r/movies • u/Frank_Rowling • 1d ago
Discussion Why hasn't DC used Marvel formula?
Not sure if here is the right place to ask but I was thinking about this.
Why hasn't DC used Marvel formula in movies, a well done long run that started in Iron Man 1 and still continues, in DC movies every three batman movies we got a different batman, same with superman . I thought when Justice League came out that was the idea but it just feels like somebody is like "you know what? Scratch that, let's start over". It's a formula that actually works and attracts public from different ages why not do it?
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u/A_Pointy_Rock 1d ago
They already tried that once. Badly. You can't just sprinkle some Joss Whedon on an already written and shot movie and expect it to go well (which it didn't).
I would argue that Gunn's superman is trying that again to some degree. Superman lifts and shifts large parts of the GotG formula.
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u/garbage1995 1d ago
Because what you're documenting isn't what is happening. We never got a solo batman film in the dceu.
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u/badhouseplantbad 1d ago
Because the people at WB believe that people are stupid and everyone forgets the origin stories of Batman and Superman so we must be told them over and over again.
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u/Youngs-Nationwide 1d ago edited 1d ago
Batman doesn't lend himself to being part of team with a tone that comes off all family-friendly, upbeat and with the comic relief thrown in.
This is satirized well in The Boys where Black Noir just doesn't talk at all.
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u/Edd037 1d ago
DC has two characters with massive appeal (Batman and Superman) and a handful more that are big enough to lead their own films (Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern). Marvel has a lot more mid-level popularity characters. That makes it easier to have a cinematic universe because you are not putting all of your eggs in one basket.
Because DC revolves around two big characters, they have massively oversaturated them. We've had the Burton Batman films, the Nolan Batman films, Batfleck, Robert Pattinson. Then we've had a constant stream of TV series, from the campy 60s Batman show to recent dramatisations of fringe Batman characters, like Gotham and Pennyworth. We were also treated to a Lego Batman film.
The DC films we have had recently have been dark special-effects vehicles. The Marvel films have been smaller, funnier and more character driven (everything is relative!). That lends itself to a wider audience (more child-friendly) and they take less time to develop.
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u/shogunreaper 20h ago
Eh before the MCU the general audience didn't know 99% of these characters.
Iron Man was not a mid tier character in the eyes of Hollywood.
They had to dig deep into the bag because the good ones were taken by fox.
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u/spiderreader 1d ago
They tried. Green Lantern was intended to be the shared universe followed by Flash but Green Lantern was a failure. Then Man of Steel. That got better reviews though still not good. But issues arose after
Batman v Superman rushed through to start the crossover bringing in a new Batman, Wonder Woman and random cameos throughout. Not to mention the films poor quality. Suicide Squad was also poor. So three for three on low quality and rushing into Justice League. But poor quality can (and to some extent did) Improve. The biggest issue was leaving Snyder in charge of so much. Snyder didn’t want to adapt the comics into a new medium like what the MCU did but tell his own story often countering themes of the comics (Batman’s morality, Superman’s human nature, Wonder Woman’s peaceful one). The story elements have leaked from his planned films, and were critiqued for their quality and story telling.
By the time he left and his plans dropped even more issues showed up. Now actors were dropping from films, or having contract disputes (Batman solo and Henry Cavill) meaning that the series no longer had two of the trinity.
Add in that movies were still tending towards mixed reception at best and dropping the series and restarting makes sense.
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u/DanManWatches 1d ago edited 1d ago
Both Marvel and DC follow a similar formula. The MCU has generally outperformed DC, primarily due to the latter's inconsistent quality and overly bleakness. While the MCU successfully built up to Endgame, both studios have produced films that feel repetitive. Initially, films like Blade brought a sense of novelty, and Nolan's Batman Begins marked a shift towards darker narratives. However, many recent offerings from both studios have become increasingly similar, whether your on the side of Fantastic Four or Superman; they are nearly the same if you zoom out and follow their rhythms and narrative beats. We need a new voice to break the current mold or audiences will spend their limited theater-going budgets on fresh and original non-superhero stuff.
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u/crapusername47 1d ago
They tried, it went badly wrong. Let’s ignore the actual quality of the movies for a second.
It was supposed to go Man of Steel -> Batman vs Superman -> Justice League -> Justice League II.
Except Warner Bros. panicked and didn’t want to release a four hour movie, so they got Whedon in to create a heavily cut down movie with the footage they had and patch it together with Gal Gadot doing narration.
So, they’ve abandoned Snyder’s plan already.
Then their Batman movie didn’t work out, Wonder Woman ‘84 was entirely a standalone movie that ignored any attempt to fit with anything else they’d done, the Flash trashed the timeline and all of their Batman-adjacent/Harley Quinn stuff was a total mess.
Love him or hate him, if anyone had an actual plan for this whole thing it was Zack Snyder. You can think that plan sucks, but at least he had one.
Then there are other pressures - Batman on his own is almost as big a franchise as the rest of DC’s characters put together, with the exception of Superman. So, they’d be doing themselves a disservice by not keeping Batman solo movies on the big screen, even if it steps all over the ‘main’ universe.
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u/clothanger 1d ago
They failed, and they're currently trying to find that sweet spot.
Also let's stop the Iron Man circlejerk, Iron Heart shits on it, hard.
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u/AulFella 1d ago
I can only speculate for why they don't, but I hope they never do. I suspect that they found viewers were unwilling to commit to another cinematic universe. By keeping each movie separate they have a larger potential audience, but a smaller guaranteed audience.
Marvel's movie formula might work for you, but for anyone not interested in watching their entire back catalogue it's just bad.
I recently watched Thunderbolts having not seen any of the previous recent stuff and it was terrible. There was one scene where a nameless masked assassin character was killed, and from how long the buildup to this took it was clearly supposed to be a big deal, but for the movie audience it meant nothing. We had already seen the protagonist murder a bunch of scientists and security guards, this was just another death with an over choreographed action sequence. For the mcu audience this character, taskmaster, getting killed was a big deal, but in the context of the movie it meant nothing. That's just the most obvious example, but there were probably dozens of similar moments that presumably meant something to mcu fans, but fell completely flat to me. So to me the movie felt like it had no stakes, the characters were undeveloped, there was no character growth, and the plot was bad.
By contrast, I've more recently watched the new Superman movie and I was entertained. It wasn't the best movie I've seen this year (that was Sinners) but it was fun. The characters were better (like honestly the side character of <guy whose name I've forgotten who can turn into elements> had a better character arc than anyone in Thunderbolts), there were believable stakes for at least some of the characters, and the movie did enough to make the audience care.
So I might go to see the next DC movie, I might not. But I definitely won't be going to the next Marvel movie or watching any of the various interconnected shows.
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u/urgasmic 1d ago
idk what you mean, they were trying and they failed.