Wonder Woman cast for Batman/Superman movie

[JME2]

I liked it.

Victor Garber is still the definitive Sinestro as far as I'm concerned.

[Majin Gojira]

The Green Lantern script was flaws in so many obvious ways that it almost hurt. My personal favorite is "Let's introduce a random kid to make Hal look likeable while having him not actually do anything to make him likeable and never mention the kid again."

As to having Wonder Woman? Oh man. This is going to hurt. The desperation of DC/WB is really showing in light of Marvel's/Disney's success. I'm a bit iffy on the casting, only because she's a relative unknown, and Diana is not a simple character in the slightest. There's a reason I label her "Amazon Jesus" as the simplest way to explain her. That Ditchotomy is her core and problem. And that's a tough thing to swallow even with an experience actress. Here's hoping she can pull it off (acting and physically).

[JME2]

As to having Wonder Woman? Oh man. This is going to hurt. The desperation of DC/WB is really showing in light of Marvel's/Disney's success.

Honestly, at this point, I don't really care about a DC cinematic universe.

Nolan's last Batman film closed any real interest I have in cinematic versions of the DC characters. I love 'em, but they just don't interest me like they used to.

And in terms of a shared multimedia continuity, we essentially already got that with the DCAU.

[Steve]

DC/WB would disagree, since it's clearly a potential cash cow going by Marvel's movie success.

One issue may be that Marvel gambled with Marvel Studios and won, big-time, because they took a direct hand in finding the talent to make sure their movies did well. While I know Geoff Johns was called in to advise on the GL movie, from what I've seen WB's approach to DC movies is to put whomever they want in for talent. I could be wrong there, admittedly.

So while sometimes you have a combo that succeeds - Nolan Batman - you're just as likely to get some that don't succeed, or don't do well.

[ray245]

This is their second attempt to create a Justice league movie. I think there was a previous attempt to create a Justice league movie before Nolan completed his trilogy. From what I heard, everything was a mess and the project quickly collapsed.

[Gandalf]

This is their second attempt to create a Justice league movie. I think there was a previous attempt to create a Justice league movie before Nolan completed his trilogy. From what I heard, everything was a mess and the project quickly collapsed.

The WGA strike killed it, and the project never got started up again.

[JME2]

This is their second attempt to create a Justice league movie. I think there was a previous attempt to create a Justice league movie before Nolan completed his trilogy. From what I heard, everything was a mess and the project quickly collapsed.

The WGA strike killed it, and the project never got started up again.

The one good thing from that project was the intention to use the OMACs as the villains. That would have allowed them to do a global threat that would unite the League while saving the big guns (Darkseid) for a sequel.

[Atlan]

Anyway, my point is that throwing Diana into an already crowded mix bodes ill for the attempt to establish a DC cinematic universe. It all but says they're not confident that a Diana solo film would work.

And that's their problem. Confidence.

WB/DC are afraid they can't make a compelling movie about one of their main characters who is ludicrously tied into mythology (Thor shows you can actually do this if you have a good story), meanwhile Marvel has the confidence to make a movie featuring a talking tree and a gun-wielding raccoon. And you just know they're gonna pull it off.

[Batman]

Given the mess that was Green Lantern and the fact that Superman Returns was 'meh' at best if I were DC I'd be afraid I can't make a compelling movie of it too. We're talking Clark here. If he isn't the posterboy for DC I don't know who is and they still managed to drop the ball. Given that about the only thing DC did right (wrt live action movies) for the past 20 years or so were the Nolan Me movies I can see where they might be a bit on the timid side.

[Borgholio]

Not to go off on a tangent, I don't understand why so many people hated Superman Returns. Sure it wasn't the best movie I ever saw, but I enjoyed it and I have no real complaints.

[JME2]

Not to go off on a tangent, I don't understand why so many people hated Superman Returns. Sure it wasn't the best movie I ever saw, but I enjoyed it and I have no real complaints.

I think a lot of people we're hoping to see the benefits of a Superman film with modern-day CGI allowing it to really cut loose.

Instead, they got a redux of the 1978 film.

I didn't hate it, but it killed any interest I had in another Supes film (still haven't seen MOS).

Loved Spacey as Luthor, though.

[Imperial Overlord]

Not to go off on a tangent, I don't understand why so many people hated Superman Returns. Sure it wasn't the best movie I ever saw, but I enjoyed it and I have no real complaints.

It was the first Superman movie all over again including a land scam by Luthor, kryptoniting Supes and throwing him in the water, and deus ex machina ending (Supes throws an island that's sprouting kryptonite into space after getting resurrected). It was also pretty fucking dull except when Spacey was hamming it up.

[Grumman]

It was also pretty fucking dull except when Spacey was hamming it up.

It had one great scene (Superman vs. rotary cannon), but overall, yeah, it was dull.

[Elheru Aran]

Amusingly enough, a porn movie might actually have a pretty nice looking costume, if the one in this link is any indication...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/61620

(not NSFW except so far as it discusses porn, but why are you surfing SDN at work anyway?)

[Batman]

This depressingly enough looks quite a bit better than the live action movie costumes I've seen out of DC, and actually seems to be in a similar style to Clark's duds from 'Man of Steel'.

[Grumman]

Amusingly enough, a porn movie might actually have a pretty nice looking costume, if the one in this link is any indication...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/61620

While I still prefer the hoplite armour look, that's a very nice attempt at the original costume. A non-porn version would probably need a more conservative panty line, though...

