At Once Encouraging And Worrisome

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran an article in which they talked to Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov. Robinov discussed the future of the studio, and, of particular interest to me, the role that the DC Comics stable of characters will play in that future.

I found a lot of what he had to say really encouraging. For one thing, Robinov seems to have learned at least one important lesson from the success Marvel Studios is having by trying to create an interconnected movie universe. I view this as a positive largely because of Iron Man. For me, the summer movie season was bookended by two movies: Iron Man and The Dark Knight. They also happen to be the two best movies of the season. While I think that The Dark Knight is the better individual film, of the two, Iron Man is the film that has me most excited for the future, and it accomplished that with one word: Avengers (a Sam Jackson cameo as Nick Fury didn’t hurt). Now, I don’t only have an Iron Man sequel to look forward to, but Captain America, Thor, and Ant Man (which I’m especially excited about based on the involvement of Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz)), all leading up to an Avengers movie. I’m still not sure I understand the financial justifications of an Avengers movie; you figure the price of the cast alone will be pretty high, but hopefully it’ll be figured out and the movie will happen. So, linking a company’s superhero movies together can help build excitement across the board.

On the other hand, some of Robinov’s comment make me think that he doesn’t quite get some of the characters:

Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well.

Superman is not a dark character. As a character, he’s the embodiment of light and hope. He gets his power from the sun, for god’s sake. And Metropolis is not the corrupt urban nightmare that Gotham is; it’s the bright, shining city of tomorrow. On a more general level, it’s not darkness that makes superheroes work. To return to Iron Man again, it was one of the most successful comic adaptations yet, but it wasn’t an especially dark movie. It had it’s dark moments, I suppose, but it also wasn’t afraid to be lighthearted and fun. The reason it worked, was because it took its characters and the world they lived in seriously. No winking at the audience, no Bif! Bam! Pow! dismissiveness, just straightforward storytelling. You can take superheroes seriously without being deadly serious all the time. Hopefully the creative folks at Warner Bros. realize that, because I so don’t want to sit through a dismally depressing Superman.