DC Franchise sustainability problems

[NightwingAngelo]

Hmm... interesting. It seems that even Reynolds knew there was something wrong it the film:

Ryan Reynolds Has "Little Interest" in Playing Green Lantern in JLA - IGN

"If you're going to do comic book movies in that vein, you really have to get them right . . . I believe that Joss Whedon is the guy that just nails it and Christopher Nolan obviously nails it. So if they were gonna do it like that, it would be an interesting thing to do."

"It's just that... working on Green Lantern, I saw how difficult it is to make that concept palatable, and how confused it all can be when you don't really know exactly where you're going with it or you don't really know how to access that world properly - that world comic book fans have been accessing for decades and falling in love with."

I can't comment on Reynold's performance as I have never seen the film (and, like many, never will), but hopefully this whole ordeal serves as a lesson to DC/WarnerBros. It's already serving as an undeservedly painful one for the fans.

 

[Medinnus]

It's already serving as an undeservedly painful one for the fans.

OK, I can see hoping that DC/Warner learned something - but what lesson are the fans supposed to learn? Don't like a decent show because network execs will diddle you Ultimately (pun definitely included)?

 

[Lighthammer]

OK, I can see hoping that DC/Warner learned something - but what lesson are the fans supposed to learn? Don't like a decent show because network execs will diddle you Ultimately (pun definitely included)?

The thing that's mortally frustrating about all of this is DC really had things together for a long time then some how out of no where didn't any longer. Instead of trying to replicate their past success they went in a completely different direction.

Personally I really don't understand this: if you're already doing something right, why start doing something radically different?

This most certainly seems like a similar phenomena back in the early 90s when one year everything was going great in the Saturday morning cartoon era and the between seasons everyone all of a sudden decided it was better to focus on comedy characters instead.

 

[NightwingAngelo]

OK, I can see hoping that DC/Warner learned something - but what lesson are the fans supposed to learn? Don't like a decent show because network execs will diddle you Ultimately (pun definitely included)?

LOL! That's terrible!

Actually, if you read my post again, I didn't hope that the fans learned a lesson here. I said that this whole ordeal has already been a lesson for us. I hope that DCWarnerBros learned because it can sometimes take corporations a longer time to adapt to these realities. Respect the source material of long established myth's and get them right, otherwise it could be heavily implied in a negative ripple effect.

I'm speaking more from an educational point of view than anything. I never took the time to learn about the economics behind higher-cost animation until the cancellation of the latest two shows - YJ and GLTAS. I never even considered the difference between these shows and _______ (insert name of cheap animation here) financially and possible consequences of this difference. There's also the connection between the presentation of the product in mass society and sustainability of that product in other media. It probably won't mean much in the grand scheme of things (until we fans somehow learn how to utilize this knowledge some time down the line), but it's good to know nonetheless.

In the end, it's mainly that I enjoy learning things and, although in this case it came at the price of two products that I loved, it has ultimately educated me in regards to the current business model that many shows I'll be watching in the future may continue to go by. As a whole (on this board and outside of it), it'll also enrich some of our dialogue concerning situations of this kind since this will happen again in the future. I'm not sure about yourself, but many of us had no idea what was going on and why some of these high-quality shows for some reason always had to over come obstacles to remain on the air, and we're beginning to learn some of the reasons now and piece them all together.

 

[reflection01]

The GL movie looked like a joke from the beginning. Marvel had a great plan and executed it. WB/DC just threw something together.

 

[Lighthammer]

The GL movie looked like a joke from the beginning. Marvel had a great plan and executed it. WB/DC just threw something together.

DC was certainly trying to do something with Green Lantern for a long time. I really do think they had the best of intentions for the movie but ended up trusting the franchise (at least on the movie front) to people who may have had good intentions but lacked enough experience and knowledge to pull it off.

Really, the annoying part about this was Green Lantern had already gotten enough exposure by the point they were working on the script that EVERYTHING THEY WERE DOING was highly referenceable. There wasn't any need to make up the events of the last 30 minutes of the movie; they could have read a wiki article and understood it.

I don't know about anyone else, but in this day and age, I get really, really, really annoyed fast when someone could take 5 minutes and do some research and make whatever they're doing look 200x better rather then running around as though their heads are cut off and either have to make things up or wing it and pray it comes off right. At the end of the day, this is what happened with the last 30 - 45 minutes of this movie.

 

[RoryWilliams]

I think Green Lantern was just a bad movie. I don't really feel like its adherence to the source material or lack thereof had much to do with it, since obviously the Nolan Bat-movies managed to be huge hits despite the fans screaming and moaning over every little deviation from the comics.

I feel the greatest problem was that it was a very rushed attempt to cash-in on the popularity of Iron Man, and it showed. I mean even when the first trailer came out I got the distinct impression that I was looking at a hastily thrown-together Iron Man clone. The problem of course with this is A) Ryan Reynolds lacks RDJ's charm and charisma and B) the writing in Green Lantern was nowhere near as good as the script for the first Iron Man flick.

