DC Gets Dark

Andy Khouri reported on Comic Book Resources yesterday that Warner Brothers’ president, Jeff Robinov, intends to explore the darker side of superheroes in films based on DC comics. This is in response to the recent success of the company’s record setting film, The Dark Knight, and the fact that Superman Returns wasn’t such a hot movie. This course of action has thus put a damper on the Superman/Batman movie, the Justice League movie, and a Superman sequel. Instead, the company intends on releasing about two films based on DC characters per year, portraying them as darkly as the character will allow, and using Marvel’s strategy of introducing each character individually with plans of making an eventual team movie. This means reintroducing Superman and retooling some of the other projects they had planned. Currently, they have Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman movies in development, as well as a third Batman film.

However, I don’t think this is the solution for them. Honestly, Batman is their darkest character (aside from their Vertigo titles) and he’s still not as dark as he could be. Adopting Marvel’s strategy is a good idea… as long as they stick with keeping the same actors in the roles of the characters they are playing. Rather than making all the characters dark though, they should portray the character as they were meant to be portrayed. For Superman, I would introduce him much like they introduced Batman in Batman Begins with flashbacks shown between an present storyline. Instead of making him dark though, I would show him as someone who has grown to love humanity with an overwhelming desire to protect it. Superman Returns really just portrayed him as a two dimensional character who could do neat stuff. Oh, and could we get someone for him to pound on? And, while I like Jonathan and Ryan Nolan’s scripts for the Batman films, I would make them darker still and invite either Frank Miller or Allen Moore to write the third one. What about this title: “The Goddamn Batman?”