[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Lord Aquaman is correct. WB has stated that unless SR cracks $200 million domestic, just DOMESTIC, not including the international gross, there will be NO sequel to SR. The reason behind this is because the reports now say they spent close to $260 million on this film. That's just the budget on the filming and post. It's reported they spent another $50 - $100 million on advertising and publicity for SR. In order for them to green light a sequel, they feel they have to break that $200 million mark. The international and DVD sales will NOT count because there is money to be spent there as well, including international ads and publicity, and then the pressing of the DVD's and the ads for when it is released on DVD among other things. They will have to try and recoup any money spent in those areas, not including the theatrical release. Basically, in order for SR not to be a total loss, it must make at least $200 million domestically, which all projections show now, isn't going to happen. Most industry analysts I've talked to and have read are expecting it to fizzle out at around $188 million. The Lord is also correct in stating that it is not doing well overseas because of the competition from Pirates.

If I don't sound disappointed, you're right. And I'm sorry if I anger or upset anyone out there, that is not my intention. I'm just glad that it's not doing well enough to warrant a sequel. I don't know what they would do, but I doubt that it would be very good. They have written themselves into a corner by introducing the kid and anything that would come next would be contrived, and maybe even painful to watch. I have also "heard" that heads are rolling at WB over this movie. No matter what they say, they were hoping that this movie would be their Spider-man, which it clearly is not.

There's not always going to be another Pirates to go up against. SR has gotten enough good press and gross that I'm still confident there will be a sequel...the character is famous enough and the movie is nowhere near being a bomb...what are they going to do, wait another 20 years for another one? The comic book movie fad has already started slipping in recent years...Warner Bros. will try again within the next 3 years with this version of Superman.

And on something you said earlier...

Superman Returns, on the other hand, is only true to the Donner Superman and manages to ignore everything that has come since.

Thank sweet fucking Jesus on a tricycle for that. As an obsessive comic fan, I can safely say that by far most of the solo Superman series and stories since the first Crisis are complete and utter shit at worst and boring, pedantic "tits 'n' tights" shenanigans at best. Superman, in my opinion, works more as an icon within the DC universe than as an actual character you have to follow month in and month out. In short, he's a stale character and incredibly boring. I've preferred the movie and cartoon versions infinitely more than any of his solo comic series. Now, put him in a JLA film, or one with Batman, maybe you'll get something going...but I feel that SR would have been FAR worse if they had attempted to tie it in to the post-Crisis Superman. I'm much happier they want along the lines of the cartoon series and Smallville and try and do something different than the current comic norm, even if that entails continuing the "Donner universe." I'll take that any day over current continuity comic Superman. He's an awful zombie all by his lonesome.

[Jedi_Arco]

I just really feel sorry for you that you feel the comic is "stale and boring" and that the Donner version is the one and only way to do Superman. Superman: The Animated Series is far and away the best interpretation of the character and it is not a continuation of the film series by any stretch of the imagination. It is based around storylines from the comics as well as the modern day incarnation of the character. I wish that SR had borrowed from S:TAS just a little; it might have been better. And as for Smallville, yes it has some elements of the Donner movie (ie: the Fortress) but it is its own thing. It takes the character and runs with it in a very unique and original way. I like it for that reason among many others. It even gets the spirit of Lex's character right! Something that Singer failed to do.

It is quite obvious that you do not currently read, nor have you read any of the Superman titles for awhile. Otherwise you would know of the gold mine of ideas, storylines, villians and concepts that are there for adaptation. Superman is by no means stale and boring, or a zombie. I have a feeling that you lean more toward Marvel than DC. If that is the case, then I understand why you don't appreciate Superman in the comics, as DC and Marvel have characters that are almost completely different in the way they are portrayed.

