I think they should do a trilogy to start up the whole franchise, this way they could first introduce all the characters without making a bunch of solo movies, and still have enough time to introduce a big threat to the audince why the JL should work together

@Lone_Wolf_and_Cub: Dido

I understand the idea, do Justice League then the solo movies. But a lot of the fun with what Marvel did was seeing how the universe was being built and all the little nods to other characters that we haven't seen yet but know are there somewhere - like Black Panther or Doctor Strange. It also let people invest into the individual members - and be genuinely impressed by how Marvel got these characters to carry their own movie. My favorite Marvel movie is Thor because I wanted to see how they'd make it work, and the one I'm most looking forward to now is Guardians of the Galaxy because I really want to see how they're going to make it work.

Another thing was the anticipation for Avengers, giving people the build up from Iron Man - and I'd love to feel that kind of anticipation for Justice League, and have it pay off as good as Avengers did. But Warner Bros has their plan and we have to hope for the best. But personally, I'd really love to see them do Man of Steel then do World's Finest, a Superman/Batman team up movie would build the universe, add anticipation, and be a great way to dive in for Justice League, in my opinion.

If they started with solo movies, Wonder Woman would probably do all right as she is fairly well known. The Flash might be well received but would probably pull a Green Lantern in the box office. Which leads us to Aquaman. It doesn't matter if that movie is better than The Dark Knight, it would be ridiculed by mainstream audiences thanks to Family Guy and Robot Chicken, and if we are being honest, the 60's Justice League show didn't do him any favors either...

I totally agree that the team up movie first is the way to go.

I think there's no reason why solo superhero movies and "a team of superheroes" movies can't stand on their own. WB is already way behind the game in getting a JL movie to the big screen. If they do the same strategy like Marvel with the solo movies and all the build up and that, it'll be forever before we get a JL movie. Obviously Nolan's Batman doesn't quite fit into this scenario, as well I'm not even sure Snyder's Superman would fit into moving forward into a J L film. Just get good actors and a good director and make a JL movie with an epic story. If done right a quality JL flick would perform better than a Flash and Wonder Woman movie combined (and if it doesn't we're doomed).

They are rushing this and it will most likely end up being a disaster. They don't need to have a solo movie for every character, but they definitely need to for some. If you remember the Avengers didn't have a movie for each character, but Black Widow and Hawkeye had small appearances in the lead up movies so the audience at least had an idea of who they are. I would hold off, do a few solo movies and work in some of the roster that way.

Most non comic book people thinks Aquaman sucks? Give him a small role in the next Superman movie where you show off what's cool about him. Or maybe do another Batman movie to make it clear that the batman in Justice League movie isn't a continuation of the Nolan trilogy.

Rushing into the Justice League movie is going to confuse audiences no matter how good it is if it's rushed into as it's way too many characters to bring in at once. Look at the Young Justice cartoon, it's a good show, but as someone who doesn't read DC comics it's a confusing mess this season that seems like they're plan is to throw everything at the screen at once and hoping something good sticks. That's going to be the best case scenario the way they are going, DC comics fans will likely love it while the casual fan will be lost.

How about DC and Warners give us Something concrete about a Justice League move instead of saying "we are doing a Justice League movie"

Great point. Show the team up... and non-comic people will pick favourites and see the individual follow-up solo movies...if the JL movie is good.

@Reignmaker: I don't think Captain America is that well known in countries other than America but his film did well nonetheless.

@Skronk61: Batman and Superman are very popular even outside of the comic book community so having them both in a Justice League film is gonna make some real money and grab people's attention.

@ltbrd: While I like some of the ideas you present, there are a couple problems that you will run into.

1) Making the threat come earlier will kill the pacing of the movie. If they have a climax style event early on in the movie, then the movie will feel dragged out. You need pacing and putting them under such intensity will make the movie plateau. Also, if the characters don't have group dialogue then people who go see the movie who don't know anything about these characters will not care about them. Character recognition goes beyond being able to name who these characters are.

2) As much as I like your idea for the origin trailers, WB is not going to do that at all. That will cost too much money to create. One of the reasons why Green Lantern was such a flop was that they poured too much money into their marketing. The marketing didn't pay off and since then WB has been pretty shy about doing such a marketing campaign again. Also, if the trailer doesn't show you anything for the movie, people who watch them are going to be mad that it didn't show you anything.

3) Going along with the trailers thing. Keeping the plot secret is fine and all, but people still need to be teased with something. There are tons of movies that have trailers that are liberal with movie footage. The movies still keep many parts of the movie secret, especially crucial aspects about the plot. I would point to movies like Looper and Brave as perfect examples.

