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Hi there.

Since Marvel and DC are owned by Disney and Warner Bros. respectively, that got me thinking. What if the other comic book companies (Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, Dynamite Entertainment, etc.) got bought out by the other film studios which created their own shared universes of those comic book properties?

So let's speculate on this hypothetical scenario for a bit. Out of all the remaining three major film studios of Columbia Pictures, Paramount and Universal, which comic book companies do you think each one would be most likely to purchase and create a cinematic universe for Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, Dynamite, or any other comic book company you can think of which you believe could theoretically set up a shared universe for all of their respective superhero properties?

Also, from a business perspective, do you think any of the minor film studios could potentially rise up to take the place of/fill in the void left behind by 20th Century Fox ever since it got bought out by Disney? Like maybe Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and/or Lionsgate Films for example?

Have a good day.

I think they'd be too late and if you don't find the right combination, success is too far from guaranteed.

A lot of people are getting tired of superhero films. The way you get people to go is one of the three:

1) Iconic character with enough background/history to be a draw (even Iron Man was pushing it when it came out...but it has to be a "big" comic book name - smaller comic companies don't have many of these).
2) Famous or well-liked actor. You don't get mass appeal if you use a no-name actor who no one cares about (see Iron Fist or whatever on Netflix, etc.)
3) Famour or amazing director who is on a roll.

We had super hero films before, and they've been widely ignored and forgotten. No one wants to acknowledge Ben Affleck's awful Daredevil. How about Black Panther with the first major black lead? (oh wait...we did Blade like fifteen years before...). Or Dead Pool being the first R-rated comic book movie (oh wait, we did Blade...like fifteen years before?....and then Punisher...and then another Punisher...) First female lead was Captain Marvel? (oh wait, we did Elektra like fifteen years before...) I mean we had not one but TWO Ghostrider films...

The history of poor superhero movies almost exceeds the successful ones. So unless the smaller comic books/film companies can find the right niche they wouldn't be striking Marvel level numbers. So they'd have to really nail one of the those three criteria or come up with something fresh and new and interesting.

The reason people go to see Marvel and DC movies is worldwide brand recognition, decades of quality storytelling, customer loyalty and modern special effects.

I'd bet against broad commercial success with other publishers. Walking Dead was an outlier, it was simply a story for the times. The best comparison for smaller publishers is Judge Dredd, it has the usual cult appeal but doesn't connect with normie audiences.

There's supposedly an XO Manowar movie under development. If that's the case, we will see how it performs. I imagine it would need to do very well for studios to look at partnerships with Valiant / Kaboom / Dynamite as idea shops.

A lot of people are getting tired of superhero films

Really - that does not seem to be the case? Where is this assertion coming from?

As long as Marvel keeps up their quality and if DC can replicate Wonder Woman then super hero films are fine.

I'm seeing a lot of similar statements online, and I know my local friends (let's say a core group of 15 people or so) simply don't get excited by the films anymore. Too many, too boring, and too much CGI.

The films are, however, being plenty successful abroad and they'll continue to make profit. I no longer get excited by any super hero film, beyond stuff like Brightburn.

No one in my group of friends (and it's mostly mid-20's IT folks...so the core target audience) saw Venom. A couple saw Aquaman. No one went and saw Shazam (despite it having great ratings). No one went and saw Captain Marvel. Most of them went to see Avengers Endgame and were happy with it. No one saw Black Panther in the movie theatres (a few saw it on Netflix).

The one movie everyone saw and was happy with was the Spider Man Homecoming or whatever the new one was a year or two ago. But the enthusiasm from young people here locally isn't that big on super hero films. Captain Marvel didn't do as well as they wanted, nor did it beat Wonder Woman's sales in the US, etc. And as that market shifts more to foreign markets, that's fine.

A smaller film production company though will likely be considering the US market heavily and there's a lot of "superhero exhaustion" going on.

 Elbows wrote:
I'm seeing a lot of similar statements online, and I know my local friends (let's say a core group of 15 people or so) simply don't get excited by the films anymore. Too many, too boring, and too much CGI.

The films are, however, being plenty successful abroad and they'll continue to make profit. I no longer get excited by any super hero film, beyond stuff like Brightburn.

