Do you think DC should stop making hero movies for a bit?

Was just watching my movie channels and suicide squad came on. Wretched movie.

Last couple from DC have been so awful, I contemplated killing myself in the middle of the film. Suicide Squad, Batman vs. Superman, Justice League, etc.

I'm so disappointed in what a great comic series has churned out at the movies. It's shame they couldnt continue the magnificence of the christopher nolan batman series.

How about a break for a bit. take some time to redo the series. Reboot this crap. Or are you guys and gals delighted with the current DC movie universe?

Justice was there best movie to date, not the same standard as Marvel but they are improving and making a ton of money so why would they stop?

They should reboot, but they shouldn't wait. Their biggest problem was that they were trying to play catch-up to Marvel while denying that they were trying to play catch-up to Marvel. They introduced almost half of their JL lineup in the first JL movie itself and threw in an unknown baddie because they had no established baddies and were just using the film to set up the next film. Oh, and they saw the god-awful dream sequence from Age of Ultron and thought, "hmmm...that's a good idea, let's do that!" They should fire anyone associated with the current movies except Joss Whedon and Geoff Johns, hire some writers who actually know the characters, and churn out as many good standalone movies as they can. Get at least a solo movie for each hero out there, maybe even two for some of the bigger ones like Batman and Wonder Woman. Focus on their best storylines like Long Halloween and For the Man Who Has Everything. Save the biggest villains. No Ra's, no Darkseid, probably no Brainiac. No Joker either, but only because he's been done to death. Use villains like Mongul and Two-Face for one film, bring in the big guns for the team-up. Save the Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and whatever else spin-offs for after you've at least done a solo movie with the six mains (and really, Lantern should be included here as well) plus the first team-up movie, then start experimenting. I know they don't want to follow the Marvel formula, but they seem dedicated to making mistakes just because they don't want to follow it, just to prove they're different. The Marvel formula works.

Their biggest problem is trying to use the same tone that made the recent Batman movies great. That tone works great with Batman, but it sucks with almost every other hero they have, especially Superman. They at least mention hope with Superman, but the movies don't really make you feel it. JL was better at it than the previous attempts though.

@thehig1: Because while some of them made money, they definitely didn't make as much as they should have, not to mention Justice League was also their lowest grossing movie to date. When a $300 million movie only pulls in $657 mil after everything is said and done, you can bet that not every movie they announced in the future is gonna get made. The only two definite releases are Wonder Woman 2 and Aquaman. Everything else is up in the air at the moment

Well, I suspect it has less to do with how good the movies are and more to do with how much money they're making. Are these DC movies total financial flops that are causing WB to hemorrhage money from every orifice? Or are they doing pretty well, but some fans just don't like them?

Anyway, I haven't seen any of these DC movies except for Wonder Woman, which my mom dragged me to. So as far as whether or not they're any good, I have no idea. But without having seen the films I can say that no...they probably SHOULDN'T just stop making them if they're highly successful from a financial standpoint.

Also, not saying that you're wrong, but I'm a bit interested in the comment that the Marvel Formula "works". Did you mean to say "works", or did you mean to say "worked?"

My point being, the "Marvel Formula" worked FOR MARVEL. But notice that you're calling it the "Marvel Formula" and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still a very new thing relatively speaking. Exactly how many post-MCU examples are there of this formula actually working for anyone other than Marvel?

Look, I'm not denying that the "Marvel Formula" worked for Marvel. But the "Marvel Formula" was also a pretty risky move, wasn't it? It could have blown up in their faces if the movies weren't (mostly) up to a (relatively) high standard compared to superhero/action movies during the time. There are definitely weak links in the MCU, but I think most people will agree that few if any of the MCU movies were AWFUL. Meanwhile, that's entirely what I'm hearing about the DC movies. That they're just plain pieces of shit.