I just hope the movie is good. I don't care if it flops or gets terrible reviews. I don't want to add another movie to the pile that already has Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and Green Lantern.

Give me Aquaman and Flash or give me an Atomic Robo or Goons movie.

I have made the same argument; I think they could do

something like Brad Meltzer did in Justice League of America #0. Where Superman,

Batman, and Wonder Woman are discussing who they should recruit, toss out an 8

by 10 glossy photos of the character, a close up on the picture... switch to live

action showing their power set. So even if they aren’t on the team and in the

JLA movie they open up the ability to do a Martian Manhunter movie, Cyborg

movie, Vixen movie or whatever character for an individual movie.

The sheer cost of what it run for special effects makes it

dicey proposition that Warner Brothers would make a profit off of a JLA

movie, but if their business model was to do something that was essentially a

loss leader to spin off individual movies that should be more profitable then

it makes sense.

I have to disagree on DC and their brand they are in an

interesting position, they have an older audience (like myself) that grew up on

super friends, super friends power hour, Batman, Shazam. They also have a audience

in their 20’s and 30’s that watched Batman the animated series, superman the

animated series, justice league, justice league unlimited, a short lived flash

TV series, as well as Teen Titans. And a much younger audience that is watching

green lantern the animated series, young justice, batman brave and the bold, Smallville

and arrow. They have a broad segment of society that is familiar with at least

the core of the DCU. My biggest hope is that WB can take the world building

they have done on a small scale on arrow (I have loved seeing royal flush gang,

deadshot, deathstroke) and expand that out on a larger scale of feature film

Whether the Superman films does will determine whether a Justice League has a chance. But I agree that WB would be wasting their efforts to replicate the success Marvel has had with their run but I think there two films they do need to do before they release a Justice League film. Batman is not one of them, film going audience knows his story very well by now. One, Superman, done but the other is Wonder Woman. Why? It's not because she makes up the third tier of the DC Trinity. Nope it because with WW, DC has something Marvel has not done, a strong female hero. Although female heroes have a tough time with sales in comics, they have very strong record in movies. It's pretty easy to list of dozens of very successful films with film action leads. It's the one thing DC has to really different it's team from Marvel because let's face it, Black Widow is cool but just not in the same class as WW.

But more important than all of this is that they have to have a solid creative team. What really separates Green Lantern from the recent Batman films? The director, the writers and actors and the rest of the creative team. Green Lantern on the other hand had a light weight actor (let's face it Ryan Reynolds is an OK comedic actor but he is definitely riding on his looks and short on talent), terrible director and weak writers. If they get the right creative team they will succeed and if they choice to let hacks with bad digital effects make their films, flop. Let's face it only George Lucas can get away with that crime.

Kind of late for them to do justice league first considering Man of Steel will be out soon and Green Lantern got his movie.

@Teerack said:

Kind of late for them to do justice league first considering Man of Steel will be out soon and Green Lantern got his movie.

Reboot GL

I kinda like how the new 52 set up the universe by releasing Justice league (DC's most iconic superheros in one book)

and then afterwards The solo titles followed after, and the sales spoke for themselves, the solo titles within 'Justice League' sold more than any of the other new 52 titles. Im sure this method would work with the movie industry as well. It would also be unique for DC to go with the "spin-off' concept.

Also if DC is willing to make a wonder woman movie very similar to the gritty crime-greek concept that Azzarello is doing in her book right now You can have something really unique and fresh. that movie can be a home run in it's own. IMO

Fantastic point! Absolutely correct. It should be noted that Hawkeye and Black Widow didn't have their own solo films, because they are better as supporting characters. The Hulk movie was okay, but we loved the Hulk in Avengers. A JLA movie would be awesome. And if successful, then you could spin off that.

The important question isn't being asked here. And that question is: When will there be a Plastic-man movie?

Just because Marvel did it doesn't mean DC need to, or that it would work for them. I'd say let them try it this way instead. They've got Superman coming out and with any sense Cavill would be kept for the Justice League movie, then the major task is picking a roster everyone can get on board with. Honestly I can't see much reason for Cyborg, I'd prefer Martian Manhunter because in Smallville he was excellent. But who knows. The big three is a fairly obvious part of the team.

Equals success

I agree with you.

@Pyrogram: when in rome

@Pyrogram said:

@Reignmaker: Actually, flash is not THAT well known. Casual fans probably do not even know who he is.