[Vendetta]

WB/DC are afraid they can't make a compelling movie about one of their main characters who is ludicrously tied into mythology (Thor shows you can actually do this if you have a good story), meanwhile Marvel has the confidence to make a movie featuring a talking tree and a gun-wielding raccoon. And you just know they're gonna pull it off.

Here's the thing.

Marvel built their cinematic universe on the back of Iron Man. Because the Iron Man movies had a successful character drama that people cared about, they could use that audience connection to draw them into the event driven Avengers movie, where who the characters are doesn't matter beyond "Loki is bad, watch him be bad". (Why do you think the "oh noes he might be dead" moment happens to Tony? Because he's the character that the audience actually cares about.)

I think they're going to overreach themselves in the next wave though. Despite the masterful casing of Vin Diesel as a tree, Guardians of the Galaxy will be a harder sell than Thor was because it's an ensemble and people don't really know the character dynamic in the way that the one in Thor is easily grokked and doesn't rely on any of the superhero shenanigans (Who is Star-Lord as a person and why should we care about him, this matters because he's the human PoV?). And you have to make people buy into Rocket Raccoon without him being laughable (and they haven't even showed him in the trailers yet, the latest trailer just shows his special attacks from Marvel vs Capcom).

The good superhero movies have character dynamics that works completely without any fantastic elements at all.

[Grumman]

I think they're going to overreach themselves in the next wave though. Despite the masterful casing of Vin Diesel as a tree, Guardians of the Galaxy will be a harder sell than Thor was because it's an ensemble and people don't really know the character dynamic in the way that the one in Thor is easily grokked and doesn't rely on any of the superhero shenanigans (Who is Star-Lord as a person and why should we care about him, this matters because he's the human PoV?). And you have to make people buy into Rocket Raccoon without him being laughable (and they haven't even showed him in the trailers yet, the latest trailer just shows his special attacks from Marvel vs Capcom).

The good superhero movies have character dynamics that works completely without any fantastic elements at all.

Speaking as someone who knows next to nothing about the Guardians of the Galaxy, I agree. Gamora and Drax the Destroyer both have potential, given their relationship with Thanos, but the others that sound interesting aren't in it, and the one that sounds the worst - Rocket Racoon - is.

[JME2]

Vendetta, I agree with you 100%.

Guardians is definitely going to be the biggest risk of the MCU's second phase.

[Steve]

The greater the risk, the greater the glory.

[Grumman]

The greater the risk, the greater the glory.

I do not agree in this case. Getting Moondragon and Captain Marvel on screen? That would be worth it. Getting an anthropomorphic raccoon? I'm unconvinced.

[Vendetta]

Speaking as someone who knows next to nothing about the Guardians of the Galaxy, I agree. Gamora and Drax the Destroyer both have potential, given their relationship with Thanos, but the others that sound interesting aren't in it, and the one that sounds the worst - Rocket Racoon - is.

That's the thing though, the characters won't be interesting because of their relationship with Thanos, because that's not character, it's just plot. (especially Drax, "Thanos killed my family so my mind was transferred into a superpowered body to fight evil!")

Character drama is about who the characters are. Thor is an arrogant braggard and Loki is bitter and jealous, Thor gets better, Loki gets worse. Tony Stark is a self destructive asshole who realises the harm he has done when it affects him personally and sets out to conquer his past. That's why they work, because they work as people. You can completely transplant those relationships into a mundane environment and have the same conflict.

And if you're going to make an audience who don't care about comic book bullshit (and most of them don't, even if they watch the movies because the movies are different) care about your characters, you have to have characters who work outside of the fantasy, who experience about things the audience can recognise.

That's also the biggest problem with Wonder Woman. Her driving character conflict in an opening movie should be her desire for knowledge about the outside world in conflict with her mother's isolationism, but in order to tell that story you have to have the fantastical setting of Themyscera to provide the context from which Diana wants to escape and the contrast to the modern world about which she is curious. You can't remove the fantastical elements from the character story with Wonder Woman, like you can't with Guardians of the Galaxy. (PS: Rocket Raccoon is probably the leading personality in the Guardians stories now, and is the only one who ever appears in supplementary media, but you can't take the crazy out of his story either.)

[Kane Starkiller]

I don't agree that we need to introduce the entire mythology of Wonder Woman to make her character likeable or interesting. I liked Tony Stark from that first scene in the Humwee.
Similarly I still find 1989 Batman to have the best introduction to the character. We are introduced to Batman that is already operating in Gotham and then work backwards pealing off layers to get to know the man.
The first scene where we meet Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale asks him "do you know who Bruce Wayne is" and he just absentmindedly answers "I'm not sure" because he is most likely thinking about 10 cases he is working on as Batman to me reveals more about Bruce Wayne than all the hiking in Tibet and looking for blue flowers.

This is the kind of scene and dialogue Wonder Woman needs during the probably limited screen time she will have in the MOS2. No need to introduce the entire Greek pantheon immediately.

[Vendetta]

No, but you do need to introduce Themyscera, a secret all female nation with advanced technology/magic/superpowers.

And that's already pretty far out.

[Kane Starkiller]

They probably need to establish she comes from somewhere else but I still see no need for a detailed introduction to her secret island. Those revelations can come later in a different movie.
At this point her role could be limited to a glorified cameo tease for a future movie or perhaps Amazonians will have a major role in the movie as "villains" that don't like Supermans appearance on Earth and will be explored in a more detailed fashion.

Batman is so well known at this point that no origin story is really necessary other than to establish his new characterization as played by Ben Affleck.