While ‘Lego Batman’ Is Still Tops, Warner Bros. In Talks For Next Superman Movie
Warner Bros. has announced that the studio has plans for another Superman movie as the studio tries to figure out how to create the perfect superhero film. According to Collider, Matthew Vaughan, the director of Kingsman: The Secret Service, is in talks to direct Man of Steel 2, but anything could happen at this point.
Vaughan has some superhero movie history on his resume, including Marvel’s X-Men: First Class and the comedy Kick-Ass. He’s also finishing up on Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which technically isn’t a superhero movie, but it might as well be. The 2013 Man of Steel film was the first Warner Bros. film to usher in a new batch of DC Comics movies.
Since being acquired by Disney, movies made by Marvel Studios have done well with both critics and movie goers while making a nice profit at the same time. DC Comics doesn’t have that distinction. In fact, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justic was nominated and won a few Golden Raspberry awards this year despite doing well at the box office.
Of the last four superhero movies made by Warner Bros., The Lego Batman Movie appears to be resonating best with audiences. Of the top 10 films, the Dark Knight of plastic toys is currently in the No. 5 spot. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 91 percent for critics and a score of 83 percent for the general public. That is practically the opposite of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which holds a 27 percent score for critics and 63 percent score for the general population.
As a whole, the Warner Bros. DC Comics movies haven’t been failures financially, but the studio knows that they can only continue on the current course so far before audiences will stop going to the theaters. One complaint of the superhero movies has been that they are “too dark” compared to Marvel, and Lego Batman might help to prove that point. However, putting Ben Affleck up against an animated Will Arnett isn’t the best comparison, and most critics agree that Affleck’s performance in Batman v Superman was the best part of that movie.
COMPARING WARNER BROS./DC FILMS (via IMDb):
Lego Batman
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 91 percent Audience Score: 83 percent
Budget: $80,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $53,003,468
Gross: $159,023,660 (as of March 10, 2017)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 27 percent Audience Score: 63 percent
Budget: $250,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $166,007,347
Gross: $330,249,062
Suicide Squad
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 26 percent Audience Score: 63 percent
Budget: $175,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $133,682,248
Gross: $325,021,779
Man of Steel
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 55 percent Audience Score: 75 percent
Budget: $225,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $116,619,362
Gross: $291,021,565
To complicate matters more, Disney doesn’t own every Marvel character, and 20th Century Fox has had some great success with its deeply dark Logan (currently the #2 movie in the country) and the R-rated Deadpool movies, and Warner Bros. has taken notice. Flickering Myth has reported that the studio is also toying with the idea of making their own R-rated comic book movies with its DC movies.
“However, given the sketchy nature of the source – and producer Charles Roven’s post-Deadpool comments that future DC movies will likely remain PG-13, I wouldn’t hold your breath for an R-rated The Batman just yet,” reports Flicking Myth.
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Most critics agree that just throwing in a few lines of comedy or slapping an R-rating on a movie isn’t going to fix all of Warner Bros. and DC Films’ woes. It will be interesting to see if the studio’s next movies, Wonder Woman (coming to theaters on June 2, 2017) and Justice League (November 17, 2017) will be able to persuade public perception.
[Featured Image by Warner Bros.]