So, a question...if Marvel had gone with the "Marvel Formula", but all of the MCU movies had just been trash, would the MCU still have worked? Is the problem that DC isn't properly following the Marvel Formula, or is the problem that DC's movies are just crap?

That's not a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking. But in art, there's a LOT of great and highly successfully stuff that deviates from established formulas in some way or another. And while formulas exist because certain things often work, the word "formulaic" is generally not used as a compliment. Not that I think that any of these superhero movies are high art, but the point still stands. There was nothing like the MCU when the MCU was first being created. At least not on that scale. What Marvel did was different, that's why people are calling it "The Marvel Formula". At the time, it wasn't formulaic. Also, most people seem to agree that most of Marvel's movie output at least hasn't been AWFUL. Conversely, people ARE saying that the DC movies are just awful. So if DC were to copy a "formula" for releasing films, would that now be formulaic since the formula already exists? Would the DC movies now be shitty AND formulaic? Just how much of the MCU's success is due to the "Marvel Formula", and how much of the MCU's success is due to most of the MCU movies just plain not being awful? Is the solution to copy Marvel's formula? Or is the solution to simply stop making movies that are so shitty?

I don't know, but I think it's worth considering.

DC needs to stop there live action movies they are awful, Ben Affleck is a terrible batman he is to emotional which batman normally hides to everyone but himself. There DC animated films however are fantastic tho.

Well, part of it is that there's a lower quality in some of the DC films, and I wholeheartedly blame Zack Snyder for most of that. Still, I think some of that could have been alleviated by following the Marvel Formula. And by Marvel Formula I mean carefully copying some of the tactics Marvel employed, I don't just mean trying to build a cinematic universe. You ask how many other people have been successful following the Marvel Formula, I'll respond by asking how many other people have actually tried it?

Here's what I mean by Marvel Formula: Step one, test the waters. No one at Marvel thought Iron Man was going to be as big of a hit as it was. The Downey cameo in Incredible Hulk was pretty much just a throwaway gag, not too many people thought it would realistically lead to a major team-up film, much less one that spawned a decades worth of movies. Start slow, make one or two films, make them popular characters, and take a lot of time to treat them with care. DC didn't do this. DC threw Batman into Superman's second film and added Lex and Doomsday into an overcrowded and uninteresting plot. This is why I say use Long Halloween. Focus on a story that's 100% Batman, one that fans love, and treat it with a lot of care. Don't worry about cramming Superman into it, or a dream sequence, or a bunch of shots of other superheroes just for the sake of setting up the next movie. Start small.

Step two: build slowly, and work towards the immediate goal. Once they decided they were going to do a teamup they started building towards Avengers. Still, it didn't interfere with the movies. Thor and First Avenger had plenty of elements that would show up in Avengers, but none of them distracted from the plot. Even when they got more reference-heavy in phase two it wasn't anything more than a throwaway gag of Loki as Captain America. Thor and First Avenger were completely self-contained plots that only linked up with Avengers after the story was done, BvS wasted precious screen time doing what Marvel does in post-credits stingers. Story first, references later. This doesn't mean you can't already be planning ahead tot he teamup, like Marvel did with the Tesseract and Loki mind-controlling Selvig, just do it after the credits roll.

Step three: Get the teamup movie right, don't use it to set up the REAL teamup movie. If Marvel had called it quits after Avengers it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. Why? Because Avengers was awesome. Everybody loved it, it was a smash success, and no movie franchise had ever done a series of six interconnected films ending with a box-office smash like that before. They could have walked out on top because Avengers was great on its own merits. JL, not so much. This is a bit like step two, stop making everything set up something else, especially during the main movie. Thanos at the end of Avengers works because he doesn't detract from the plot, whereas in JL Steppenwolf is just a Darkseid flunky meant to set up Darkseid in the next film. Just do a villain that's not connected to Darkseid, people didn't complain when Ultron didn't directly set up Thanos. In fact, it was actually kind of a bonus that you could just do a villain who's villaining for his own reasons and not connected to the biggest bad around. In fact, that's basically step four.

