DC takes a page from Marvel's book

The old saying goes that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that's the case then Marvel must be feeling quite nice these days. In a recent article from the Wall Street Journal, Warner Brothers has announced film plans similar to that of Marvel. Marvel is starting to gain some momentum with the continuity and team up aspect of their superhero films, and DC is quick to jump on that trend. "Films with our DC properties have the opportunity to support other divisions in the company in a way that our other movies don't," Mr. Robinov says. Now of course, Marvel doesn't have quite the variety of film properties that Warner Brothers does, but it seems that the good old WB has gotten wise to the drawing power of DC superheroes since The Dark Knight continues to wreck shop at the box office. "Superheroes are more global than ever in today's commercial world, existing in 30 languages and in more than 60 countries," says Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics. The characters are "a world-wide export," he says. And this even extends to the next installment of the Superman saga, with WB now inclined to reboot the reboot that was Superman Returns "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Mr. Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned." "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009," he adds. "But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all." Interesting. Someone at WB thought we would like to see a Batman vs. Superman film (even acknowledging it with a billboard in I Am Legend), but I don't really think it would have worked. ANYTHING with Batman now has to involve Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan or people are going to be upset. Same thing with Bale applies to the Justice League Mortal film that was due out next summer (and has since been replaced by a six month delayed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for more money). But now we're stuck with only one comic film from DC next year in Watchmen, which might not even come out as a result of their legal battle with Fox of the distribution rights. Warner Brothers likes Marvel's movie ideas