FRANCHISED - Year in Review

It was a big year for comic book franchises on screen. There were seven major releases this year and three of them, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok, were from Marvel Studios. There was also the swan song of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, in Logan, the Lego Movie spinoff The Lego Batman Movie, the first major female-led superhero film in Wonder Woman, and Warner Brothers’ answer to The Avengers – Justice League.

An interesting thing about this year, Guardians, Spider-Man, and Thor all made over $800 million worldwide, making them certifiable hits. Logan, an R-rated, somber superhero movie, made $616 million worldwide – not too shabby. But the big success story of the year was Wonder Woman – the first big screen appearance of the Amazon warrior brought in $821 million worldwide.

That leads me to the elephant in the room – why wasn’t Justice League a massive hit?!?! It was designed to be a superhero blowout that would rival The Avengers, and instead it landed with a thud coming in at $615 million worldwide in its first month of release.

Now, let me be clear, Justice League is far from a flop, but it’s not the success Warner Brothers wanted. This is also the direct sequel to last year’s reviled Batman v. Superman: The Dawn of Justice, which ALSO underperformed. Which brings us to the inevitable fall out where everyone wonders, “How could sure fire bets not work out?” and, “what do we do now?”

Clearly, Ben Affleck and his reps were eyeing the door when Batman v. Superman’s Rotten Tomatoes score came in last year. This likely prompted him to exit as director of the solo Batman film, and even to say he was going to leave the role altogether (which is a shame, as I thought he was a really good Batman). Gal Gadot, on the other hand, went on to do Wonder Woman, which was a hit, and I would imagine she’s planning on staying in that role. Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, will next be seen in 2018’s Aquaman. According to this Variety report, Warner Brothers liked Ezra Miller’s Flash enough to keep his movie in development. My hunch is that the actors (and their reps) are betting on the idea that if they stay in the solo films they might manage to be in another Wonder Woman-esque hit. However, that comes with a big caveat. Warner Brothers will have to figure out how to make the Flash stand out when audiences can watch the Flash on TV every week. So, how do you make the big screen version of the scarlet speedster unique in a superhero landscape that includes a talking tree, a raccoon and the vulgar, raucous shenanigans of Deadpool?

In that same Variety report it describes how Warner Brothers is adjusting their DC Comics film division. Next year, Jon Berg will be leaving his spot as co-president of production and moving over to producing. Warner Brothers is currently looking for a replacement for him, as for Geoff Johns – DC Films chief creative officer and architect of the film universe – Variety speculates that his role could be shifted to more of an advisory position.

Warner Brothers biggest problem is that they keep making these movies in reaction to criticisms and not leaning into what makes the DC Universe fun and unique. So you have a universe that feels like it’s all over the map. Say what you will about the Marvel movies, but they are consistent in their approach to the universe and characters. What WB needs to do is figure out a direction for their universe and stick to it. My advice? Center the universe on Wonder Woman, make her the DC equivalent of Iron Man, and proceed from there.

As 2017 winds down, a quick look ahead to 2018 proves that the audience for comic book movies is not dying down any time soon. Next year will see the release of nine comic book movies. Three of them are Marvel movies, three from Fox’s X-Men universe, Aquaman, and two Spider-Man movies from Sony (one animated, and the Tom Hardy starring spinoff, Venom). Can Aquaman make a dent in that line up and pull Warner Brothers forward? As they say in comics, to be continued…