No one in my group of friends (and it's mostly mid-20's IT folks...so the core target audience) saw Venom. A couple saw Aquaman. No one went and saw Shazam (despite it having great ratings). No one went and saw Captain Marvel. Most of them went to see Avengers Endgame and were happy with it. No one saw Black Panther in the movie theatres (a few saw it on Netflix).

The one movie everyone saw and was happy with was the Spider Man Homecoming or whatever the new one was a year or two ago. But the enthusiasm from young people here locally isn't that big on super hero films. Captain Marvel didn't do as well as they wanted, nor did it beat Wonder Woman's sales in the US, etc. And as that market shifts more to foreign markets, that's fine.

A smaller film production company though will likely be considering the US market heavily and there's a lot of "superhero exhaustion" going on.

I have the opposite experience - similar number of friends (varied ages - 20's - 40s) - all enjoying the recent films.

We all thought Venom was fun, same with Aquaman, several saw that one twice - same with Cap Marvel (which I think is one of the top Marvel films).

Less saw Shazam but most of us had never heard of him and there is alot of other stuff on.

Different strokes....

 Elbows wrote:
I'm seeing a lot of similar statements online, and I know my local friends (let's say a core group of 15 people or so) simply don't get excited by the films anymore. Too many, too boring, and too much CGI.

The films are, however, being plenty successful abroad and they'll continue to make profit. I no longer get excited by any super hero film, beyond stuff like Brightburn.

No one in my group of friends (and it's mostly mid-20's IT folks...so the core target audience) saw Venom. A couple saw Aquaman. No one went and saw Shazam (despite it having great ratings). No one went and saw Captain Marvel. Most of them went to see Avengers Endgame and were happy with it. No one saw Black Panther in the movie theatres (a few saw it on Netflix).

The one movie everyone saw and was happy with was the Spider Man Homecoming or whatever the new one was a year or two ago. But the enthusiasm from young people here locally isn't that big on super hero films. Captain Marvel didn't do as well as they wanted, nor did it beat Wonder Woman's sales in the US, etc. And as that market shifts more to foreign markets, that's fine.

A smaller film production company though will likely be considering the US market heavily and there's a lot of "superhero exhaustion" going on.

While were only 6 months in so far the top 2 grossing movies for 2019 are both superhero movies pretty sure you can guess which 2 but 1 of them was the "disapointing" Captain Marvel. A movie so disappointing that it made more money than the following 3 movies in the top 5 combined, in fact the top 2 movies have made more than the co.bined gross of the other 18 movies in the top 20.

As for "super" fatigue there does not appear to be any sign that it exists outside of breathless articles in magazines and papers, every super hero movie released on general release this year is in the top 20 and I am including comic book movies like glass and battle angel for fairness. Even the much derided Dark Pheonix is at number 19 with shazam coming in at a respectable 8th place.

Don't get me wrong I mean if WB/DC keep up there sterling record they might manage to cause a backlash but that would hopefully just be against the guff there on the most part churning out. I mean Batman looks to be a complete right off for another decade and the new Joker movie looks like it could go either way from the trailer I saw but fingers crossed for the WW sequel and Black Adam.

Superhero movies are here to stay, I don't think they will ever become 'outdated' in same ways as say, sword&sandal movies, or Westerns did (and even then, those still continue being made, just not very often anymore). It might be that the pace and scale might get reduced eventually. I think MCU is sort of thing of which there is only room for one at the time. Also it's not so easy to repeat, even for Marvel. They made some real good casting choices, with people flowing to see the movies just because the leads are so charismatic. No guarantee they can catch the lightning in the bottle second time.

I do not think that huge existing background is a necessary pre-requirement for mega-success, though it certainly helps. For example, Underworld series - not based on existing franchise, but became a cult hit because of their distinct tone and Beckinsale's portrayal of the lead character. And Star Wars was originally meant to be film adaptation of Flash Gordon, but Lucas decided to create his own setting and became wildly more successful than he ever could have with just releasing a Flash Gordon movie. If you can convince the audience they are watching something original or distinct, and make right casting choices, no reason why you couldn't start a whole new successful superhero franchise.

I've got to agree with the others- supers aren't going anywhere, unless the studios really screw up. Online and anecdotal muttering doesn't count for much, box office sales do.