Step four: Save your big bad. People have been waiting ten years for Thanos, and they're still hyped as ever to see him. In fact, the fact that most people only whisper his name gives him an aura of mystery. It works to Marvel's advantage that they didn't trot him out in Avengers or Age of Ultron, it builds the suspense and the hype. Darkseid, on the other hand, gets a dream sequence and a second-rate minion starring in JL. Even AoU's dream sequence had other references to Thanos to back it up. This also gives the heroes time to build their fame. In Avengers they were barely a team, in AoU they were a well-oiled machine, in Civil War they had a knock-down, drag-out conflict and split apart, in Infinity War they're coming back together to beat the powerful menace. Holy narrative arc, Batman! This is maybe the biggest thing that's lacking from the DCEU, an actual narrative. Save Darkseid, start with a smaller villain. Hell, do Starro. Joss Whedon took a goofy Avengers #1 story and turned it into a blockbuster, why can't he do the same for a goofy JLA #1 story?

Step Five: Take chances later. Yes, there are some MCU movies that people don't particularly like or that aren't as popular. How does Marvel keep chugging along despite that? Because they took the bigger chances later. They didn't delve into the real goofy stuff until Iron Man already had three films and Cap and Thor had two. Ant-Man wasn't a smash hit, but they could afford to go there because they were the biggest name around after Avengers. They also took a chance on Guardians and ended up with a smash hit to rival Avengers, allowing them to take chances on Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Suicide Squad could have been an awesome movie, but there was too much riding on it. There was too much studio interference, too many big egos, too much throwing crap in just because. Wait until you strike it big with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Add to that with Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, and Green Lantern. Nail Justice League. THEN take chances on something like Suicide Squad. Oh, and find someone who really has a personal interest in the source material, like James Gunn or Ryan Reynolds with Guardians and Deadpool. Which leads me to step six.

Step six: get diverse and passionate directors. It's pretty clear that either the directors on the DC films aren't passionate about the source material or aren't allowed to make anything but a by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster, or a combination of both. Marvel gets directors who aren't typical blockbuster directors and lets them go crazy. People love James Gunn and Taika Waititi's directorial styles. Peyton Reed came in and asked to do a heist film, and they let him. The Russos came in and asked to do a spy thriller, and they let them. Get directors who want to mess around and experiment, and let them mess around and experiment. Stop with all the studio-mandated reshoots and cramming bad villains in just because. Seriously, Enchantress was terrible. The Suicide Squad reshoots were terrible. Laissez les faire.

That's what I mean by the Marvel Formula, and I don't think anyone has followed it but Marvel yet.

@theone86: Well, yeah, that's kind of what I meant. I don't see anything WRONG with "The Marvel Formula". But I'm hesitant to say that the formula "works" when Marvel is really the only one who ever tried it (at least on such a massive scale). But even with Marvel, I'm wondering how much of it had to do with THE FORMULA and how much of it had to do with just taking care that most of their movies weren't crap.

And yeah...I suspect it may be easier to avoid making a crap movie when easing into thing by using "The Formula". but at least theoretically, there's no reason why something like a stand-alone Justice League movie couldn't work with no prior buildup. A LOT of great movies in history have been team-based movies that work largely because of a team dynamic. And no need for earlier movies to establish all the characters beforehand in stand-alone features. Theoretically, it SHOULD work if the writing and directing and acting and so forth are up to the task. Seven Samurai didn't require seven previous stand-alone movies before they all teamed up. Just make a good damn movie.

I haven't seen SS but Man of Steel and Wonder Woman were great, BvS and Justice League we're both good so I'm not understanding why they would stop?

I get that the movies are being rushed to play catch up with the marvel universe and it did hurt the movies, but they aren't terrible like most want to believe. Could they have been better, yes but they could have also been WAY worse.

I think they should not stop. They should try to make new good movies. They have a chance.