 

[the greenman]

Getting back on subject, I really am disappointed that these modern DC shows and most shows really concentrate on continuity. The writing is well done, but watching Brave and the Bold reminded me of old school animated shows where you just had to go with it. I am guilty myself of mentally trying to tie things together, but stuff like Joker the Vile and the Villainous or Shadow of the Bat just made me enjoy the show better. Do you guys think these shows could benefit from the loose continuity and stay away from huge story lines and character arcs?

 

[Lighthammer]

This is a really hard topic to dissect.

On one hand, a season long arch keeps you're viewers locked down for the entire season. If you draw them in quickly, they aren't going anywhere for the entire season; but I'd argue when you do that you ABSOLUTELY have to make sure your viewers have a way to watch up on episodes either through making absolutely sure they know they can watch them online free (not cheap, free) if only for a limited time and the episodes you're showing have at least one repeat before the next new episode. If missing one episode causes you to lose track of the plot, there's no choice but to make sure your viewers know the availability of episodes; and you can't rely on DVR.

Isolated episodes or even small archs or episodes that follow a continuity all have the opposite issues; viewers absolutely feel like they can go and come as they please. If you have a good series, hopefully they're watching throughout the season, but you don't need to be really be afraid of them missing episodes.

In premier, the first model is easily the best; however, in reruns, statistically speaking, if someone sat through a whole arch for Fall/Winter/Spring months, they are much less likely to watch the reruns and are more likely to watch them in a smaller in sitting by getting the DVDs or getting digital copies. Those isolated episodes though; they do a ton better in reruns because if people missed one episode or missed a month's worth, they'll enjoy sitting through those episodes again in rerun.

The thing that really sucks is both Young Justice and Green Lantern were far too expensive to essentially only get one viewing out of it. They pushed the buck too high on the detail end of things. Unlike their counter parts in the live action field, such as Arrow, that is a lot cheaper to produce. IIRC, I remember reading an article when that series was green lit, it was given a 1/2 mil budget per episode meaning at the end of the day, it will be half the cost of Young Justice and its on a basic channel meaning its availability is a ton higher by default. For a series like that, they CAN make bank if their series is only good for one viewing.

Really, after a fashion, its about knowing your models and I'd certainly agree that Young Justice and Green Lantern aren't sustainable unless you're bringing in serious tools to make bank. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, its my assertion that neither CN or DC worked those details out well enough and squandered a ton of opportunity.

 

[Hordesman]

This is a really hard topic to dissect.

On one hand, a season long arch keeps you're viewers locked down for the entire season. If you draw them in quickly, they aren't going anywhere for the entire season; but I'd argue when you do that you ABSOLUTELY have to make sure your viewers have a way to watch up on episodes either through making absolutely sure they know they can watch them online free (not cheap, free) if only for a limited time and the episodes you're showing have at least one repeat before the next new episode. If missing one episode causes you to lose track of the plot, there's no choice but to make sure your viewers know the availability of episodes; and you can't rely on DVR.

Isolated episodes or even small archs or episodes that follow a continuity all have the opposite issues; viewers absolutely feel like they can go and come as they please. If you have a good series, hopefully they're watching throughout the season, but you don't need to be really be afraid of them missing episodes.

In premier, the first model is easily the best; however, in reruns, statistically speaking, if someone sat through a whole arch for Fall/Winter/Spring months, they are much less likely to watch the reruns and are more likely to watch them in a smaller in sitting by getting the DVDs or getting digital copies. Those isolated episodes though; they do a ton better in reruns because if people missed one episode or missed a month's worth, they'll enjoy sitting through those episodes again in rerun.

The thing that really sucks is both Young Justice and Green Lantern were far too expensive to essentially only get one viewing out of it. They pushed the buck too high on the detail end of things. Unlike their counter parts in the live action field, such as Arrow, that is a lot cheaper to produce. IIRC, I remember reading an article when that series was green lit, it was given a 1/2 mil budget per episode meaning at the end of the day, it will be half the cost of Young Justice and its on a basic channel meaning its availability is a ton higher by default. For a series like that, they CAN make bank if their series is only good for one viewing.

Really, after a fashion, its about knowing your models and I'd certainly agree that Young Justice and Green Lantern aren't sustainable unless you're bringing in serious tools to make bank. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, its my assertion that neither CN or DC worked those details out well enough and squandered a ton of opportunity.

Well, there was Mattel and retailers to factor in too. But it all comes down to kids. Power Rangers did a whole lot better than Gargoyles. From what I gather, it was more a continuity-lite show. And I'm very curious how the Target JLA toon-y line is doing.

 

[the greenman]

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how producers of an action animated series will combine good storytelling with the failsafe of satisfying audience participation. I feel like one answer is to return to the original way of telling animated series. They often treated these series, whether they were selling toys or not, with a "the-continuing-adventures-of" attitude. As James Tucker said of Brave and the Bold, back in the day they didn't do series finales, they just had adventures. We have gotten spoiled with DCAU and others, but I think if Beware the Batman comes out and their is no ongoing story arc boiling up, we'd fare much better for a simpler series. Sure there have been series like Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, or Thundercats that seemingly aligned continuity with so-so storytelling , they padded alot too. We could stand to have short seasons within seasons, like TB&TB with arcs like Equinox, Starro, and Darkseid. This works a little better with networks as well.