Even weak offerings don't seem likely to screw things up. No one's canning the next Spiderman on the basis of Dark Phoenix, and when DC manages good films, they do well (and the bad ones usually manage some profit anyway)

Since Marvel and DC are owned by Disney and Warner Bros. respectively, that got me thinking. What if the other comic book companies (Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, Dynamite Entertainment, etc.) got bought out by the other film studios which created their own shared universes of those comic book properties?

As for the small comic studios- I don't see the point of a film studio buying one of the smaller companies. I can see them licensing a specific comic title, but buying out a company isn't worth it for the smaller fish. They just don't have the overall brand recognition.

Also, from a business perspective, do you think any of the minor film studios could potentially rise up to take the place of/fill in the void left behind by 20th Century Fox ever since it got bought out by Disney? Like maybe Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and/or Lionsgate Films for example?

Well, sure, but... well. MGM _was_ one of the big five, and another, (RKO) dropped out. Who's in and who's out isn't a permanent thing

Lionsgate is probably near the edge of the 'Big' status anyway. But its pretty up in the air, and depends on if you count non-US companies as well.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think superhero films are suddenly going to up and disappear. They'll plod on for another twenty years before they fade. Locally there just isn't any buzz about superhero films.

Superhero fatigue?

No.

But, I do think we’re seeing an audience increasingly spoiled by Marvel’s output, to the point it rejects mediocrity. Marvel has become the benchmark, and so far nobody has really come close to challenging them.

As for comic books? It’s my understanding that the success of the MCU hasn’t particularly fed back into the newsstands. And Marvel still remain a big name in that land.

Dark Horse is a company I’m loosely familiar with, but from their Alien, Predator and Terminator titles. I think Hellboy is also one of theirs. But beyond that? I couldn’t tell you any of their other titles.

The others in the OP? Never really heard of them.

Yet, that could be to a film makers advantage. Use the general cinematic interest in Superheroes, and pick one the bulk of your audience aren’t familiar with, or even heard of. That gives you more free reign than trying to adapt something the public has a pre-conceived notion of.

Yet? It also opens you up to Idiot Criticism, no matter how good your movie.

Let’s take the classic Dredd. An absolutely fantastic film. It gets the feel and tone of Dredd’s world about spot on (if only they had the visuals of the Stallone version, but that’s another thread).

It’s suitably violent. Dredd is suitably ruthless, but not murderous (he gives clear warning to all in Peach Trees to keep out of his way). Everything about the action is near perfect, and true to the source material. Now, let’s see if I can find the review I’m about to rag on....

This one will do.

Mark Ellis, Of ‘Shmoes Know ‘ wrote:September 15, 2012
The closest you get to character development is when he smiles, frowns, or utters the occasional one line. That was all the life this film had.

Well Mark, let’s dissect. And I’ll be brief. This is Dredd. Dredd is largely immutable. He is the literal personification of The Law. Dredd, the movie, is actually about Cass Anderson’s journey. From Wash-Out Rookie, to vital weapon in Justice Department’s arsenal.

Dredd’s development here is Justice Department’s. Mr By-The-Book is shown that whilst not up to Street Judge standards, Anderson’s abilities are priceless.

Had it not been for her, Dredd would’ve walked into and out of Peach Trees entirely none the wiser.

That’s why he passes her. For all her flaws, she brings something desperately needed by Justice Department. An unrivalled edge against Crime.

There are other negative reviews criticising the character of Dredd as ‘humourless’ and simply ‘a scowl in a helmet’....have they even read the source material? The humour in Dredd happens around him. The man himself isn’t humourous.


Ahem. Anyways. Got distracted! So that’s the downside. Reviews and criticism from people who’ve not bothered to research the source material. The very things they find distasteful being the same things fans craved.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Dark Horse is a company I’m loosely familiar with, but from their Alien, Predator and Terminator titles. I think Hellboy is also one of theirs. But beyond that? I couldn’t tell you any of their other titles.

The Mask, Mystery Men, RIP'D, timecop, barb wire, as well as the AvP and Hellboy movies are all theirs.
Predator and Aliens are FOX, but AvP was first licenced by the DHC mob for comics and then Dark Horse Films made the motion picture versions of THOSE comics. It's why there are different licensing issues for Alien/Aliens, Predator and AvP. Some stuff is allowed cross-licence, others not so much in that family.

