "Dark Knight" linked back to DC, but I still think this is the wrong approach for Warners to take. Developing big strategic plans like that is difficult, time consuming and tends to create more problems than it solves — if a plan agreeable to all parties is even worked out. They have to not be afraid to pull the trigger and risk making mistakes. Marvel's already gone through that phase — "Daredevil," "Elektra," "Fantastic Four," "Hulk" — and have come out on the other side better for it. I really wish that, especially with the likes of "Green Arrow" and "Flash," that the studio would hire an up-and-coming director with a good take on the material, give him anywhere between $80 million and $100 million to make the pic, and then get out of the way.

2 comments:

Jazz said...

It's baffling that a studio like WB, because of the success of one pic, thinks that one size fits all for all their comic book properties.

What? Are you kidding me? Is that all it takes to run a film studio - see what works and hit repeat?

Their superhero film division shouldn't run any different than their comic division that is actually providing the damn source material to begin with, i.e. have different creators actually CREATE different takes on comic book properties. Does the same direction for Batman work for Green Lantern? HELL NO! If you don't believe just look at your own damn publishing company.

I've been intent on starting a superhero film genre site because I love the material and medium so much - BUT films such as X3, Fantastic Four and even Spider-Man 3 have taken the wind out of my sail because the product has felt like a product and not a story.

Face it WB TDK was to a degree a one off - you cannot measure and tailor every super-hero film to match the style or success of that film.

Hopefully at some point in the near future you will get your head out of your ego-centric ass and treat each character as a unique precious entity that deserves its own take.

Anonymous said...

The Dark Knight was overrated piece of corporate shit movie. JMOP!! LOL