Bottom line is this: WB has 'allegedly' stated that they will not do a sequel if SR does not reach $200 million domestic. SR is, financially for WB, a bomb. It cost $260 million to make; it cost another $50 - $100 million to do promo for the film; it has only grossed $167 million or so domestically; that means WB is still nearly $200 million in the hole. International does not come in to the total because that is going to cost them even more to promote it oversees and to ship the film. And DVD will not count because you have to take into account the amount WB will spend to press, ship, and do promo for the DVD when it is released. Even if SR makes the $200 million domestic box office mark, which it won't, WB is still losing a LOT of money on this ONE film. I'm sorry if this is disappointing or hard to swallow. And yes, SR has met with some critical acclaim, but I think the box office shows it has not connected with most of the general populace.

I also find it interesting that most SR fans thought that Pirates wouldn't be a problem before it was released and that SR would do well regardless. Now that Pirates is destroying the box office, all of a sudden it is the reason for SR's lackluster performance. You cannot have it both ways. As far as release date, SR was billed as a blockbuster from the start. It was released on July 4th weekend, historically a HUGE opening weekend for film and WB banked on that. Only one blockbuster a year is released on that date. It had five days to crack $100 million and it still failed to do that. It was tanking long before Pirates came along. You don't release a blockbuster in winter, generally speaking. You release in the summer because there is more potential for repeat viewings with kids out of school or college, and parents are more willing to get them out of the house.

It won't reach $200 million, and I can only hope there will be no sequel. Even if there is, I sure won't go to see it. As far as how long to wait to do a real relaunch, not another 20 years, that's just sarcastic and smarmy. Give it 5 or so just to make sure this one is forgotten; recast, get a new creative team on it, keep Singer away, and do the restart that we should have been given in the first place. Thanks for listening.

[Jedi_Arco]

** Found the interview where Singer chokes a little.

!! Okay, I'm going to try linking the actual page, the link there seems to be working. It's through Rotten Tomatos.

Singer interview link

This post has been edited by Jedi_Arco: 19 July 2006 - 01:38 AM

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

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I just really feel sorry for you that you feel the comic is "stale and boring"

Yes. But there's no reason to "feel sorry for me."

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and that the Donner version is the one and only way to do Superman.

Never said that. What I DID say is that I prefer the "Donnerverse" version to almost all of the Superman stories that have existed since the first Crisis.

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Superman: The Animated Series is far and away the best interpretation of the character

I couldn't agree more.

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and it is not a continuation of the film series by any stretch of the imagination.

And I didn't come close to even hinting at such a bizarre idea.

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It is based around storylines from the comics as well as the modern day incarnation of the character.

And...? The cartoon is all over the place...it has characters that storyline that harken back before Crisis, after Crisis, and then plenty of things they made up on their own or totally "tweeked" to make different for the cartoon series. It's its own Superman entity and is nowhere near beholden to the "modern" Superman in comics...hence why I enjoy it so much.

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I wish that SR had borrowed from S:TAS just a little; it might have been better. And as for Smallville, yes it has some elements of the Donner movie (ie: the Fortress) but it is its own thing.

Exactly. That's why I prefer it to the comic version of Superman. I have no clue why you think I said everything has to be tied into the Donner version.

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It takes the character and runs with it in a very unique and original way. I like it for that reason among many others. It even gets the spirit of Lex's character right! Something that Singer failed to do.

Well, that's where you and I and a lot of others disagree. I know a lot of people love "evil yuppie" Lex...personally, I can't stand him. Give me rich, evil scientist Lex any day. Give me the Lex from Grant Morrison's recent All Star Superman any day. The only time I thought "yuppie Lex" worked was with Brian Azzarello's Lex Luthor: Man of Steel series.

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It is quite obvious that you do not currently read, nor have you read any of the Superman titles for awhile.

Not true. Working in a book store, I read almost all of the Superman trades that come in.

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Otherwise you would know of the gold mine of ideas, storylines, villians and concepts that are there for adaptation.