Image is "just" a publisher as far as I'm aware. The comics are all creator-owned and we've seen some of the stuff made into series/movies: Walking Dead as a prime example.

Dynamite just lost the Conan license to Marvel and aside from that, I don't see them having much serious content for movie audiences.

While not well known outside of comic readers, I think Valiant would have a lot of appeal for a movie universe.

They have a large range with a series for potentially everyone.
X-O could be made into a decent origin SF movie without knowing anything about the character beforehand. Historic events visited by aliens (worked for Cowboys vs Aliens), struggle for freedom, big showdown vs the aliens. Possibility for future movies about return to earth in current times, etc.

Ninja-K as a conspiricy/agent movie.

Archer & Armstrong would be a decent enough buddy-movie.

Bloodshot is Valiant's Punisher and is currently made into a movie with Vin Diesel. Hoping for the best as I love the series.

Speaking of older comic movie failures, Spawn is just godawful despite having several ground breakers for comic films: R-rated for violence and language, African-American lead, indy comic publisher and was a super popular title at the time.

For the better part of 15+ years the 2 Tim Burton Batman films were pretty much the gold standard for comic movies until they released Ironman and Batman Begins. For the decade+ before it was the 1st Reeves Superman with not much to offer in between those points.

I enjoyed many of the marvel movies with the solo character but Avengers have all been pretty meh for me despite crushing the box office. I'm completely burnt out on the Marvel franchise, formulaic writing and entirely reliant on pushing CG effects over plot. What soul and originality they had is pretty much lost to Disney's money making machine at this point.

Voss wrote:
I've got to agree with the others- supers aren't going anywhere, unless the studios really screw up. Online and anecdotal muttering doesn't count for much, box office sales do.

Even weak offerings don't seem likely to screw things up. No one's canning the next Spiderman on the basis of Dark Phoenix, and when DC manages good films, they do well (and the bad ones usually manage some profit anyway)

This. . . . And we are NOWHERE close to the level of "singing cowboy" movies of the 1930s-1960s

And I think the thing is, we are *finally* in an era where special effects technology has reached a point where the film creators can do "justice" to the characters. I mean, imagine for a moment if they had made Dr. Strange around the same time frame as Star Wars and Alien. . . . It's a totally different movie, right?


Now, as for other comic publishing houses putting out their own work on some "other" producer, I think it is already being done, no? Some film franchises are a bit chicken and egg at this point, but for example, the Alien, Predator and Godzilla franchises have all been published in their own stories in comic book form. Even before a lot of this big Marvel kick-off, we had some of Alan Moore's work brought from comic to big screen in the forms of 300, V for Vendetta, and Watchmen. . . I think the main difference between a MCU or DC film, compared to an Iron Horse or other company comic film is in the marketing. Right off the bat, we don't see these niche comics churned out on big screen at nearly the same clip as MCU or DC. IMHO, these smaller comic houses' movies also tend to be further down the "art house" line of thinking than their bigger brethren. Obviously, the source materials are quite dark, but looking at V and Watchmen, they explore elements of life and civilization that are largely ignored by the big 2, or they cover things in a much more adult manner than the truly PG-13 realm of MCU/DCU.

So to answer the OP question: yeah, I can see us seeing films done by the non-Marvel/DC comic companies. We have historical evidence of their existence already. We just won't see them released at nearly the same rate, and we may often see marketing done in such a way that all but the most hardcore fans wouldn't even release that the film is based on a comic (it was several, several months before I happened to trip across an article online about the movie "RED" being a comic adaptation)

It rather depends on how the Super genre goes post Endgame, personally I'm done with them for now, I'll get round to Spidey 2 at some point but nowt else is nabbing my attention

Also you can go lower than Singing Cowboys in the Super genre as Ginger Stark et al proved

It is going to be interesting to see how they handle the MCU going forward.

Over the first 10 years, all building toward IW/EG as The Big Event. And between those, they threw us a serious palette cleanser in Ant-Man and The Wasp, and a brand new Hero in Captain Marvel - someone who's sole prior mention was on a pager in a post-credits scene

Now? Well, there's not been so much as a whisper (that I'm aware of, to be fair) of them setting up The Next Thanos. Indeed, it seemed they were looking to move away from that some, at least for a bit.

