Warner Bros. CEO Talks Difference Between DC & Marvel

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Nearly every major Hollywood studio has jumped on the comic book movie bandwagon, but despite the coming flood of Fantastic Four, Avengers and Batman films, Warner Bros. chairman-CEO Kevin Tsujihara thinks that moviegoers still have a big appetite for caped crusaders.

He dismissed any assertions that the business is suffering from superhero fatigue at Wednesday’s Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.

“The key thing is that the movies and the television shows and the games, everything looks very different …you have to be able to take advantage of the diversity of these characters,” said Tsujihara.

Not everyone seems to agree. The comic book movie pile-up was the subject of numerous jokes at this year’s Oscar ceremony, and the eventual best picture winner, “Birdman,” is a satire of the craze for superhero films.

However, Warner Bros. is making a big bet that the comic book phenomenon won’t fizzle out just as the craze for disaster movies, biblical epics and other once-hot genres cooled off. The studio is using sister company DC Comics’ stable of masked vigilantes and villains to make roughly two superhero movies a year beginning in 2016 with the release of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad.” Other films include bigscreen adaptations of “The Flash,” “Aquaman” and “Shazam.”

The idea is to create a connected cinematic universe in which characters from one film interact with those from another, partnering, warring and creating super-teams such as the Justice League, DC’s answer to Marvel’s “The Avengers.” It’s a strategy that owes a lot to Marvel, but Warner Bros. chief Tsujihara stressed that characters like Batman and Deadpool are very different from that company’s signature Iron Man, Spider-Man and Captain America brands.

“The worlds of DC are very different,” he said. “They’re steeped in realism, and they’re a little bit edgier than Marvel’s movies.”

Part of the appeal of comic book movies is that the film business has become increasingly global in nature, with roughly 70% of box office coming from abroad on many major films. Characters like Superman arrive in China, Russia and other far-flung locales with built-in awareness, making the marketing campaigns easier.

“The big franchises are becoming more and more valuable,” said Tsujihara. “You don’t have to explain to the consumer what a ‘Batman v Superman’ is.”

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/warner-bros-chief-dismisses-superhero-fatigue-everything-looks-different-1201446314/

I think DC needs to go the much "grounded" approach. Majority of their characters are essentially Gods so toning them down is probably needed otherwise you'd have a Superman that can move planets.

I like how he didn't say that DC movies are "dark". Because I'm starting to hate that word. Man of Steel wasn't even a dark movie at all.

@Mecha


MoS was quite dark, to say the least.

MoS was darker than Godzilla

Orion wrote:

MoS was darker than Godzilla

I don't know. I couldn't see a lot shit because of how dark Godzilla was.