Batman

[ericadawn16]

So, Daredevil is Batman...

I don't know. My immediate thought was...why?

But then, I knew why. DC wants a safe bet. Not enough people learned Henry Cavrill's name so they wanted an A Lister to be Batman.

Right there, there you have the difference between DC and Marvel.

Marvel does prefer safe bets but when it comes down to it, they will also trust what's best. Let's compare this casting news with Thor.

Marvel: Yay, we have Kenneth Branagh directing. He's an OSCAR winner! Anthony Hopkins is Odin. This is GREAT! Who's that?

Ken: Chris Hemsworth.

Marvel: We've never heard of him.

Ken: I know but he's PERFECT!

Marvel: Grr...fine. Who's this?

Ken: Tom Hiddleston

Marvel: You keep bringing us people we don't know. No one in America knows who these people are!

Ken: But I've worked with him before and he's perfect.

Marvel: Grr...fine.

Hemsworth and Hiddleston go on to OWN Comic Con.

DC seemed to understand this with Henry Cavrill and the amount of shirtlessness in Man of Steel but this feels like a backtrack to business as usual and if you don't fully realize business as usual at DC, here's this lovely essay:

http://darklightluna.tumblr.com/post/58265005737/betaraybob-starkient-dc-vs-marvel-via

This is the comment that Diane Duane added to it:
Something rings terrifyingly true about this. I wonder, is this why I’ve done so much more work for Marvel than DC?…

Now back to Ben Affleck...

While I loved Daredevil, Matt was more of the old school comic book movie style...slightly cheesy. I have not watched the director's cut, it's supposed to be better. However, having binged on Kevin Smith this summer, I can tell you how Affleck in Argo and The Company Men is very different than Affleck in Phantoms or Armageddon. It's not going to be a Christian Bale Batman but it's not going to be a retread of George Clooney either.

And if it does suck, we survived Clooney and Michael Keaton as Batman, Batman goes on through anything.
Yes, I don't think Tim Burton's Batman films are wonderful. I think they were good for the time but even then, I hated Catwoman and other stuff in it.

The only thing that really pisses me off is that WE STILL DON'T HAVE A WONDER WOMAN FILM???!!!!

WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE!

Marvel is also guilty of this but at least they're learning. There are multiple comics with female leads, Ultimate Spider-Man has good female characters, they made sure that Black Widow would be heavily in Captain America: Winter Soldier* and they've admitted that Peggy's short is a test about how much we'd want a female lead in a full scale film.

*I know you can argue that Natasha is required for a Winter Soldier film but this is the same studio that decided that Hank Pym isn't necessary for an Ultron film.

Also, please have Bryan Cranston as Lex Luthor, that would be perfect and appeal to your wanting names people know, thank you.

The epic Fail/Flailing over it was hilarious though especially when Joss Whedon came out in favor of the casting and there seemed to be this internal fight within fanboys about whether to go against Whedon or not.

Comments

[hufflepuffsneak.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that is the difference, but Marvel is playing by a double standard when it comes to safe. I mean, they're stated reason for not having a female led movies was there wasn't a woman in Hollywood who could carry it, and for a Black Panther movie that audiences wouldn't understand how a country could spring from nowhere.

All that said, I love the attention to casting that Marvel has had. It's been perfect! I mean you really can't get better than Chris Hemsworth as Thor or Chris Evans as Captain America.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

But Marvel has tons of big names in their films. So they picked a few unknowns; they still have well-established actors playing some of their main characters.

And please no to Cranston. I think he's completely over-rated.

[kiraclara.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest thing also is that Warner Bros has more control over the DC films than the comic company does itself, while Marvel has more control for its films than Disney. While this works as Warner Bros take more of the money risk and reward, I think it is bad because they take a creative cut back.

[hermione-vader.livejournal.com]

Marvel seems to understand that it may be better to cast an unknown in the lead role of a superhero movie and put the big names in supporting roles. That way, there's some star power, but we also don't have a lot of actor-related baggage when we're getting to know the lead character. This was a problem with Green Lantern: Ryan Reynolds did the best he could with what he had (which wasn't much), but people still blamed him for screwing up the character because all they wanted to see was the remnants of Van Wilder screwing up a superhero movie.

I kind of agree with that essay: DC doesn't seem to want to let loose and have fun. I also agree that they wanted to play it safe when casting Batman. They just didn't realize that Ben Affleck =/= safe with the geek crowd.

The only thing that really pisses me off is that WE STILL DON'T HAVE A WONDER WOMAN FILM???!!!!

I talk about this regularly with female guests at my work. A lot of women in their 40s have a lot of nostalgic memories of Wonder Woman, and they would love to see her on the big screen. Better yet, they would probably bring their daughters, nieces, friends, partners/husbands/boyfriends etc., so it would draw an audience.

You don't want to know how people treat the full-size Wonder Woman statue at work. It could be worse, but it's also annoying and not cool. People tell their kids not to touch stuff, but that doesn't apply to her, apparently. Wonder Woman would not approve.

[tigriswolf]

Wait, so Ben Affleck is actualfax Batman? That's just not computing.

I like him and all, but why is there going to be another Batman film so soon?

[hermione-vader.livejournal.com]

It's not a solo Batman movie. It's for the Superman vs. Batman movie slated to come out in 2015, but I really hope they work together in it and it's not actually a "versus" movie because that would just end in even more unnecessary property damage.

[jedi-harkness.livejournal.com]

I'm still computing Affleck as Batman, but I think he'll do fine. I'll miss Christian Bale, but it's clear that DC is re-booting the whole thing and setting up a Justice League movie. Where is the Wonder Woman movie though, dagnammit???

Right now I'm squeeing over James Spader as Ultron! Holy crap, Avengers 2 is already kicking ass, and they haven't even started filming yet!

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

Isn't Hank Pym a wifebeater?

I could do without him too.