In the pipe we've got Far From Home, Black Widow, The Eternals, Doctor Strange 2, Black Panther 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and Shang Chi, all either announced, or already underway production wise.

Of those, it's Black Widow and The Eternals that strike me the most, because of their relation to Thanos and that (Black Widow from Endgame, The Eternals in the comics).

I'm also massively intrigued to find out if Mysterio really is telling a porkypie about being from another Dimension!

The big question is if they keep going forward or issue a restart. Remembering characters like spiderman have had 3 or 4 reboots thus far already. In fact at one point we only just got rid of one spiderman series of films/intro film before we got another.


So they've always got that good old faithful "lets do it all over again" angle they can throw down. And many of their fans are so used to it by now that they accept it. Heck Batman has been re-imagined dozens of times on the TV/film setting.

I'm honestly not sure they would.

They've struck gold with the current formula and casting decisions, and done so repeatedly (only Bendyditch Custardsplatch sticks out for me, and even he is growing on me).

But, in time? Who knows, I guess? What if it turns out the MCU doesn't do so well without the twin pillars of Cap and Tony? Can the others perform as well without Cap's optimism and Tony's pragmatism?

Hopefully the advent of the many TV shows (including What If?, which I'm massively looking forward to) will act as the test bed/vent for retcons. Something canonical, but kinda just off to the side a bit stuff.

The main issue is how big can they keep building it - already I feel confused in their mash-up films because I've only seen under half of the various series related to it and that's without casting/costume/actor changes or straight up remade films to complicate the matter.

Also the more they mash up the harder it becomes to balance out characters because someone godlike always rises to the fore whilst the weaker ones end up either running their own film within a film (which means eveyrthing has to be rushed to try and squeeze it all in) or they are always in the background.


Then again they've been doing that for years and its worked for them.




Personally I wish they'd step back and let fantasy films have a surge of popularity, sadly whilst Lord of the Rings was massive it didn't actually spark the idea of more fantasy films with big budgets; it just gave directors more licence to do multi-movie series.

Ensis Ferrae, we don't have to imagine a Dr. Strange with 80's special effects.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Also you can go lower than Singing Cowboys in the Super genre as Ginger Stark et al proved

singing cowboy is a subgenre of films. . . there were some articles (i ended up not posting because one was outdated already) that outlined the pace at which studios churned out the "same" film. . . . IIRC, in 1952, MGM alone put out over 40 "singing cowboy"/western movies, in 1953 that dropped to the mid-30s. . . That's the point I was making in sayin we aren't there yet. . . . Because MCU and DC movies in particular are being done as blockbusters, they get appropriately (or not, depending on your views) large budgets, which does in some ways limit the output.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Ensis Ferrae, we don't have to imagine a Dr. Strange with 80's special effects.

lmao, maybe Dr. Strange was a bad example, but I do hope that the overall point was received: until recently, SFX weren't up to a level where "true" comic fans who are film makers felt they could do source material justice, which is why we've had far more Punisher and Batman films, which require less CGI work like a Guardians of the Galaxy.

However even today the CGI requires powerful machines and a lot of work and money to achieve. So whilst they can achieve it with blockbuster budgets there isn't the same recycling potential that you'd get with, say, a singing cowboy type film - where you can basically re-use almost everything over and over again. Once you've done one film you've got the sets, actors, horses, stunts, etc.... you can just move things around and repeat it all over again.

It doesn't even matter if people "see" those similar elements, look how phenomenally popular the big spaghetti westerns are and yet they recycle a lot of the same key actors into new roles.

techsoldaten wrote:The reason people go to see Marvel and DC movies is worldwide brand recognition, decades of quality storytelling, customer loyalty and modern special effects.

I'd bet against broad commercial success with other publishers. Walking Dead was an outlier, it was simply a story for the times. The best comparison for smaller publishers is Judge Dredd, it has the usual cult appeal but doesn't connect with normie audiences.

There's supposedly an XO Manowar movie under development. If that's the case, we will see how it performs. I imagine it would need to do very well for studios to look at partnerships with Valiant / Kaboom / Dynamite as idea shops.

