Fan Rant: DC vs Marvel

The unequivocally huge success of Iron Man (US$ 200 mills. worldwide on its first opening week, with the budget of US$ 180 mills.) quickly sparks Marvel Studios to further bring its superheroes to the big screen. We've seen Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk just peeking around the corner this year. Iron Man 2 (with most of its casts and crews intact), was already scheduled for a 2010 release, along with Captain America and Thor. And with Ant Man scheduled somewhere in between, these superheroes will be back collectively, together for The Avengers movie in 2011. You who had sit through Iron Man until the end-credit rolls surely have seen Samuel L. Jackson vignetting as Nick Fury, and talked about "The Avengers". Now, three years ago, these huge projects seems almost impossible or a very hard one to pull. But, damn, i've got to admit that all these schedules seems appropriate and we'd seen "The Avengers" in three or four years. Remember, "The Avengers" is a group that consists of many first-line superheroes. Therefore, to appropriately push "The Avengers", each of its member should have their own story-arc that led into it. In a movie-term, we're talking about four or five individual films before put them in one huge, block-buster, geek-salivating film such as "The Avengers". Oh, and don't forget that we've also got "Magneto" and "Wolverine" spin-off films coming.

If Marvel has "The Avengers", DC has their own "Justice League of America" or "JLA".

I've always been a DC fan rather than a Marvel. I had gone into a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine who was a Marvel fan about the flaws and the negativity of a Marvel flag-ship hero at the time, Spider-Man. It should be noted that the discussion was a discussion between a fanboy and another fanboy. Hence, they went passionately and obviously, biased. But i've got to admit now that in-term of films, Marvel beats the crap out of DC by a mile. Sure, DC still has Batman (there's a YouTube clip that put Iron Man and Batman. Iron Man says, "I'm Iron Man", Batman says, "I'm Batman". But when Iron Man says, "I'm a Marvel", Batman still says, "I'm Batman". Oh, the irony. DC flagship is so screwed that even Batman refuses to acknowledge his ties with it), but when Marvel had started to paved its way into "The Avengers" film, the only foreseeable future films from DC is perhaps more Batman. And as a DC fan, i was hugely disappointed.

As with Marvel's "The Avengers", DC's "JLA" consists of many superheroes. Its triumvirate was Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. And you can't talk about JLA without - at the very least - Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern. And then we had The Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow and many more second-line superheroes. That is at least five films easy before even thinking of a JLA film. Sure, Batman is still a lucrative cash-cow for a film and might seen another or two films coming after this year's "The Dark Knight". But, the recent box-office stink bomb, Superman Returns had kept the studios to re-think their decisions to keep throwing away millions of dollars for a yet another "boy scout film". And as far as the other superheroes goes, all we've ever heard about was Joss Whedon and his casting rumors for Wonder Woman. The other? Not even a whimsical whisper.

Making movies, in this time of age was not a cheap feat. As an example, the recent disaster in Myanmar that had claimed more than 10,000+ lives requires US$ 158 mills. to revitalized the damages. But the budget for Iron Man was at least US$ 180 mills. Doing the math, it is easy to see the reluctance of the studios to throw an expensive film without some reassurance that they would see a black ink on its finance report at the end of the day. That, and sufficient passions to make one. I mean, when we're talking about superheroes film, we're talking about pleasing the fans. And, as a fan, you would really hoped that the film was also made by fans or at least by those who know what the fans wanted. This is where passion came into play.

And this is where Marvel and DC differs, where Marvel could really pulls "The Avengers" and DC puts "JLA" in a bin labeled with "crap" painted with a huge red letters.

Iron Man is the first film that came from Marvel Studios' sleeve. A film studio created and owned by Marvel flagship. An article at BusinessWeek says that prior Marvel Studios, all of the Marvel related films were licensed to Columbia studios (Spider-Man, X-Men, Daredevil, Elektra, etc.) and Marvel only receives 5% of whatever the studio made from the film. And now, with its own studio, imagine how much money Marvel would made from its film. Surely more than just a measly 5% profit. It could also be easily imagined the investors' smiling face and immediately green lighted any Marvel Studios future plans. Also, complement with whatever Iron Man made in the weeks to come at the box-office (i've known many guys who had seen the film three times at the theater, and yet had planned to see it again last weekend!) plus further sales from DVDs, related games, and merchandises, it is conceivable that Marvel Studios would had all the funding they needed to pull four-five films more that eventually led to the mega-blockbuster, geek-salivating "The Avengers". DC? Not so lucky. All of its films copyright were still held by Warner Bros. In other word, to see any films related to DC (including Batman), it has to be green lighted by Warner Bros. beforehand. And perhaps i stretched a bit too far, but i'd say that all Warner Bros. interested in pulling any DC films was the money and if Superman Returns can't put them eagerly back on a sequel, what assurance do they have that a flying Amazon woman, or a green skinned Martians would fare better?. Passions? Check the fine-print somewhere in the footnote. If there's even any. Thus, for the time being, i wouldn't expect much from DC flagship and albeit grudgingly, i'd eagerly anticipated whatever Marvel Studios prepping in the future.

Update: Recent box-office results shown that Iron Man was again the #1 spot undertaking US$ 50 mills. with Speed Racer (yet another Warner Bros. brainchild) crashed with a mere US$ 20 mills. (my review on the film just before this post) with the studio expecting for US$ 30 - 40 mills.