No I like their movies. If you don't then you don't have to watch them.

I guess mymain point is that following the Marvel Formula could have solved a lot of the problem with the DCEU. Yeah, the fact that it worked for Marvel is no guarantee that it would work for DC, but it just seems like following Marvel's lead on certain things could solve a lot of their problems.

Seven Samurai is a different movie. It's a character-driven movie that builds the relationships between the different people as they go. If DC wanted to do that for JL I think they could have, but it would have been a much different movie. I think that if you want to do a Superhero epic crammed with action you need to cut down on exposition (see: Avengers), and to cut down on exposition it helps to have previously established heroes that people already care about. Of course, I'm not against cutting down on the action and adding exposition either.

I didn't even like the Nolan Batman movies much, let alone the current DC movies.

Live action ones yea.

Animated no.

hire better writers and directors

That's it pretty much.

@TheShadowLord07: Zack Snyder is a damn good director, but he's being forced to play catch up with the marvel universe, no director could do that. With that said he's doing a good job overall with what's being thrown at him.

Nah, it's pretty funny. I know Marvel doesn't have much to compete with, but I wouldn't want them to think that they can become lazy. DC should reboot and/or get better staff like writers, directors, producers....

Eh, I think he's a middling director at best. Take a look at his filmography and, outside of the films everyone knows, there's a lot of average to bad stuff in there. Even on the ones he's well-known for it's more that he just has a particular style and can do that one thing very well (basically the 300 films). I think that really works against him on the DC films. Part of what makes Marvel directors so good is their willingness to go outside of what they know and shake things up (most of them previously directed romance films or comedies). Zack, on the other hand, always seems like he's following his own paint-by-numbers formula. That might even work for a DC film if he was just doing one film, but he's an executive producer on all the DC films, that's just a recipe for disaster. I'll say in his defense that, having such a singular style, you pretty much either like his style or don't and I don't, so I can see how criticism of him would be perceived as unfair by someone who does. Still, that's the problem with having a one-dimensional director is that his stuff is polarizing. You either take it or leave it, whereas Marvel has found a way to be broadly appealing to most everyone.

Considering the 1 year gap from Justice League to Aquaman, I suppose they spend their time rethinking of how to improve the series. WW was the only (in consensus) good movie in their series.

Well, like I was saying, just make a good movie. My point was that the people making the movies ought to know what they've got to work with. Whether they do indeed have a lot of characters fleshed out before-hand, or if they're putting the team together before audiences know the team members. Heck, Fellowship of the Ring had a whopping 9 members on the team, and it turned out fine. Maybe not the best example since the filmmakers were working off of a pre-existing novel, but the point still stands. They knew what they had to work with and they cranked out a damn fine team-based movie (that also had plenty of action) without having to flesh out all of the characters' back histories in prequels.

If there's a problem with the DC movies (and I don't know since I've only seen Wonder Woman), I suspect it runs a lot deeper than not following the Marvel Formula. The Marvel Formula might be a good template to follow, but I don't see it being in any way necessary for putting together a good action-packed team based movie. If audiences don't know the characters, then the writing should reflect that and have the team come together in a way that works. I mean, hell, that's what these people are getting paid for.

Anyway, while I think that Marvel has been mostly doing things fine, I also think that The Marvel movies sort of ARE becoming formulaic. Which, again, isn't a compliment. They're still not BAD, and they're mostly competent, but I'm honestly getting a bit sick of them. There's a very real chance that I'm going to tune out after the Infinity War stuff.