My hope for comic publishers like IDW and Boom Studios in regards to licensed comics is that those two would help set up a cinematic universe for Hasbro (Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc.) and Mattel (Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, etc.) respectively. The only problem with that idea being that Boom Studios doesn't own the licensing rights to Mattel products as far as I'm aware.

chromedog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Dark Horse is a company I’m loosely familiar with, but from their Alien, Predator and Terminator titles. I think Hellboy is also one of theirs. But beyond that? I couldn’t tell you any of their other titles.

The Mask, Mystery Men, RIP'D, timecop, barb wire, as well as the AvP and Hellboy movies are all theirs.
Predator and Aliens are FOX, but AvP was first licenced by the DHC mob for comics and then Dark Horse Films made the motion picture versions of THOSE comics. It's why there are different licensing issues for Alien/Aliens, Predator and AvP. Some stuff is allowed cross-licence, others not so much in that family.

Don't forget lesser known superheroes from Dark Horse like X and Ghost, for example. They were part of the same imprint as Barb Wire (Comics' Greatest World) from what I remember.

Hanskrampf wrote:Image is "just" a publisher as far as I'm aware. The comics are all creator-owned and we've seen some of the stuff made into series/movies: Walking Dead as a prime example.

Dynamite just lost the Conan license to Marvel and aside from that, I don't see them having much serious content for movie audiences.

While not well known outside of comic readers, I think Valiant would have a lot of appeal for a movie universe.

They have a large range with a series for potentially everyone.
X-O could be made into a decent origin SF movie without knowing anything about the character beforehand. Historic events visited by aliens (worked for Cowboys vs Aliens), struggle for freedom, big showdown vs the aliens. Possibility for future movies about return to earth in current times, etc.

Ninja-K as a conspiricy/agent movie.

Archer & Armstrong would be a decent enough buddy-movie.

Bloodshot is Valiant's Punisher and is currently made into a movie with Vin Diesel. Hoping for the best as I love the series.

I do agree that Valiant would be a great source of potential for a film universe if done correctly. As for Image, I've heard through the grapevine that Image either does or once did pay lip service to the idea of all their creator owned comics taking place in the same shared universe as each other. Which is why I wouldn't be surprised (and kind of hope happens) if Image (and Dark Horse as well) went through a period where they decided to have their own equivalent of a "Crisis on Infinite Earths" type of scenario. Plus I've heard that Todd MacFarlane is planning on making a new Spawn movie as we speak.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Also you can go lower than Singing Cowboys in the Super genre as Ginger Stark et al proved

singing cowboy is a subgenre of films. . . there were some articles (i ended up not posting because one was outdated already) that outlined the pace at which studios churned out the "same" film. . . . IIRC, in 1952, MGM alone put out over 40 "singing cowboy"/western movies, in 1953 that dropped to the mid-30s. . . That's the point I was making in sayin we aren't there yet. . . . Because MCU and DC movies in particular are being done as blockbusters, they get appropriately (or not, depending on your views) large budgets, which does in some ways limit the output.

yep but we are still getting there as since Iron Man the number has been creeping up from 2 or 3 to 6 or 7 per year (plus the telly shows effectively being 3 or so b-movies per season)

maybe we can have a singing hero movie with that X-lass that does sound into light (Dazzler ? Jubilee ?)

K9ofChaos wrote:So let's speculate on this hypothetical scenario for a bit. Out of all the remaining three major film studios of Columbia Pictures, Paramount and Universal, which comic book companies do you think each one would be most likely to purchase and create a cinematic universe for Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, Dynamite, or any other comic book company you can think of which you believe could theoretically set up a shared universe for all of their respective superhero properties?

Possibly, but they're not all going that route. Some are heading to streaming services.

Besides, shared universes aren't something unique to comic books, it's just that Marvel are the only ones to do it successfully (Dark Universe floundered, and now the Monsterverse they've been attempting with Godzilla and King Kong is stalling). They're still trying to make a "Hasbroverse" with GI Joe and Transformers in the mix.

What Marvel proves is that you need to have an incredibly solid plan and someone who knows what they're doing in charge to guide everything with a singular vision (this is where DC fell over).

K9ofChaos wrote:Also, from a business perspective, do you think any of the minor film studios could potentially rise up to take the place of/fill in the void left behind by 20th Century Fox ever since it got bought out by Disney? Like maybe Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and/or Lionsgate Films for example?

