After watching the Avengers, one of my first thoughts(after how much I liked it) was who was going to try and copy this first? It seems the obvious answer here is Marvel's long-time rival DC comics. In fact they may have tried this already with the Amanda Waller cameo in Green Lantern, but that's of debatable success.
Another thing I'm not sure about is whether or not they will try to craft their own "movie-verse" so to speak, releasing multiple individual films which all come to together at the end. Altnernatively, will they try to ride the Avenger's wave and go right to a Justice League movie? So my question is: will DC attempt to copy Avengers and if so, how?

its probably going to start a genre fad so expect to see alot of avenger style movies

If Green Lantern was meant to dip a toe into that water it fell in and drowned.

They'd have to start again from scratch, with the next Batman after Nolan is done, and design it from the start to fit into the rest of the DC universe - something neither Nolan nor Burton's Batman could have done.

In fact that might make a good hook for the next Batman - they've done gothic, they've done realistic, so maybe a straight superheroic reworking could deliver something new and set up a future franchise.

Except Zack Snyder's new Superman, from what little I know of it, looks like another reimagining that probably wouldn't fit into the regular continuity. So ah... I wouldn't hold my breath for a Justice League movie.

I don't see it happening with DC's current state of affairs. When it comes to movies, Warner Bros. just keeps fucking things up. DC would have to hunker down and do something similar to Marvel, like create their own studio and take firm hold of all their IPs. Then maybe in a half-decade or so we'll get the Justice League movie.

No. They've already got too many different stories that it probably wouldn't work.
Whereas the Marvel universe is all rather equally implausible, DC is far more extreme.
We have Superman, about an indestructible alien with laser eyes, and then Batman, which is essentially made out to be real life, albeit stretched.

I also think DC superheroes are harder to balance, what with Superman being so, well, super, Batman not being very super at all by comparison, and Green Lantern being able to create all manner of things.
The resulting team wouldn't translate to the big screen very well, I think.

SaneAmongInsane:
Heres the thing, with the way hollywood works they won't just DC make a JLA movie because they feel the general public needs a backstory for every character.

So we got Batman, Superman... who else is there? To the general public, that's pretty much it. They had a chance to maybe change that with Green Lantern and they fucked it up royal (Seriously, I saw that movie for free and I didn't finish watching it, it was that bad)

The better idea would be to make a series of Batman/Superman movies. There was a synopsis I read once for an aborted Batman V.s. Superman flick that had Batman go all renegade emo that seemed really cool. *shrug*

But how do Iron Man and Thor stand out more than Flash or Wonderwoman?

Marvel has other figures which are more embedded into pop culture than most of the Avengers cast. Captain America and the Hulk are the two only exceptions, all the others are popular but not on the same level as the other two. And this also goes for the DC universe and the JLA. We have the three big names of DC, all part of popculture (and add to that: a bigger part than anything Marvel could throw against it): Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman.

The Avengers and all this build up has proven that Hollywood (or to be precise: Warner Bros.) does not need to focus on the biggest heroes. They just have to finally start working on 1: good movies besides Batman and 2: a good buildup.

And they need to reboot the current Batman for that too. Nolans Batman would not really work in a team with Wonderwoman, Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash.

It would take them many years and a hell of a lot of money to do what Marvel's done with Avengers.

And even then they'd still find some way to screw it all up. Other than Nolan's Batman movies, WB/DC hasn't come out with a good live action hero movie in a while.

nikki191:
its probably going to start a genre fad so expect to see alot of avenger style movies

start? How does one start something that has been going on for decades in comics?

I hope they do it by if anything The Dark Knight is an indication of how good DC/WB would be at this we are going to be deeply disappointed. I mean think of all the DC comic movies, now take out all the batman movies and the only decent thing you have standing is Superman.

WB will need to get it's act tougher an learn how to make comics into movies before they can pull this off.

Dcs better at singular heroes and I honestly dont feel like watching a wonder woman, martian man hunter, cyborg, aquaman or the flash movie.

But it goes like this
Batman > Marvel > rest of Dc
and I like this status quo

SaneAmongInsane:
So we got Batman, Superman... who else is there?

I'm sorry, what?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2jYn3LmlE
Anyway, you were saying...?

CODE-D:
Dcs better at singular heroes and I honestly dont feel like watching a wonder woman, martian man hunter, cyborg, aquaman or the flash movie.

But it goes like this
Batman > Marvel > rest of Dc
and I like this status quo

Honestly, this is actually quite how I feel about it, as well.