There have been...in Elseworld stories and limited series. I think he's a drag in ongoing series...especially multiple ongoing series where he's the star. Superman neeeds 1 solo series, tops, and he has, what, 3? 4? I've loved when he shows up in the JLA series, the verious crossovers, Busiek's Secret Identity, Mark Millar's Red Son, Jeph Loeb's Superman For All Seasons....good, good stuff.

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Superman is by no means stale and boring, or a zombie.

Not even Greg Rucka or Brian Azzarello could make him interesting on a monthly basis. That's scary.

I have a feeling that you lean more toward Marvel than DC.

Well, more Vertigo over either, but I'm reading more DC titles than Marvel at this point.

If that is the case, then I understand why you don't appreciate Superman in the comics, as DC and Marvel have characters that are almost completely different in the way they are portrayed.

Well, I completely disagree on that last point, but that's best saved for another day. I think Superman is a very effective "icon" character in the DC Universe...I love Elseworld takes on him, I love most of the limited series...I just think he stutters and falls as an ongoing character. He's too flat and too powerful and too boring, to be blunt. I would love it if he just showed up in other people's titles, the crossovers, the team books and then only had 1 or 2 limited series each year. I think it would make him a much more effective character. I know this is a radical idea and will never happen, but that's my viewpoint on comic Superman.

Bottom line is this: WB has 'allegedly' stated that they will not do a sequel if SR does not reach $200 million domestic. SR is, financially for WB, a bomb. It cost $260 million to make; it cost another $50 - $100 million to do promo for the film; it has only grossed $167 million or so domestically; that means WB is still nearly $200 million in the hole. International does not come in to the total because that is going to cost them even more to promote it oversees and to ship the film. And DVD will not count because you have to take into account the amount WB will spend to press, ship, and do promo for the DVD when it is released. Even if SR makes the $200 million domestic box office mark, which it won't, WB is still losing a LOT of money on this ONE film. I'm sorry if this is disappointing or hard to swallow. And yes, SR has met with some critical acclaim, but I think the box office shows it has not connected with most of the general populace.

There's going to be a sequel.

Patience.

I also find it interesting that most SR fans thought that Pirates wouldn't be a problem before it was released and that SR would do well regardless. Now that Pirates is destroying the box office, all of a sudden it is the reason for SR's lackluster performance. You cannot have it both ways.

Who is "you?" You're talking about "SR fans" like they're some kind of club. I didn't sit around analyzing the financial prospects for either film...I went and saw them. The end.

As far as release date, SR was billed as a blockbuster from the start. It was released on July 4th weekend, historically a HUGE opening weekend for film and WB banked on that. Only one blockbuster a year is released on that date. It had five days to crack $100 million and it still failed to do that. It was tanking long before Pirates came along. You don't release a blockbuster in winter, generally speaking. You release in the summer because there is more potential for repeat viewings with kids out of school or college, and parents are more willing to get them out of the house.

I still think they'll have a sequel. It's a valuable character and they need to strike while the funnybook film iron is hot. SR is not "unfixable." If I end up wrong, meh, life goes on. If you're wrong, hey, who cares?

It won't reach $200 million, and I can only hope there will be no sequel.

It's just a movie.

Even if there is, I sure won't go to see it. As far as how long to wait to do a real relaunch, not another 20 years, that's just sarcastic and smarmy.

Actually, it's not. There's no reason to think that they'll rebound so quickly with a TOTAL relaunch. The only time that happened was with Batman after the MASSIVE negative response to Batman & Robin, which you simply are not having here. People aren't going nuts over it, but they're nowhere near hating it, and it's not totally tanking like B&R. It's easily fixable, and I think that's how WB will proceed. I'd be shocked if they didn't invest less money next time and tighten up creative control, but I do think we will see a sequel to SR within the next 3 years.

Give it 5 or so just to make sure this one is forgotten; recast, get a new creative team on it, keep Singer away, and do the restart that we should have been given in the first place.