How many died, and how many were main characters? I don't think you can just point to any movie with multiple characters working together and call it a team-based movie, that ignores the fact that with superhero team-ups every character is as important as the next and every character's backstory matters. Nobody gives a crap about Legolas' backstory because Legolas is just there to shoot arrows and look sexy, and it works because fantasy tropes are well-established and shallow (he's an elf, that's what elves do). You throw a proto-terminator jetting around like Iron Man into a movie and people are like, "who is he, why is he helping the dude with a trident, am I supposed to know him? And by the way, who's the dude with the trident, and the streak of lightning? Did I miss a film or two?" I mean you can get away with it, but it requires that you spend more screen time building their backstory and the JL writers were already struggling trying to fit everything they wanted into the time they had. The DC movie has a problem, the Marvel Formula has a solution for that exact problem.

And I think that's really my overarcing point is that most of the problems with DC's movies can be solved by following the Marvel Formula. It's not that DC's problems run deeper than not following the Marvel Formula, it's that DC's problems, as deep as they run, can pretty much all be solved by following the Marvel Formula. I'd even go so far as to say that their biggest problem to date has been Zack Snyder's artistic direction, well the Marvel Formula solves that by not tying the artistic direction so heavily to one director. Another huge problem is studio interference, the Marvel Formula solves that by allowing directors creative freedom. Their problem is not that they're not doing exactly what Marvel did, their problem is that they're not looking to what Marvel's doing for inspiration on how to solve their problems.

You may be getting sick of Marvel movies, millions of people worldwide are not. Black Panther is setting box office records set by Titanic, and Infinity War is setting presale records. I really don't see how DC looks at that and says "nah, we've got our own thing going here." Plus I think formulaic is the wrong word to describe Marvel movies. They've shown a tremendous willingness to experiment with different genres like space opera, heist movie, Shakespearean drama, and spy thriller. To call that formulaic is, I think, pretty unfair. And by the way, I'm not suggesting they just make Marvel movies. Long Halloween is unlike anything Marvel's done to date, and that's what I think they should use to kickstart a reboot. They can still differentiate themselves in terms of style and execution. I'm just saying they should follow the underlying template.

How about EVERYONE stops making superhero movies and TV shows for awhile, I'm sick of them.

Sort of formulaic? Marvel movies are definitely formulaic.

Much of the problem is perception. Seems everyone thinks superhero movie means Marvel style. And I'm looking at critics with that as well. There is more room then one style movie in the world.

DC isn't making horrible movies though. Well Suicide Squad wasn't exactly fantastic but the rest of the movies aren't bad. But for instance let's look at one example of critical double standards. CGI. Movies do rely on it too much IMO. However, Justice League was demonized for it's CGI. Which is okay in and of itself. However Black Panther also had some terrible CGI but that didn't get much notice at all. Which it should have. Another double standard is in the plot/story. Critics bashed BvS for plot holes. But didn't mention the plot holes in Winter Soldier.

Also the Marvel formula is starting to fail. Thor Ragnarok was nothing but a joke fest. Which makes the movie fluff. Nothing against a joke here and there but there were NO serious moments in the movie even when they were needed. Everything was glossed over to get the next laugh. Marvel villains are also weak. Loki was the best to this point in time.

Now if you like Marvel that's fine. Movies are subjective. But I think it's this subjectivity that's being manipulated by critics. I go to both Marvel and DC movies. DC is darker which I like but Marvel is a good action romp but the movies do loose something on the next viewing because the jokes are expected. IMO of course.

I like the Marvel movies and I hope they continue for a long time at a high level.

Those who don't care for Marvel movies, well, don't watch them. I'm not impressed by the DC movies, Wonder Woman, DC's best movie, wasn't even as good as Logan or Guardians 2 that same year IMO. Still, it was decent and a nice start. The Batman Trilogy was nice to be fair, maybe it's just me, but I can't stand Bale's Batman voice.

I think Marvel's last film, Black Panther, was a great superhero movie in its own right, and not at all formulaic. Kudos to Marvel, I'm happy to hear there will be a 2nd Black Panther movie.

Keep 'em coming!