CODE-D:
Dcs better at singular heroes and I honestly dont feel like watching a wonder woman, martian man hunter, cyborg, aquaman or the flash movie.

But it goes like this
Batman > Marvel > rest of Dc
and I like this status quo

Oh dear god, aquaman movie....

Please god no

SaneAmongInsane:
Heres the thing, with the way hollywood works they won't just DC make a JLA movie because they feel the general public needs a backstory for every character.

So we got Batman, Superman... who else is there? To the general public, that's pretty much it.

They could write the movie to work mainly with Batman, Superman and Wonder-Woman. It could all be established in a one movie, and I get the feeling that's how it will be, but I'm not an expert on movies. It could be like the new Star trek-movie; it worked if you weren't familiar with the original, had the rest of the grew, but focused on the leads.

I imagine they'd have to reboot Batman first, or make it somehow clearly separate from Nolan movies, though.

Why do people keep saying the Batman movies have been good? Begins was awful, and the ONLY reason TDK was popular was because Heath Ledger was good in it. Bale is a god awful Batman, and Nolan's films are waaaaay too talky to be involved in a larger continuity. I would like to see the new Superman movie, hopefully it'll be better than the snoozefest that was Superman Returns.

If DC is smart and gives money to Bruce Timm and Greg Weisman, I'd see no problem with a Justice League movie being plausible.

From Batman the Animated series to Justice League to Young Justice, DC animated series have always been spectacular. Most of the animated movies are also pretty great. (Justice League Doom shouldn't have changed the villain from Ras Al Ghul to Vandal Savage, and both Batman Year One and All-Star Superman felt rushed)

The question is, should the movies be animated or live-action.

Personally I'd prefer they start off with a Justice League movie and use it as a platform to gauge interest in learning about characters other than Batman and Superman. Although I'd imagine and hope this would come after a second or third movie featuring this character, seeing the origin of Darkseid would be something I've never seen in any form of animation or live-action. You know, explaining why he looks to be made of rock while people on his planet are human-like. An Aquaman movie could be interesting if a plot went that Atlantis was lost even to Aquaman's people, but was discovered one day near the equator in the middle of the Atlantic. There could be a three-way race or conflict between the U.S. Government, Aquaman's people and the black supremacist Black Manta wanting to claim it for his people.

However, I must admit to wanting to see a companion series to Young Justice instead, following what the adults are up to.

Sixcess:
If Green Lantern was meant to dip a toe into that water it fell in and drowned.

And there's the rub. Batman aside, they've done a terrible job bringing their characters to the big screen.

On paper, a Justice League movie sounds logical. However, do not expect to see many (if any) other franchises copying The Avengers; not because they don't want to, but because of the cost and degree of care involved.

The cost that went into setting up The Avengers via other movies is positively staggering; 100s of millions between production and marketing for no less than SIX blockbuster films (EACH). You might have room for ONE bomb in the whole lot, and I think that's being awfully generous considering how conservative investors have become.

The generic Michael Bay-shit that pollutes modern cinema will not cut it, because you need to establish CHARACTERS the average audience wants to see more of and not CARICATURES the average audience can laugh/groan at and then immediately forget.

Besides, the only DC superhero whose movies have legitimate quality is Batman.
Look at DC's other works: Green Lantern was a box office disaster, Catwoman is Razzie-grade schlock, Superman Returns was mediocre at best.
And they're probably going to reboot Batman AGAIN after Nolan is done with him for that reason.

If they do, it is going to suck.

I presume that Green Lantern and the upcoming Batman reboot (and Man of Steel, probably) had a chance at providing us with a Justice League movie.

However, with the failure of Green Lantern, we are more likely to see a "safe" Batman reboot once Nolan and Bale leave the franchise. Which will probably decide it.

The biggest issue for me is that the JLA doesn't have a proper balance of characters to make a movie interesting. A lot of the characters are serious and don't mesh well with a blockbuster cast of characters. The only person who doesn't fill the "serious" role is Flash. It might be different in the comics, but the whole cast of characters in the JLA have pretty samey personalities, where as the Avengers had a good mix of personalities.

Cpt A. is the charismatic leader that keeps everyone stuck together with his good natured soul. Iron Man is the snarky, wise-cracking joke dealer who takes away some of the levity of a situations. Thor is the serious tough guy. Hulk is the problematic rogue with a heart of gold. Black Widow is the "ends justify the means" cutthroat that will bend the rules. Hawkeye is the consummate professional. Together they balance each other out and create interesting dynamics. Even if some of the personalities overlap (Stark and Widow often share the ends justify means motif, while Thor and Hulk could both be tough guys) they clearly shine at one role more than the others to create this colourful team of personalities.

