When promoting the films over the few years to the world, (im not talking about fans who knows the characters,) just the world at large, Marvel has had to work harder to explain who these characters are. Where as DC doesn't really need to given the choices they have decided to put out there..
If you ask the average reporter they will know who superman or batman is, even spiderman, but antman, Hawkeye. Black widow, i doubt they will even get the names right.

I think DC rely on that and arent willing to take the chances that Marvel do,

Or they will use the momentum of a character that suddenly becomes popular.
Point is case 'Arrow'.
Green allow was brillient on smallville, then Hawkeye turns up in 2 movies ,
so out of the blue Arrow turns up!

I think the main issue is to do with the respective base "universes"

DC has basically two main characters Superman and Batman which relegate the rest to C or D level status (and before I dropped 90% of DC with the new 52 I read quite a bit of DC)

In contrast Marvel characters with the exception of X-men and Spiderman have a lot of characters who are B/B+ class and have maintained their own titles for 40+ years such as Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Fantastic Four

And the difference in status between Spiderman and the rest of the titles is nowhere near as marked as is the case with the marquee DC characters, both in terms of stories and in terms of sales

Xmen is also worth noting that it is a relatively recent big-hitter (eighties onwards) and has developed into such due to a (by comics standars) consistent story development

Also the other major advantage is that Marvel dont decide to go year one every couple of years, posibly because they keep the individual titles from spiralling out of whack

So the base is far stronger in the case of Marvel

I think some of the issue is how DC has traditionally portrayed their characters. From the very early days, Marvel had characters that were flawed, had real life issues, lived within grey areas of 'right vs wrong'. I think media in general now matches this kind of view of heroes and protagonists.

Batman is a great flawed character and, over time, DC has produced some dark stories and portrayals, but I'm not sure how well that works for the iconic characters like Superman and Wonder Woman - the most recognisable of DC's heroes. However, people have cheesy expectations of what these characterisation should be. You can only go so far with updating/rebooting some of these characters because the iconic nature of the character itself is fairly self-limiting: go to far and they're no longer the characters people recognise.

I think much of the success of Smallville was the milk and cookies portrayal of Clark/Superman. This works really well on an ongoing serialised drama dealing with people and relationships, but people want more from actual films. Superhero films need to be more action heavy than a serialised drama.

People also expect their action films to be darker now arms-dealing alcoholics being kidnapped by terrorists is no longer 'dark' as such. It's a saturday afternoon blockbuster for 12-year-olds

One name hasn't popped up in this thread that I have seen. Stan Lee. He may not call the shots, he may not have much power but he is respected and is involved with the Marvel films. He isn't precious and says it has to be this way as that is what happened in the comic/origin, so is open to what works for the film, but he does get to have creative input and I think that makes a difference. Even to the fans I think it does as they trust Stan so it's almost an endorsement of the film having him attached to it.

I agree with what a couple of people have said about Nolan's films not being superhero films. For me superhero films have to look and be unreal. I know that Spidey isn't real and the x-men and taht's fine, it's escapism. The Nolan stuff looks like any other action or modern film to me. It looks like a standard film, it feels like a standard film, be it "dark" and tedious.

LOTR didn't look like it was real, The Narnia films didn't look like it was shot a few miles away. Nolan's films didn't gve me that journey as if I'm going somewhere real and different. Compare that to Burton's Gotham City which didn't look like any US city you see every other film.

When I saw the trailer for the last Spiderman film I thought oh crap, it's dark, it's trying to be dark, moody, a mixture of Twilight and Nolan's Batman. I'm not going to like this. I saw it and I was bored within about 10 minutes and it was a slog getting through the film. Spiderman isn't dark, his costume isn't dark it's colourful, he cracks jokes when fighting. Yes it was a big hit but for me that was someone trying to not make a Marvel film it's trying to make a Batman film with less violence.

I am a huge fan of Marvel and in particular X-men. For me Marvel characters are better because many people can relate to them. With DC characters like Superman you have this over powered character who only until recently talked about the American way, this is where the biggest problem was for me as he was more crafted for the American public which I feel most DC characters are and which I do not like about.

The beauty of Marvel characters is their flaws, their problems and struggles which make them much more real. 2000 on-wards was a great time for being a Marvel fan as you had a large number of films coming out about them. Now many people will argue that they were not the best of films but for me as a fan I am glad that they made them fans like me appreciated them and were able to have Marvel weeks were we could re watch Marvel films. Marvel also try and learn from their mistakes and with each film franchise seem to be improving. As a Marvel fan I do not want to see serious realistic time films about my favourite characters ahem (Nolans Batman) this takes away the fun factor for me. The reason why Avengers was so successful was because it played out like and episode of an animated series with great fight scenes, humor and the bonus of seeing all of your favourite characters fighting along side.