Again, I think calling them formulaic is completely off-base. How can you call something formulaic when they deliberately make an effort to change genres and freshen up approaches? I wholeheartedly agree about Ragnarok, but to call it formulaic is just ridiculous. If anything, they looked at the mythical drama formula they had been using in the previous two movies, decided it wasn't working, and decided to ditch the formula. I agree that some of these movies are becoming a joke-fest, and nothing epitomizes that more than Drax in Guardians. He took a movie that one-upped the original in most ways and almost single-handedly tanked it with all the poop and sex jokes. But trust me, Marvel sees this. Black Panther wasn't a jokefest, Infinity War doesn't look like a jokefest, and I doubt James Gunn is going to go back to a jokefest in Guardians 3. That's part of what makes Marvel work so well, when things aren't going exactly to plan they have a willingness to change course. They changed direction with Cap after first Avenger, with Thor after Dark World, and with Iron Man after 3. DC, though, just doubles down and says that people who don't like their films just don't "get" them. That is the absolute laziest response possible from a creator. Just like DC was poo-poohing Marvel in the comics realm back in the day when they had their finger on the pulse of the comic fandom, they're doing the same thing with movies instead of trying to adapt.

And I really don't think the Marvel formula is starting to fail. People consistently love their movies, reviews and sales are consistently high. Ragnarok, though it was one of my least favorite Marvel movies to date, received glowing reviews and sold plenty of tickets. Black Panther is in the same category as Titanic in terms of ticket sales. Infinity War is crushing pre-sale records. This is all happening because Marvel had a solid plan and it worked. Like I was saying to Geezer, this doesn't mean DC has to make Marvel movies. It doesn't mean they have to make jokefests, it doesn't mean their tone can't be different. What it means is that they should follow the same basic strategy for building a shared universe, and if they do that their movies are going to sell and they can quit grumbling about being misunderstood and give Marvel a serious run for their money.

I'm pretty miffed with Warner Brothers. If they just let Zack Snyder and Chris Terrio free to do as they pleased we'd have some of the most interesting super hero movies ever made.

Batman V Superman is, in my opinion, the strongest this genre has produced. Then WB went and absolutely murdered Justice league. That movie was a horrendous mess due to Studio meddling.

Zack's been posting a lot on Vero and the universe he had planned was going to be incredible. It's such a shame it'll never exist.

What I truly would love is for WB to allow Zack to release his version of Justice League and finish the universe he started. He planted so many seeds that won't come to fruition.

I really don't think the Marvel movies are that much better, and there's a lot more of them, I just don't even want to bother at this point I have no interest in keeping up.

@Pikminmaniac: I know that fans have been petioioning for a "Snyder Cut" of Justice Leage, but at this point I think Warner Bros is done--both with that movie and Snyder directing any more DC films. With the losses supposedly between $50 - $100 mil, they are not going to spend any more money it.

I'll give Marvel credit for having their movies be a little bit different and allowing for some of the directors' visions to come through. But we're not talking wildly unique experiences here. These are all pretty much just standard superhero movies. Many of them revolving around some plot to find some McGuffin, and sprinkled with battles against hordes of faceless henchmen. Seems mandatory to have the heroes fight each other at some point, and there's very little sense of risk since the characters that we like have to live for future installments. Again, I'll give credit where it's due but these movies are just coming off a bit "the same thing" to me. They're mostly fun superhero movies, but I haven't seen ANY of them that seemed like "damn fine filmmaking." Nothing that seems like something that people are going to be revisiting in 10 or 20 years. When the MCU first started, they still weren't great movies but they were a lot more impressive given the context of a time in which superhero movies were largely garbage. But the context has largely changed. We now live in a time in which "Marvel Quality" superhero movies is expected (and we also get several of them every year). I find it impossible for me to be impressed by them any more when they're all just coming off as "mostly competent." I think that Marvel sort of raised the bar for superhero movies to a certain level, then they stayed at that level for the entire run.

