Can a DC Movie Universe be Successful?

Obviously from prior posts I'm a bit of a comics nerd. I adore storytelling, and the medium of comics lends to storytelling very well. They are the new pulp fiction, the new serial, the new short story; published monthly, and later collected and published in larger volumes. Lately, comics have become fodder for other mediums. We get to watch comics unfold on both the big and small screens, live action and animated. It's awesome.

Of the top 5 comics publishing companies, Marvel and DC have the biggest stakes in licensing material for non-print media, and Marvel has been crushing it with their massively popular shared movie/television universe. I've seen everything they've produced (except Agents of Shield and the Inhumans because I watch good television) and they're stuff is fantastic.

However, I am, and have always been a DC guy. 

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a plethora of larger than life heroes, several decades older, at times darker and more philosophical than Marvel. They always seemed to me, since I started reading comics, to be more grown up. There are clear analogies to Neitzsche, and Machiavelli in the three major characters. I agree with Laurence Maslon and Dr. Kate Roddy when they claim superheroes are our new mythologies. DC characters specifically fit into the classic myth versions of heroes. They are kings, and princesses, and aristocrats, rich one-percenters with money, and education, and privilege who go through journeys and defeat monsters in order to save the general public. It is a shame Warner Brothers, the DC parent company, is so bad at storytelling.

pulp fiction mythologies

This seems to be the real success with Marvel's shared universe. They write good stories first, and then tie them together. They took their time with the project, a whole decade to make films, and thread commonalities between them. They made good casting decisions, allowed writers and creators to create good plots and interactions for the characters, and never appeared to try to do too much in any one film (except maybe Civil War and Infinity War).

living large

The Cosmonaut Variety Hour put it this way: while Warner Brothers and DC were busy trying to make movies based on a few already existing plots from the comics, Marvel allowed writers with a knowledge of the entire canon to create new stories and plots based on story and character elements. Most of the time the Marvel movie writers get it right, like in Iron Man, and the Avengers, but sometimes we got Iron Man 3. Meanwhile, DC is the complete opposite, creating movies like Justice League, Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman which were colossal messes, but sometimes they make Wonder Woman just to give us fans a little hope. 

The problem seems to be Warner Brothers' decision to do what Marvel did, build a shared cinematic universe. Instead of doing it in the logical way of gradually introducing heroes in their own stand alone films and then connecting them all for a blockbuster crossover event, they decided to do it backwards and introduce all their characters in one blockbuster movie and then break off into solo films. Why would you decide to do that? The only reason I can think of is just to be different, I guess. Overloading one movie with so many major characters makes for a bad movie, and the reason we never had an Avengers or Justice League movie decades ago. Marvel's plan was a huge gamble based on contemporary movie making thinking.

The good news is DC did manage to build a pretty decent television universe on the CW network. The only thing seeming to hold it back from being Marvel-sized is the inability to use Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman on the live-action small screen. I have no idea what the rationale for this decision/rule but everyone would love to see an Arrowverse Batman.

My solution for DC/Warner Brothers... Continue your movie franchise, as it does make money, but put all your effort into television. Comics and television are a natural fit. Comics are serialized issue by issue with large story arcs playing out over several issues. Television is serialized episode by episode, with large story arcs playing out over a season. Bring in Batman and Superman, and Wonder Woman! Give people what they want, not a show like Gotham which is Batman without Batman, or Smallville which is Clark Kent before he becomes Superman, but not really, or whatever Lois and Clark was (literally no one asked for these shows, stop trying to be clever and just do the show we want). Also, Wonder Woman? Can we get a follow up to the 1970s show, please?

Just give them what they want!

DC is actually really good at their animated television shows, it cant be that difficult to do live action. In fact, Marvel has already proved quality television can be done in short miniseries with the Defenders franchise of shows.