Or they keep what they have, do it for a little less money and try to push it over the top by tweeking the whole shebang as opposed to blowing it up and having to invest a ton of money equal or greater to SR with a totally unrpoven cast and crew and relaunch idea. That would seem a lot more reasonable if SR hit the ground like B&R, but it didn't, not even close.

But like I said, whichever of us ends up right, who cares? It's a movie about a guy in a cape.

This post has been edited by MyPantsAreOnFire: 19 July 2006 - 10:33 AM

[Lord Aquaman]

** Found the interview where Singer chokes a little.

!! Okay, I'm going to try linking the actual page, the link there seems to be working. It's through Rotten Tomatos.

Singer interview link

Thanks, it was brief but fun.

Y'know, I see the toys for SR at GIANT when I go to work and I see that no one is buying them, nor is anyone buying the Superman DVDs on display. That makes me feel kind of sad. The only Superman stuff that has been selling regularly are the Pepsi boxes with the SR image on them and a rubber ball with Superman's image on it.

So who here wasted their precious time/money watching Superman: Brainiac Attacks?

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Thanks, it was brief but fun.

Y'know, I see the toys for SR at GIANT when I go to work and I see that no one is buying them, nor is anyone buying the Superman DVDs on display. That makes me feel kind of sad. The only Superman stuff that has been selling regularly are the Pepsi boxes with the SR image on them and a rubber ball with Superman's image on it.

At my bookstore, the sales of ANY Superman products outside of the graphic novels are pretty craptacular...books, games, toys, all of it is just gathering dust, and the bulk of it is "classic" Superman...no SR tie-ins to be seen. I think public interest in Superman, ANY Superman, on the blockbuster level simply isn't as big as the other comic book characters out there. Short of filling these movies with huge stars, I don't think any kind of Superman film, relaunch, continuation or otherwise would have blown away the box office.

[barend]

graphic novels? why don't people just say comic books anymore?

[Supes]

and just how good is your queenie voice, pray tell?

You make a very strong point. I really don't know...

[Lord Aquaman]

At my bookstore, the sales of ANY Superman products outside of the graphic novels are pretty craptacular...books, games, toys, all of it is just gathering dust, and the bulk of it is "classic" Superman...no SR tie-ins to be seen. I think public interest in Superman, ANY Superman, on the blockbuster level simply isn't as big as the other comic book characters out there. Short of filling these movies with huge stars, I don't think any kind of Superman film, relaunch, continuation or otherwise would have blown away the box office.

Poor Superman can't get any love... I can only ponder if they'll have this much trouble trying to promote the Wonder Woman film Joss Whedon's supposed to be making.

As to your question, barend, all I can say is that they say "graphic novel" because it makes it sound cooler, hipper, more serious, more adult some how.

BTW, I highly recommend Kingdom Come.

This post has been edited by Lord Aquaman: 19 July 2006 - 11:03 PM

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Wonder Woman already has a leg up, pun intended, on poor ol' Supes since all they have to do is drop a run of the mill "hot chick" in her spandex. Fanboys + boobs = easy money.

And I thought comic books collected into book form were "graphic novels"..."comic books" are the individual issues themselves. Is one really supposed to be fancier? They're funnybooks either way! I don't have a problem saying "comic books" at all...I thought there was a genuine difference between the two. At my store, we have the graphic novels section on the shelves, and the comic books go on the newsstand...two different names for two different products. Thnak you, commercial-driven clarity!

And yes, Kingdom Come is pretty damn good. DC is putting out an oversized Absolute hardcover edition in a month or so...should be gorgeous!

This post has been edited by MyPantsAreOnFire: 19 July 2006 - 11:10 PM

[Supes]

graphic novels? why don't people just say comic books anymore?

Because a graphic novel is actaully supposed to be a collection of comic books. The Kingdom Come series sighted below is a good example. It was originally a 4 part series. Put those for into 1 book and you get a graphic novel. I think page length also may have something to do with it, but I can't confirm that.