Also, sales have nothing to do with whether or not something is stagnating or becoming too formulaic. The riskiest movies are rarely the biggest money-makers because most people treat movies like disposable entertainment. McDonalds makes a shitload of money too, but it's not as if the McDonalds formula is the standard formula for making good food. It's consistent, you eat it, and then you forget about it. Similarly, Marvel movies (and superhero movies in general) are mostly still at the level of "fast food." That's fine, and there's nothing wrong with that. But let's not pretend that these movies are constantly reinventing cinema. They're still just disposable entertainment. A quick burger that's satisfying at the time but that you then forget about soon after. That's what I'm seeing. You may disagree, but I really doubt I'm that far off. I know lots of Marvel movie fans. And I'd be hard pressed to find many of them who have any need to go back and rewatch the earlier entries. Everyone's just waiting for the next installment. It's the big budget equivalent of a soap opera (or an ACTUAL comic book issue). And there's nothing wrong with that. But that's kind of what these movies ARE.

Can't say I really enjoy DC films but I think competition is still good. If the only thing DC is good for is to keep Marvel on their toes then they are useful enough. I hear that the newer ones are a bit better (Wonder Woman, Justice League) but I haven't bothered to watch them yet.

And I think that's a better criticism of Marvel than calling them formulaic. They're white bread, they're mass appeal. Marvel specifically tries to appeal to as many people as possible and succeeds.

I will say that I don't think any of them are cinematic masterpieces, but I think plenty of them are damn fine filmmaking depending on your definition. Winter Soldier and Black Panther stand out to me. If you consider something like Star Wars damn fine filmmaking, then I think Guardians is too. Guardians 2 would be, too, but again, Drax.

As to the McGuffin, every story relies on tropes. That a story uses tropes is not an indictment of the story itself. Alfred Hitchcock, who coined the term McGuffin, used them extensively in his films and he's one of the most celebrated filmmakers of all time. Further, I don't think they use a McGuffin that often. Going through them in my head, and I think this is subject to interpretation, I can think of five films that really utilize a McGuffin (Incredible Hulk, First Avenger, Avengers, Dark World, and Guardians). And, like I was alluding to before, I don't think not using a McGuffin would have made them better films.

So the claim was that Marvel movies were starting to fail, not that they were formulaic (at least the claim I was responding to in this specific instance). And I don't see any evidence that they're starting to fail. Yes, they're pretty standard fare and they're not doing anything horribly groundbreaking, but people just keep shelling out money to see them. To use your analogy, you're not going to walk into McDonald's and tell them they're going to fail unless they start serving porterhouse steaks, are you?

And you know what? If DC decides they want to make superhero movies more artsy I'm fine with that. I loved Nolan's take on Batman (well, the first two at least). Here's one problem, though, was that Nolan didn't want to make a series. They had to cajole him to make a third movie, and then they tried to get him to make more and he was just like "nope." When you have directors trying to make a more artsy film they're going to avoid universe-building for the same reason you're criticizing Marvel, because it tends to coalesce into something familiar and they want to do something different. Again, that's a problem the Marvel Formula has a solution for by bringing in different directors with myriad sensibilities instead of relying on one creative voice in Nolan or Snyder. Further, like I said, following the Marvel Formula does not mean making Marvel movies. Not once in what I described as the Marvel Formula did I mention a McGuffin. Not once did I say they have to be bland and appealing to everyone. Not once did I say they had to be jokefests. I just said that if DC wants to build a cinematic universe, which they seem to want to, they should follow the formula outlined above. They can do so and still address all your objections.

The only good film that they made for the DCEU is Wonder Woman and that's it. They need to take a break for a while and then start over once they figured out how to make proper DC films

In regards to "starting to fail", I agree. They're definitely not starting to fail at making shitloads of money. And if he meant that they're starting to fail at being good, I'd sort of disagree on that point too. I'd wager that for the most part they're still about as good as they've always been (if not a little bit better). I'm just starting to get sick of them because I don't see many if any of them doing anything differently enough to reinvigorate my interest in them.