Amazon. Apple. Netflix. People think that Fox being bought by Disney reduced competition, but failed to consider that there were other studios moving in before the Fox deal was even done.

Amazon is putting billions into their stuff, and Apple's upcoming lineup is nothing short of mind-blowing (whether it's any good remains to be seen, but the people involved... wow). Just because they're not traditional Hollywood studios doesn't make them any less a competitor in this space.

 Elbows wrote:
A lot of people are getting tired of superhero films.

[Citation Needed]

 K9ofChaos wrote:

chromedog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Dark Horse is a company I’m loosely familiar with, but from their Alien, Predator and Terminator titles. I think Hellboy is also one of theirs. But beyond that? I couldn’t tell you any of their other titles.

The Mask, Mystery Men, RIP'D, timecop, barb wire, as well as the AvP and Hellboy movies are all theirs.
Predator and Aliens are FOX, but AvP was first licenced by the DHC mob for comics and then Dark Horse Films made the motion picture versions of THOSE comics. It's why there are different licensing issues for Alien/Aliens, Predator and AvP. Some stuff is allowed cross-licence, others not so much in that family.

Don't forget lesser known superheroes from Dark Horse like X and Ghost, for example. They were part of the same imprint as Barb Wire (Comics' Greatest World) from what I remember.

I only mentioned ones from their lineup that I was familar with, since I stopped reading comics for the most part about 20 years ago.
DC has just cancelled their "Vertigo" line, too. Which was the ONLY DC title I bothered with back then too.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Besides, shared universes aren't something unique to comic books, it's just that Marvel are the only ones to do it successfully (Dark Universe floundered, and now the Monsterverse they've been attempting with Godzilla and King Kong is stalling). They're still trying to make a "Hasbroverse" with GI Joe and Transformers in the mix.

What Marvel proves is that you need to have an incredibly solid plan and someone who knows what they're doing in charge to guide everything with a singular vision (this is where DC fell over).

Regarding vision...Feige gets a little too much credit, IMO. Jon Favreau is the secret hero of the MCU.

It was Favreau who showed them the creative path forward in terms of look and tone, and he fought the studio to cast RDJ. All RDJ did was keep the whole enterprise afloat during the early years and maybe beyond. With a different director and different Iron Man...things might not have turned out the same. There was some lightning caught in the bottle there.

Also, Zack Snyder had nothing if not a singular vision and plan for DC. In fact, it was the rigidity of his plan and singular nature of his vision that largely doomed the Snyderverse. They had no room to course-correct when audiences rejected BvS...they were already committed to one director, one vision, one very interlinked story, massive budgets (especially compared to the early MCU films) and a rapid-fire production schedule. The MCU had its missteps too, but their approach was flexible enough to allow them to ditch the stuff (or director) that wasn't working. At WB, they were already shooting SS when BvS got savaged. JL was only a few weeks away from shooting. And that's how you end up with a panicked studio and the mess that was JL.

Marvel made it up as they went more than people realize, but that also allowed them to figure it as they went.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

What Marvel proves is that you need to have an incredibly solid plan and someone who knows what they're doing in charge to guide everything with a singular vision (this is where DC fell over).

It perhaps also proves that you need to make the individual films work on their own. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America the First Avenger all worked as films in their own right. None of them wasted screen time setting up the greater plot.

 gorgon wrote:
Regarding vision...Feige gets a little too much credit, IMO. Jon Favreau is the secret hero of the MCU.

It was Favreau who showed them the creative path forward in terms of look and tone, and he fought the studio to cast RDJ. All RDJ did was keep the whole enterprise afloat during the early years and maybe beyond. With a different director and different Iron Man...things might not have turned out the same. There was some lightning caught in the bottle there.

Favreau got them to take risks, the biggest of which was RDJ. Yes, there wouldn't be anything without him, but he was the director on the first film, not the guy in charge.

Speaking of which...

 gorgon wrote:
Also, Zack Snyder had nothing if not a singular vision and plan for DC.

And he also wasn't in charge. Singular vision he may have had, but he wasn't the one calling the shots, unlike Feige. Hell, Warner Brothers was so done with Snyder that they didn't even let him finish his third film, instead hastily handing it to the guy who literally made the first two Avengers films in some kind of "Hail Mary" attempt to fix their failing movie universe . And that's on top of everything else you described