Indeed. If it maintains this strong start though, it could get there - if it opens in China sooner rather than later, it'll almost certainly get there.

Oh delete.
Last edited by Johnny Clay : 07-08-2016 at 10:43

Indeed. Directors frustration with producers goes back decades


You can be sure Marvel's output will be as closely steered and monitored by the producers as any other big budget release. The whole idea is for the director to deliver the film the studio wants. They don't say to them "Here's $200m, have fun. Bye!"

I've no idea what's going on with Warners/DC, but from the outside is does look like Disney/Marvel simply have a clearer view of what they want, and equally a clearer view of how to achieve it.

Look no further than Ant-Man and Edgar Wright and you'll find Marvel are indeed very specific about what they want. But at the same time at least they have 1 specific grand vision in mind. DC seem to be controlling whilst themselves not knowing what they really want from their movies. It's very odd.

Yep. IIRC, Edgar Wright exited Ant-Man pretty early, suggesting they were quick to realise he wasn't the right choice (for whatever reason). There could be other factors of course.

If it's made $129m already it's closer than that. It's budget was $175m, or did you mean something else?

It's been said that it needs to make around $800m dollars just to break even. This will be because of advertising, licensing, distribution costs, amongst other things, all added on top of the actual production budget.

Early? He worked on Ant-Man for 8 years...

Much of that'll be in development though, won't it? I'd thought he'd left early once the full production was up and running so to speak. How much footage had he actually shot?

I agree, regarding the trailers they do look quite good but then I thought the Bat versus Sup trailers were a good indication of how good it was going to be, girl how wrong was I.

If DC was not aligned to Warners and did not have the talentless Snyder at the helm I reckon it would be a much better franchise with say Disney or even Universal, Warners is misfiring and has been for the last few years.

The porn parody is out

Harley Quinn has a threeway with Batman and the Joker in one scene apparently ..

Holy three way **** Batman? 😆

Nope, he wrote an entire script and filmed some now abandoned shots hence why he has top billing story and screenwriting writing credits. He left over creative differences - I suspect because when he wrote Ant Man he didn't have to worry about an entire cinematic universe incorporating other superheroes. The Falcon scene, for instance, wasn't in the original script.

And a lot of his (and Joe Cornish's) original script made it to the final movie.

If memory serves, the Thomas the Tank Engine scene was their idea. They're credited in the movie for both screenplay and story.

Huh? What aspect of licensing is costing them? I work in licensing myself so I find that inclusion odd. Source, please. Thanks.

EDITED: I thought I was in the Ghostbusters thread. Hence, my confusion.

Sorry about that. *ahem* Let's move on, shall we?

That's not true.
Supergirl
Catwoman
Elektra
Kick Ass
Lucy
And of course Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman. And would Guardians of the Galaxy count with an ensemble main cast of 5? One of which is a CGI racoon and a tree?
There are probably others.

So I don't think females would simply like a female superhero just because they are a female superhero, whether they are first or not. I think in this case it was likely to be because of this particular female superhero (or supervillain).

I think Wonder Woman is going to be a massive hit.
And I think Captain Marvel will be too.

I think it just depends more on the appeal of certain characters and how they are written. For whatever reason Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie appears to have had a big appeal with female viewers. And of course the acting will play a major role in it too. I fully expect that we'll see Harley Quinn back again in DC films.

Wow, really? I didn't realise they spent that much on that kind of thing. In that case, it may struggle.

I think that the key is that Kevin Feige is so heavily involved in the production process he has the responsibility of steering the Marvel Cinematic Universe creatively, and he is trusted as the main producer to get on with it without too much interference.
That's when producers can be a good thing.
Kevin Feige is a bit like a Val Lewton style director, but he does it with superhero films as opposed to horror thrillers. he has the guiding vision. WB/DC need somebody similar I think.
So in that respect I'd have to disagree with you a bit, it wasn't always the case, but nowadays Disney leave Kevin Feige alone for the most part and they do appear to trust him to get on with it.

But with DC they chose Zack Snyder to be their main producer with most of the first films in their cinematic universe. Which I'm not sure was a good choice when I read some interview he had about being introduced to superhero films. He seemed to be very ignorant to the genre and appeared to not really like them.
Kevin Feige however is really into capturing the essence from the comics and works really hard to translate the comics universe into the films. He's really into it.

However this may now change as there has been some restructuring within the DC Extended Universe as Geoff Johns and Jon Berg will take over as the main producers for the remaining DC films starting with The Flash onwards.

I hope that Suicide Squad does well. The DC fans deserve it.

Supergirl - Released in 1984, not relevant to the modern day demographic.
Catwoman - Utterly disasterous movie nearly nobody liked.
Elektra - Nobody really cared about.
Kick Ass - Neither DC nor Marvel
Lucy - Not even a superhero movie???
BvS - Wonder Woman is a supporting character to both Batman *and* Superman, getting a total of 15 minutes screen time.
Guardians - Gamora is a supporting character to Star Lord

Harley Quinn in this movie is the first time either the DCCU or the MCU have put a female in one of the lead roles (opposite Will Smith). This *is* a major deal. It's why people have been on Marvel's ass for not making a Black Widow movie, there is an audience out there who've been waiting for a mainstream, modern day, major superhero movie with a female lead. And Suicide Squad pretty much nailed that demographic.

He was writing it. He was creating the framework around which he'd be directing it.

Well you don't just count the first female superhero in a leading role in a film from 2016 onwards. Where did that rule come from?
And in the list I've provided you're providing your own criteria for whether they count or not which you didn't mention in your first post.

The point is that Harley Quinn is not the first female superhero in a leading role in a film.
That's the only statement you mentioned in your first post. Nothing to do with how relevant they are in 2016, whether anyone cared about them, or whether the film was good enough.

And you've now redefined 'first "superhero" movie with a female character in one of the lead roles', to just the main leading role.
You can't just move the goalposts and make up your own rules when somebody produces evidence to the contrary. You're just cheating now

I meant within the DCCU and MCU, I just didn't say that outright because both of those were all anyone talked about in this thread so I just assumed everyone would know what I meant. And I did say lead role otherwise Iron Man is doing a fantasting job with Pepper Potts!

But I stick to what I intended to say: this movie is getting a predominantly female audience because this is the first major superhero movie since 1984 to aim for that demographic. And despite not being very good at all; it'll always have bragging rights of being the first movie in either the MCU and the DCCU to have a female "superheroine" (I know she's not a hero before we split hairs over that too) in a lead role.

I hope so I (personally) loved Margot's performance as Harley.

I also liked the relationship of Joker and Harley in the film as well so I wouldn't mind a film of just them both together with Batman in the future but then I also wouldn't mind a movie with Harley and Poison Ivy either they have a big history together in the Animated Series and Comics.

It's a shame (so far) the only Poison Ivy (and Batgirl) we've ever got (in live action) on the cinema screen was in the terrible Batman and Robin movie.

I think the Batman solo movie may have Joker and Harley as the "big bads" in the first half, which will move on to another "big bad" in the second half.

There's a blink-and-you-miss-it easter egg in Suicide Squad which lends credence to this:

*whistles innocently*


This is quite an in-depth article about the last Bond film and how it needed to make $650m just to break even - it'll give you a good idea of how a lot of these big budget films are financed nowadays

http://deadline.com/2015/11/spectre-...se-1201615942/

Spectre made over $880m in the end, so a $230m profit overall.