[barend]

well technically comic books are really just paperback magazines, whereas graphic novels are bound volumes of it.

so graphic novels by all rights should be called comic books, and comic books by all rights should just be called comics.

i find the term 'graphic novel' pretentious.

a novel with a picture at the start of every chapter would be more fitting to the term.





(...if no one else, deepsycher will back me up on this)

[Jedi_Arco]

I'll agree with you barend. They're all comics to me.


MyPantsAreOnFire - I believe we just had a bit of a misunderstanding. The way I read your response was that you felt the "Donnerverse" was the only way to do the films. This is clearly not your intent. We both agree that S:TAS is the best adaptation of Supes, and that if the film had been adapted from that series we would've been given something truly spectacular at the movies. I didn't like SR; you did. That's cool. I have quite a frew friends that stand with you, and others that stand with me, and we just have fun little debates and "arguments" about it. We all seem to agree, however, that the movie could've been a lot better. As for the comics, we just have to agree to disagree there too. I find the comics fun and interesting. While I might agree that 4 different Superman titles is a bit of overkill, I feel that way about most of the titles out there. Do we need 4 different Batman titles? Do we need a million spin-offs of the X-Universe? Do we need so many different Spider-man comics muddying up the continuity? Give me one, ongoing monthly title following the character and that's plenty for me. The occasional crossover, or having them as part of a team like the Avengers or JLA is cool too.

For me, SR dropped the ball. I really don't think a sequel will happen, but as you said, who cares? If it does happen, I won't be there. There are just too many problems now and I don't see how they can fix any of them and have it make sense. And if Singer is involved I fear that he'll mine the "Donnerverse" some more and just do Zod again. Yes, I'm being somewhat sarcastic, but look at SR, it's just a rehash of S:TM. Who's to say he won't do it again?

And as far as doing a relaunch, the new Hulk is basically doing just that. They are going into the sequel with the attitude of "Let's just do the Hulk; forget the first one altogether and move foreward." I like that idea. It won't bring up things from the first, but it will assume that people know Hulk's origin. They should do something similar with Superman. Forget SR, assume people know the character (most do already), and just do something fun and exciting and interesting. He's a great character, at least I think so, and I know they can do him justice if they would just let Timm and Dini handle it.


LordAquaman - Saw it Cartoon Network before it was released on DVD and I'm glad I dodged that bullet. While it was big fun to hear Tim Daly as the voice of Supes again, the rest of it was pretty awful. I liked the idea of Lance Henrikson, but the writing was pretty pitiful. How many times did he call Supes son of Kryton? What happened to him switching it up a bit with Kal-El and all that? And the change of Lex's voice was horrible too. Clancy Brown was sorely missed. Lex came off as almost like a Joker-esque character in this one to me. They didn't even resolve if Lois knows Supes is Clark or not, even though it was hinted at. And it never made it clear where this movie happened within the continuity. Was it during S:TAS or after; before JL or during; or during JLU or after? It wasn't clear. I think it was between S:TAS and JL but they never address it. I'd avoid it at all costs, or wait for it to hit the $10 mark.

This post has been edited by Jedi_Arco: 20 July 2006 - 01:30 PM

[barend]

i think it's time we had an IRONMAN film...

i... am... ironman... duuuuh duuuh duh na dauh... dunnannananna na duh dun duah!

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

While I might agree that 4 different Superman titles is a bit of overkill, I feel that way about most of the titles out there. Do we need 4 different Batman titles? Do we need a million spin-offs of the X-Universe? Do we need so many different Spider-man comics muddying up the continuity? Give me one, ongoing monthly title following the character and that's plenty for me. The occasional crossover, or having them as part of a team like the Avengers or JLA is cool too.

Trust me, if I ran these comic companies, the title cullings would be brutal. Ink would run like blood.