If WB could make a decent movie outside of Batman and mold each character they choose to get some better party dynamics, then maybe it could work. The problem is that's a HUGE if from what I've seen.

The only things DC has had any success with was Batman and Superman. Green Lantern was s***, I could only sit through about 40 minutes of it during a plane ride and got so bored I shut it off to watch MLP.

They'll need to prove that they can do other characters at least marginally well. First they'll need at least a Green Lantern reboot as well as a Wonder Woman and The Flash movie to tie them in.

Maybe get a few tangential characters to appear in each of those movies to spin a narrative. My money's on the Wonder Twins and Apache Chief.

Either way, after the blowout success of the Avengers they'll try. Can't say if I think they'll succeed, but it'll be at least 5 years before we see the results.

HellsingerAngel:
The biggest issue for me is that the JLA doesn't have a proper balance of characters to make a movie interesting. A lot of the characters are serious and don't mesh well with a blockbuster cast of characters. The only person who doesn't fill the "serious" role is Flash. It might be different in the comics, but the whole cast of characters in the JLA have pretty samey personalities, where as the Avengers had a good mix of personalities.

Cpt A. is the charismatic leader that keeps everyone stuck together with his good natured soul. Iron Man is the snarky, wise-cracking joke dealer who takes away some of the levity of a situations. Thor is the serious tough guy. Hulk is the problematic rogue with a heart of gold. Black Widow is the "ends justify the means" cutthroat that will bend the rules. Hawkeye is the consummate professional. Together they balance each other out and create interesting dynamics. Even if some of the personalities overlap (Stark and Widow often share the ends justify means motif, while Thor and Hulk could both be tough guys) they clearly shine at one role more than the others to create this colourful team of personalities.

If WB could make a decent movie outside of Batman and mold each character they choose to get some better party dynamics, then maybe it could work. The problem is that's a HUGE if from what I've seen.

the charismatic leader that keeps everyone stuck together with his good natured soul - Superman

the snarky, wise-cracking joke dealer who takes away some of the levity of a situations - Hal Jordan's Green Lantern

the serious tough guy - Martian Manhunter

the problematic rogue with a heart of gold - ???? There's probably someone

the consummate professional - Batman

the "ends justify the means" cutthroat that will bend the rules - Wonder Woman (she straight up kills people)

And that's just from the big 7. Justice League has a lot of members. Basically every DC superhero is in the Justice League. Remember no one really knew Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow or Thor in mainstream media before the Marvel Universe movies so there's plenty of second stringers DC could bring in. Zatanna, Captain Marvel, Cyborg and god knows how many others. They've got the same kind of mix, with magic, science fiction and just some regular dude (the entire Batman family, Nightwing, Huntress, Batwoman, Batgirl, they'd probably go with Huntress or Nightwing to get a less sidekick-y feel). They have some great villains. Darkseid needs to be in a movie.

For the time being though WB can stop fucking around and give me a proper movie with Constantine. I swear to god, if I don't see a movie with a blonde, British, wisecracking, opportunistic, selfish asshole of a John Constantine I'll murder everyone at Time Warner. Anyone who thinks Batman is the greatest example of a regular guy superhero has just never read a Hellblazer comic. His super power is basically being an asshole. Even in the current comics when he

or when he

Monoochrom:
I don't know, maybe it's because I don't read comics, but what threat could they have that Superman wouldn't be able to take care of by himself yet doesn't easily outclass the rest?

I could be wrong, but from my perspective Supermans being stupidly powerful kind of makes the rest pointless.

Exactly. I was about to post the a new thread about it. It's why I never liked the Batman/Superman Adventures cartoon. I hate the feeling that those two characters exist in the same universe. Oh, the Flash can run really fast? So can Superman, plus he can fly, throw cars, and shoot lasers out of his eyeballs. And what the hell is Batman going to do in that situation? He has no powers whatsoever. He might as well file Superman's taxes and just twiddle his thumbs until someone whips out some Kryptonite. And even then, any character with a gun would be a better help in that situation than Batman. It doesn't make sense to me. I've sort of dragged my feet on the Avengers movie for some of the same reasons. How are they superheroes when there are five or six other guys just like them?