There was that Flash TV show that lasted a couple seasons during the 90's

lets put some more animated movies out of the JL and get some interest ...not from fanboys but the public

You could set it up like the Avengers, have Steve Trevor as the Agent Coulson type character looking to bring a team together to fight some big threat. have him pull in Superman cause hes a boyscout (easy to have a military connection from what ive seen of MoS) and WW (hint at a past partnership between the 2) then pull in some other characters like Aquaman, Flash or GL. Have Martian Manhunter as the willing convert to the team, and Batman jus shows up because he knew something like this was going to happen

then from there you can pick and choose who gets a movie. the wonder woman toys are selling better than the Aquaman toys, go with that. i dont think you need another batman movie/trilogy jus to have him appear in this movie, do it in steps: 1- Man of Steel, 2-JL movie, 3,4,5- WW, Flash or whatever works.

@Manute117: I agree with you. DC seems to excel in the animation department compared to marvel. Crisis on Two Earths and Justice League DOOM were amazing. The Young Justice series is also one of my favorite shows right now. If anything they could do a CG Justice League movie preferably with the team that did the DC Online trailer. I don't think they will be able to do a proper live action movie of the entire team. Especially since Batman and Green Lantern had no tie-ins to something bigger. I doubt Man of Steel will have hints to a bigger picture either. Or maybe they have their own method of doing things and don't want to just copy Marvel with all the post-credit easter eggs. Whatever may come I just hope they don't make it look like Batman is the only hope for the world like most media tends to do. You have Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Cyborg, Flash and many other heroes who are all iconic in their own rights. A justice league movie should be about the team working together. Not about batman saving the day (but they will do it this way no matter what anyone says)

as much as i enjoyed what marvel had done building up the avengers (Still remembering who i was with when i went to see ironman and remembering the nerdgasm, for lack of a better word, me and 2 of my other friends after hearing sam jackson mention the avengers innitiative and explaning our huge fanboy grins to our other friends) but if warna did decide to do that its only going to be compared to an avengers set up knock off. i think that they should do what the dcau did. establish superman and batman again, then team the 2 of them up in a worlds finest film. then either move from that to a trinity film or just straight to a justice league film.

I'd rather them not rush the movie. 2 years doesn't seem like a long enough time to develop a team movie and introduce that many characters. Without solo movies, they'd have to devote a bunch of time introducing the characters people don't know, and keep more focus away from the action.

I've been saying the same thing more or less for a while now. Marvel's characters (especially the ones that they still have control over) are MUCH more obscure than most DC characters, or at least the big three. Pre-Avenegers, there were a lot more people that would have recognized Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman than would have recognized Thor or Iron Man.

I think that DC's characters are much more archetypical than Marvel's characters so, at their face, they're much easier to grasp. I think that especially given how poorly the Green Lantern movie did, if DC tried to do a bunch of solo movies before a Justice League movie, they'd never actually get to a Justice League movie in the first place. I think that for DC's characters it makes more sense to use a team movie to launch solo movies than the other way around. Here's to hoping that they make each character interesting enough on their own that people actually want to see solo movies for, say, The Flash or Wonder Woman.

yes. They should forget about solo films for now. Focus everything on the JL film.

Why not make a 2 or 3 part JLA movie released each consecutive year like the Hobbit or LOTR? One big huge epic tale would be amazing!

If the JL movie sucks.....it won't make a difference if they released solo movies first or not. It makes sense they put their eggs in one basket, have a succesful movie and THEN make decisions about the future.

Warner Bros. studios should stay the hell out of it and let the professions handle it and what I mean by professions, I mean the writers who know the characters and in my opinion, it should NOT BE AN ORIGIN MOVIE, have the movie start several years after the formation of team

@Pyrogram: Yes i agreed...but really I think the only reason there trying to jump on a JL film is because they envy Marvel's Avengers, now I don't think Solo films is bad-quite a few people know Flash and Wonder woman besides who cares if they don't know her name is Diana??!!! who Cares? they don't read comics so it won't be a big deal anyway

even though dc would just be copying marvel, we all know marvel would do it to dc. the new 52 out one year. marvel now the next. i think dc has the pride not to copy marvel

i like marvel better but just saying

I just hope they have a more comic book approach to these movies.Nolan's batman movies were good(haven't seen TDKR yet)but i want to see more crazy impossible events occur.Also,some character's would actually be more like their comic(original) selves(darkseid,superman,green lantern batman,etc).Hope there's not too much realism thrown into man of steel.

There's probably no escaping the "Marvel ripoff" moniker that's going to inevitably be attached to Justice League. Reversing the order the movies come out in isn't going to change that.

The big question is: Can it work in the opposite direction?

Simple answer: yes.