That said, I'm definitely on board for the Infinity War movies. This is a big milestone, it's sort of the end point of this current run of superhero movies. I may not be overly impressed with any of the individual movies in the MCU, but the MCU as a whole was a really big gamble and there's nothing else like it in movies (at least that I'm aware of, on such a massive scale). I'm really interested in seeing how this long inter-connected project actually turns out. Skipping this would be like buying a massive run of a big comic book storyline, and then skipping out on the final issue. You've gone that far, might as well watch the "end".

Which brings me to another point...while I'm sure that these Marvel movies will never END as long as they're making big bucks, we're long overdue for some massive changes and this seems to be the best time to do it. For starters, in a practical sense we haven't just been watching the characters but the actors who we identify as the characters. Like, for movie audiences Robert Downey Jr IS Tony Stark. Chris Evans IS Captain America. They've defined the roles in cinematic form over multiple movies, and everyone knows they aren't going to be stuck doing those movies for the rest of their lives. Secondly, if the MCU is like a big comic book story line, then most comic book story lines tend to have a sense of CLOSURE even though the comic continues to go on. That's another thing I'm looking at, to see how they handle it. Is this actually going to provide a sense of closure and a jumping off point for people who have invested lots of time and money in the series and who have gotten sick of it? Is the post-Infinity War stuff going to be different enough to be its own thing? Or will it be a case of "f***a sense of closure" just to keep audiences watching after the Infinity War stuff is over? I'm hopeful that Infinity War is going to be a little bit different and shake some things up in a big way. Because if it's not gonna happen now, then I doubt it's gonna happen any time soon. And I'm not sure I'm interested in ANOTHER 15 movie series that all just feels so "the same" to me. Competent and mostly-enjoyable as these movies may be, there's only so long you can drag this stuff out before I get sick of it.

Anyway, I'm definitely on board until after the Infinity War stuff is over. After that, it remains to be seen if I'll call it quits. But what I can say is that while I've watched most of these movies, I've increasingly been watching them less because I really WANT to see them and more because I feel like I should see them before viewing the big finale. DC can do what they want, but the MCU for a while has been to me sort of a CHORE that I'm enduring in order to get to the big finish. I'm not sure that DC really SHOULD copy Marvel. Because then we'll have Marvel's post MCU output AND the DC version of it. All right after we got done seeing Marvel's first stab at such a long project. To me that seems freaking exhausting, and I'm already nearly burned out on this stuff.

I think they all need to take a break from superhero movies.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I want to go see Avengers 3 and 4, but I also miss the days when a comedy movie or a movie with a really unique premise made money at the box-office.

Sick of Hollywood in general. Want to see more small and ambitious indie movies hit the big screen. Super Troopers 2 was fun, we need more of that in this goddamn uptight, overdramatic world.

A very weak start to movies this year, I would only recommend....

Black Panther

Ready Player One

A Quiet Place

Red Sparrow

Can't be bothered watching any new DCEU films after BVS. The warehouse scene was fucking awesome though.

I think the entire DCU has been garbage up to this point and it would be merciful to end it and reboot it entirely. Unfortunately since WW was a hit it will drag on and continue it's wretched existence.

Unless they can match or beat the quality of The Dark Knight trilogy, they should definitely take a break (although Wonder Woman was a good movie)

GET BETTER DIRECTORS. I wanted vomit during JL. I hate the constant slow motion of Znyder. Kill it with fire. Honestly, TDK worked because it had a master director, the legend that is Nolan. Why the hell don't they continue hiring top notch directors? Why settle for trash?

That'd probably help, but I don't think that's the biggest problem either. Most of the MCU movies aren't directed by someone on Nolan's level either. But Kevin Feige has for the most part done a really good job of overseeing the MCU and acting as an upper level project manager. As I understand it, the DC universe simply doesn't have the equivalent. The whole cinematic universe is poorly managed.