Tag Archives: Man of steel

Jul 4 2013

Mounting Pressure For A Justice League Film

ross jla

Now that Man Of Steel has proven to be a hit at the box office, demand has increased even more for a Justice League film. It’s unfair to Man Of Steel because the natural thing would’ve been for a sequel to that Superman film. It’s also unfair for the Batman franchise being that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy concluded last year. Normally, the focus on the franchise would have been on rebooting it not taking part in a team film.

What is driving the pressure for a Justice League film is the phenomenal success of Disney/Marvel’s film The Avengers. To say that The Avengers was a game changer isn’t a small statement. That film proved that it is feasible to present an entertaining, well crafted film that utilizes many characters from a shared cinematic universe. But it’s not unprecedented. Remember Universal Studios decades ago did this with their horror movie monsters fighting each other in films.

Lost Opportunities

Warner Bros. and DC should’ve gotten the ball rolling years ago and put references of the larger DC Comics universe into their DC films.

satelliteThey did put in very minor references in Batman & Robin (where Batman mentions Superman) and in Superman Returns (a PA announcement could be heard about a Gotham City train), but that was it. Christopher Nolan refused to have any mention of the other DC characters in his Batman films, so that opportunity was lost. Ditto with 2011’s Green Lantern. In Man Of Steel, Superman and Zod battle by a satellite that belongs to Bruce Wayne’s company, so that is a Batman reference. Plus, some there’s a blink-and-you-miss-it Booster Gold reference during a fight scene. Yet all this pales to Nick Fury’s surprise, substantial cameo at the end of Iron Man, which led to more Marvel Comics universe references in other Marvel films that culminated with The Avengers.

DC could go the same route but they don’t have the time. Fans want a Justice League film now. They’ve grown impatient with the studio’s glacial progress. Besides many higher ups in DC and Warner Bros. have stated that they don’t want to copy Disney/Marvel’s formula. Frankly, it would be the best thing to do, but with Disney/Marvel charging ahead and greenlighting films, Warner Bros./DC can’t afford to do that. It becomes a game of catch up and they’re way behind.

Nonetheless, many fans are going insane with the lack of communication from Warner Bros./DC on the status of the Justice League film.

This proves that they are taking this matter seriously and want to put out the best possible film. While there is pressure to make the film already, they don’t just want to rush out and slap something together. Given the failure of Green Lantern, Warner Bros./DC know they cannot alienate fans. Continue reading →

Dec 17 2012

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year…For Trailers!

pacific rim kirk

A fairly recent trend with movie studios these days during the holiday season is to build up excitement for their upcoming releases. This is being done with long-awaited trailers, in this year’s case, trailers for upcoming 2013 movies. It seems that sandwiched in between the big summer conventions with their super-exclusive trailers and clips and the Super Bowl, the best time for fans to first watch trailers is during the holiday season.

In rapid fire, studios are ramping up expectations and satisfying all those who couldn’t make it to the conventions and had to resort to watching bootleg copies filmed on someone’s phone. Forget the Super Bowl, who wants to sit through hours of sports and inane non-genre commercials just to glimpse a brief look at a summer film? It seems as if the holiday season has become the best time to whet fans’ appetites. During summer conventions, the films are far from finished and all that is available are teasers, but by the time the holidays are around, special effects shots are done and if there is something that may not set the world on fire based on reactions, there is still time to tweak the film or the marketing. Sure it’s nothing but Advertising 101 but it works.

To date, this season has seen newly minted trailers for summer 2013 movies like After Earth, Man Of Steel, Pacific Rim, and Star Trek Into Darkness. One genre film that is coming out instead in the spring is the Tom Cruise vehicle Oblivion and that is one of the most interesting trailers. Evoking a ruined Earth motif and a lonely observer ala WALL-E, the images of nature reclaiming man-made structures are very arresting.

man of steelThe Man Of Steel trailer was a mixed bag, however. Like the teaser released in the summer, it comes off as very pretentious like a Terrence Malick movie but midway through it, the tempo picked up with exciting action shots of Superman. Still many are feeling skeptical being that its directed by Zack Snyder, who has a hit or miss track record. Ditto with After Earth, which stars Will Smith and is directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The director has hit a rough patch with his recent films and is in dire need of a comeback. Will After Earth do it for him? Or will it be The Happening of 2013?

Of course all this oohing and ahhing over trailers doesn’t mean the film will be great. Many of us are still smarting over being let down after all the excitement from seeing the Prometheus trailer that came out last year. At the same time, the trailer released last year around this time for The Avengers was just an average trailer. It wasn’t until spring that the definitive exciting trailer came out that set off a storm of anticipation for The Avengers.

So which trailers are the favorites? That is hard to say, but the spots for Pacific Rim and Star Trek Into Darkness caught my attention. Pacific Rim had those cool giant robots and the entire thing seemed like a mashup of Cloverfield meeting the Transformers. But being that Michael Bay isn’t directing Pacific Rim adds many points to it. It turned out that the recent trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness wasn’t the teaser but the announcement for the teaser which came out today. The trailer was chock full of cool f/x shots, explosions and screaming, the kind of thing Star Trek is famous for, well not really. While Star Trek Into Darkness seems more like an action movie than one about exploration and not about the original spirit of Star Trek, the trailer does make it look exciting.

Now if only the movie studios would only give us a peek at The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2 and Elysium.

Waldermann Rivera

Jul 26 2012

The Man Of Steel Teaser Is Just Underwhelming

I tried to keep an open mind with what was revealed about the upcoming Superman reboot Man Of Steel. Some of it was good, Amy Adams is a good choice for Lois Lane, Henry Cavill should be okay as Superman. Some of the other news wasn’t, namely the choice of director, Zack Snyder. The guy has a hit and miss record as a director. The last couple of films he’s done were downright awful. And no John Williams score!

Anyway, Warner Bros. released the teaser trailer for Man Of Steel last week and it just plain sucks. Talk about underwhelming!

What were they trying to convey here? A bunch of clips that looked like outtakes from Deadliest Catch (would’ve worked great if this was Aquaman: The Movie), and pretentious looking scenes that looked more like commercials for products. Why not show that Comic-Con footage that actually showed some action and money shots?

Supposedly, Warner Bros. and producer Christopher Nolan wanted to get away from the failure of Superman Returns but they go ahead remind viewers of the same motifs that the teaser trailer for Superman Returns was trying to convey! The idea of Superman as a Christ-like savior with long, reflective and pensive shots of Superman (in Man Of Steel’s case, a long shot of Superman flying up into the sky). This time those type of shots were used on Clark Kent instead and we then get two kinds of cliche narrations about having power and being a savior. And you know what? Superman Returns did this better! At lleast that trailer was inspiring.

If they wanted to make people-not just the zealous fans at some convention but the general audience-take notice of this film and forget the previous Superman movie, they needed to show what was shown at Comic-Con. They need to create an excited buzz, not confusion or worse indifference. During its showing in The Dark Knight Rises that I attended there wasn’t any reaction to this film and many have reported the same thing from other showings. Also some audience members had no idea what the trailer was for until that last shot of Superman.

Of course, it’s too early to say Man Of Steel is doomed. This could turn out to be a good film (and maybe enough fan outcry can force them to use at least part of Williams’ score; check out the trailer below that placed Williams’ “Planet Krypton” theme-it works better) but they are off to a dismal start. Their next trailer has to be more interesting and buzz worthy.

Waldermann Rivera