Monoochrom:
I don't know, maybe it's because I don't read comics, but what threat could they have that Superman wouldn't be able to take care of by himself yet doesn't easily outclass the rest?

I could be wrong, but from my perspective Supermans being stupidly powerful kind of makes the rest pointless.

Doesn't the fact that the Justice League is even a thing kind of tip you off to the fact that exactly this kind of thing happens? All out war with Apokalips is one thing. Any of the evil Lantern Corps. Any magical threat. Any guy running around swinging a baseball bat made of kryptonite. These things generally come down to invasions being led by some big bad all of Earth's heroes fight off the hordes and Supes' ends up going toe to toe with their leader although others can get a few good shots in as well. Hell even a coordinated attack from some of Earth's villains. Black Adam could theoretically knock lumps out of Superman. He's about as strong but he's a magic user which Superman has no defense against.

Ok, I'm not a massive expert - in truth I know very little about the whole Marvel/DC universes as a whole, but if Warner Brothers were to attempt to do this, I envision it thusly...

First off, we have Man of Steel next year (in terms of production, Man of Steel would be the Iron man of this franchise) After that, they would probably do a Wonder Woman movie, followed by the Batman reboot (In fact, I would not at all be surprised if Warner weren't putting the groundwork for that in place right now). What I imagine they would do (or how I would do it) is to have the main bad guy be one of the less realistic members of Batmans rogue gallery, Maybe Killer Croc or Clayface, to move away from the more serious Nolanverse and fit it in more with the rest of the DC Universe.

Then we'd probably get Man of Steel 2 (which would revolve around some of the larger elements of the Justice League - introduce some other characters - Maybe Martian Manhunter, maybe Supergirl - and give us a different fucking bad guy than Lex Luthor again. But we all know that a superman movie has to have Lex in it, because they don't know how to do any other bad guy, so how about have Man of Steel 2 involve Lex becoming president, right? That'll get rid of him as a villian. Hell, if they have the balls, why not have Man of Steel 2 revolve around the Darkseid storyline, and kill him at the end. Then whoever gets a movie next - possibly the Flash, would have the post credits spoiler of Supes not actually being dead.)

After the travesty of Green Lantern, I think they'd keep well away from that until at least JLA 2.

Not that I've put all that much thought into it. In truth, I'd rather see Top Cow bring their universe to the big screen. As long as they don't fuck up Witchblade...

They could take the approach the animated series does and weaken the characters wholly. Make Wonder Woman's and Flash's kind have faster reaction speeds than Superman and his ilk. They could also limit Kryptonian strength to Superhuman, but no stronger than Aquaman; instead having tactile kinesis giving them the edge in strength over most. Kryptonians are weak to magic, so any number of magic villains could possibly stand against them.

Very unlikely and if they did, it would take several years to make it assuming if the studio, the director and script writters can get their acts together.
While they could just make a Justice League film without pior knowledge of the other JL members (not making a film about that superhero), it will mean that the JL film will have to spend several minutes establishing who other JL members and their origin like telling about The Fash, Woman Woman and Martian Manhunter origin which will take up valuable film time.

They will have to reboot Batman first before doing a Justice League movie.

Reason: The grittiness of Nolan's Batman contrasts too much with the other members of the Justice League such as Green Lantern and Superman. Nolan tried to make the batman universe realistic and by doing that I think he alienated the chance of doing a colaboration with any other big name DC superheroes. I don't even think super powers exist in Nolan's Batman.

Also I don't think they would do a Justice League movie without Batman as he is too much of a selling point HOWEVER there may be a chance of doing a Teen Titans movie in the same style as the Avengers, which could work actually.

Scarim Coral:
Very unlikely and if they did, it would take several years to make it assuming if the studio, the director and script writters can get their acts together.
While they could just make a Justice League film without pior knowledge of the other JL members (not making a film about that superhero), it will mean that the JL film will have to spend several minutes establishing who other JL members and their origin like telling about The Fash, Woman Woman and Martian Manhunter origin which will take up valuable film time.

If they were willing to take a chance they could go the other way with it, rather than just copying Marvel. The real lesson to be learned from the marvel movie universe is that going off formula can work, not "just do this and earn millions". Start with a JL movie, focus on characters we're more familiar with, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. Not every superhero movie needs to be an origins story. Have something like Green Lantern swoop in and help, then reveal things like the GL corps, OA and whatnot. Have Flash turn up then show us him working as normal. We learned from Avengers that comic book rules can work on screen so we can reveal character history later. No issue 1 of a comic series was the origin story. Then after JL, when characters have been established give us movies that tell us more about individual characters. TBH if they did it the other way Avengers comparison would be inevitable. This way they can get credit for trying something different rather than copying what Avengers did differently which is what made Avengers special.