It can work, but only if there are filmmakers (directors, writers, producers) who believe in and love the DC characters as much as the people who made the Marvel films loved theirs. Following the Marvel formula (take cues and influence from established stories, but create your own above being a slave to the comics) can and will work for the DC characters. It worked for all the Marvel movies leading up to Avengers (not all of the ones outside of that continuity and yes, even Incredible Hulk) and for the Nolan Batman films.

A smart move for Warner Bros. would be to use Man of Steel as a new jumping on point. Use it in a similar way to how Marvel Studios used Iron Man. If it's a hit, play off of it and keep people like David Goyer, Jonathan Nolan and Zack Snyder around.

I think Warner Bros can do a very transcendent and powerful Justice League film with doing solo films first if they are smart enough. Copying marvel success would be too easy and frankly kinda boring. It would be nice to see a film were the justice league has been together for a while from the start and focus on telling a good story about these characters.

A well thought out proposition and one I am leaning towards agreeing with for all the reasons listed.

Whatever happens, they should stay away from Darkseid IF a Justice League of America movie ever gets produced. I love Darkseid as a villain but the similarities to Thanos are too obvious. That's just a minor quibble.

Yeah, I think solo movies of the other characters could be done afterwards OR, somehow work their back stories and origins into the JLA movie itself, at least to give audiences a better understanding of who they are ( I am talking about Wondie and Flash for example ).

Just hope a JLA movie gets under way!

I'm glad someone has made this point so eloquently. What Marvel did was unheard of. It worked to great success and because of that everyone seems to think that is the only way it can be done. An hour and a half or two hour film is plenty long enough to introduce a full cast of heroes and the more important aspects of their back-stories.

That being said, DC and WB have a terrible track record with anything not Bat-related. They haven't even been able to do Superman right since the 70's, and until Man of Steel can prove me wrong, I'm not convinced that Zack Snyder was the right choice to try and salvage that property. Darkseid seems like a terrible choice for a first movie villain, particularly considering Marvel has already introduced Thanos. Nothing about this Justice League project so far feels like any thought or effort has been put in to actually make it good.

In that way, maybe it would be a good idea to ape Marvel, and gain back some of the goodwill from both audiences and fans that they have lost before going for something so ambitious as a Justice League movie. But it certainly isn't necessary to making the film work. And as Gregg points out: if they did choose to start things off with solo movies and mess up those movies (at this point in time seems more likely than not that they would indeed mess up), that could halt production of any Justice League movie indefinitely.

I guess there really is no easy answer for DC...other than of course actually making good movies.

I've always agreed with this. They should create a Justice League film that introduces a shared universe with its major players (the top tier heroes being characters audiences are already familiar with unlike Marvel's characters before their movies). Then gives us smaller solo films to flesh out the stories for heroes other than Superman and Batman (like Flash, Wonder Woman, Aqauman, etc). That said, the JL film should follow up on Man of Steel and have Henry Cavill reprise his role as Superman.

I don't know why but I get the feeling Warner Bros. is trying their best not to screw up the Justice League movie. Them planning on releasing it the same year as Avengers 2 either means they know what they're doing this time around and are willing to risk going against it or just betting on people to see it due to overflow from the Avengers

They should just put Geoff Johns in charge of the "Justice League initiative" and get a bunch of really good screenwriters to do the scripts with assists from Scott Snyder, Scott Lobdell, Grant Morrison, Gail Simone, Francis Manapul, and Brian Buccellato for the characters they work or worked on.

@Manhunter2070 said:

I still think a Wonder Woman movie needs to happen first, its incomprehensible to me why one of the world's most famous characters can't get her own franchise. As for Justice League, I'd be happy to see WB set a different tone from the Marvel movies to help separate them in the public's mind, 'm liking how Man of Steel is shaping up and the atmosphere that has.

I totally agree with you about wonder woman

Good strategy to use Batman and superman to promote Wonder woman and Flash.

i use the same arguments when talking to friends about why i think a JL movie should come first.

They shouldn't copy the Avengers start out with Justice League movie I'm tired of waiting.

I'm all for Justice League movie that works independently on it's own feet, you know, like movies are supposed to do.

Marvel had the right idea financially with The Avengers but let's face it the solo movies themselves range from meh to okay. Only Iron Man is really worth a rewatch. The others are rather basic and unimaginative and I say this as a big Kenneth Branagh fan.

There has been a perfect Justice League film script waiting to go for a while now, it is Kingdom Come.

It should be made exactly according to the original, all of the major arcana should be entirely recast with middle aged actors, it should have a cast of thousands & be made by a greatly talented crew.

It could possibly be one of the most expensive films ever made, it would certainly be one of the highest grossing films ever made, & would become a timeless classic like Star Wars loved by all for generations to come.