For DC to catch up with Marvel they need to start taking risks with their characters and not just stick to Batman or Superman which they do with the animated feature films. I mean DC have such a wide range of characters so why o why do they only concentrate on Superman or Batman. For their Justice League film to become a hit they really need to copy Marvel and bring out individual Character based films for each of the members of the Justice league and also think about other lesser known character which would make great movies such as Plastic man, Etrigan and Static shock to name a few.

No matter how good the DC movies get I will always be a fan of Marvel and like any true fan will watch DC's efforts only to comment about how much they copied Marvel while enjoying the film more than I would like to admit secretly.

Greed.
Here's the deal. Yes, Marvel are a business. They obviously set out to make money. But with the Cinematic Universe, I'm seeing something different. It's obvious that true comic fans work behind the scenes. When they made Iron Man, it was a gamble, and a huge one. Not one of the most well known superheroes, yet this movie had to work for them to put their Avenger plan into action. They took the gamble, and it paid off.

Each film has seemingly been made with care and a real drive to produce something special. When you watch the Avengers, it really serves as a love letter to fans. When I imagined what I wanted to see in the movie, it was fights (both verbal and physical) between the heroes, all of them getting to individually face off against Loki and of course watching them all work together in the end. The movie delivers on everything. It truly is a masterpiece of comic book film making.

You go outside Marvel's Cinematic Universe, and you are left with companies seeing how much money they've made, and desperately trying to copy it. The primary incentive is to make money, regardless of quality. Take the new Spider-man movie. Oh, Nolan's Batman was all dark and it made millions. We should make the next Spider-man as dark as possible. And, it seems, they are doing that with Superman.

The Justice League movie was so blatantly obviously slashed together to make the money that Marvel have made from the Avengers. They've tried to rush it through, and thank the Gods have realized that just won't work. If they took their time with it, it could be a truly epic and amazing movie. But you just know they won't do.

And that, in all, is what DC are doing wrong at the moment. Greed.

They're a business......
Of course they are out to make money.
It's not greed!

'Justice League' movie problem'

This identifies the issue of DC Superhero movies so well, for me. That is mixing the very dark recent Batman franchise with the lighter Green Lantern and, I assume, Flash, Aquaman and whoever else.

I always thought that if they do a Justice League movie they should leave Batman out of it because he doesn't really fit (in that he is a real person whereas all the rest are fantasy figures who are ridiculously powerful) and with the Nolan interpretation of Batman he fits even less.

Taking chances. DC is just relying on Batman and Superman. That will wear out eventually. Supposedly now they're waiting until after the Justice League movie and the next Batman and Superman movies to decide what to do. That could 2017 at the earliest they pull their heads out of their asses and decide on something. Marvel will more than likely be on the Phase 3 movies which could include Black Panther and Ms.Marvel.

I think getting Producers/Directors that are fans and passionate about the films they are making or characters the characters they are using.
Sam Raimi is a Spiderman fan. Bryan Singer is an X-Men fan. When you compare that to the people that are making the DC films, you don't feel that the people making the films are fans and know what they and the fans like, what works, what doesn't and so forth.
It appears that they take it for the job, the money and possibly to get regular work as it could be a franchise.
I think you can get away with actors that don't know the comics or teh characters, they are actors they can read up and copy or create the charcters and adapt around a script. Where as the Producers and Directors aren't in the same situation. They have to make sure things are right from the production side.

If you look at something like Catwoman or Jonah Hex. Both Halle Berry and Josh Brolin are capable of doing good stuff with the characters, but they can't do much about the crap storylines, dialogue and general bad ideas. Fans that know those characters, know their strengths and weaknesses could have made those films work better.

It's not just these will get worn out, it's also that they keep re-doing the same bloody stories.

Do we need another story of the world discovering Superman for the first time yet again? Do we need his origin... again?

The same with Batman. We know the character, we don't need a reboot to tell us again how he became Batman because his parents were killed blah blah blah.
Of course you get new people that don't know, but so what? If they really care they'll go away and find out more about the character and it's history.

If you look at the Adam West, Batman series, there were no origins stories for him, Robin or any of the baddies. The first time you see Penguin he is the character. He was the character before that episode and you accepted it. You didn't need an origin.

In the comics you never always got origins in the baddies first appearance. They turned up, had powers for some reason and the reader accepted it.

When Batman gets a reboot you know once again we are going to have to have origin stories, that we don't really need because the characters are so well known or have been used before so the majority already know who tehy are and how they got their powers or their motives for what they do.