Monoochrom:

Spot1990:

Monoochrom:
I don't know, maybe it's because I don't read comics, but what threat could they have that Superman wouldn't be able to take care of by himself yet doesn't easily outclass the rest?

I could be wrong, but from my perspective Supermans being stupidly powerful kind of makes the rest pointless.

Doesn't the fact that the Justice League is even a thing kind of tip you off to the fact that exactly this kind of thing happens? All out war with Apokalips is one thing. Any of the evil Lantern Corps. Any magical threat. Any guy running around swinging a baseball bat made of kryptonite. These things generally come down to invasions being led by some big bad all of Earth's heroes fight off the hordes and Supes' ends up going toe to toe with their leader although others can get a few good shots in as well. Hell even a coordinated attack from some of Earth's villains. Black Adam could theoretically knock lumps out of Superman. He's about as strong but he's a magic user which Superman has no defense against.

Fine.

Is their any Threat that Superman can't take on by himself without making the entire ordeal seem entirely contrived?

The Question you kind of missed is:

If Superman can't do, what the fuck is Batman supposed to do?

What about Flash? He gonna run around them until they just get really annoyed and give up their evil plans?

Read any of the major events in DC history. Superman is no good against an entire invasion. Even with the plot of Avengers Superman couldn't have coped on his own. Batman, like Captain America, is a great tactician. In a straight up fight Cap is way less powerful than Thor or Hulk but he still played an important role. I mean if there's something Thor, Hulk or Iron man couldn't face what was Black Widow going to do? The answer? Nothing, that's not her role in the team.

Flash is actually pretty powerful. A run up punch from Flash would even send Supes flying. He can create whirlwinds and vacuums.

From wiki:

All incarnations of the Flash can move, think, and react at superhuman speeds. Some, notably later versions, can vibrate so fast that they can walk through walls, travel through time and can also lend and borrow speed.

Wally West once became so surprised that he generated a small sonic boom with his voice.

HellsingerAngel:
The biggest issue for me is that the JLA doesn't have a proper balance of characters to make a movie interesting. A lot of the characters are serious and don't mesh well with a blockbuster cast of characters. The only person who doesn't fill the "serious" role is Flash. It might be different in the comics, but the whole cast of characters in the JLA have pretty samey personalities, where as the Avengers had a good mix of personalities.

Cpt A. is the charismatic leader that keeps everyone stuck together with his good natured soul. Iron Man is the snarky, wise-cracking joke dealer who takes away some of the levity of a situations. Thor is the serious tough guy. Hulk is the problematic rogue with a heart of gold. Black Widow is the "ends justify the means" cutthroat that will bend the rules. Hawkeye is the consummate professional. Together they balance each other out and create interesting dynamics. Even if some of the personalities overlap (Stark and Widow often share the ends justify means motif, while Thor and Hulk could both be tough guys) they clearly shine at one role more than the others to create this colourful team of personalities.

If WB could make a decent movie outside of Batman and mold each character they choose to get some better party dynamics, then maybe it could work. The problem is that's a HUGE if from what I've seen.

This big time.
You know why the avengers movie is wildly popular? because of the dynamic this group has and these actors portray.

I saw the movie for the second time today in a cinema and a different audience laughed at different jokes in the movie, but still overall every bit of witticism they've got in there is appreciated and its all very well executed.

The Marvel characters do well in combining seriousness and jokiness in their own particular way.

besides all these things you have to consider the right actors for the right parts.

Where Agent coulsen came of as a bit of a dweep and he wasn't to my liking , the public is eating him up , and what is he? a minor character who gets to crack a few jokes but bring the overall seriousness of the situation into light.

If you can pull all of this off and then find the actors with a dynamic to come to the same lvl as this movie or exceed it, I will take off my hat to you

As far as grittiness goes, I don't see how that would be a problem if they took a similar approach to DC Online, make the storyline a duology following the fall of one world and the saving of another.

As far as personalities that play off each other, the duo of the Wally West and John Stewart was great.

There was an episode where the Katma Tui was talking about John Stewart's inability to use his power ring, referring to it as "green impotence". Wally is walking by and questions "impotence". The look on Stewart's face was hilarious.