Batman vs Superman...oh, and everyone else, too

Today, Zach Snyder the director of the upcoming Batman vs Superman film (and every other DC film as far as anyone is aware) tweeted a picture of Jason Momoa as Aquaman. As everyone pretty much expected, he has donned the tradition bright orange jumpsuit with green underpants on the top, or rather that’s what i was hoping to see. Instead, I was greeted with a rather more appropriate looking Aquaman who is bearded and brooding. I shall include a link to Zach Synder’s tweet which has the picture attached below so you can Conan the Aquarian for yourself.

https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder/status/568650209581858817?s=09

Taking into consideration the time frame of the filming of the DC cinematic universe films, the posting of this picture would suggest that King Triton will be appearing in Batman vs Superman. This seems problematic given the number of other DC characters rumoured to also make an appearance in this film. The confirmed list (as far as im aware) of who will appear in this film is as follows: Batman, Superman, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Alfred Pennyworth, and Cyborg. All of those characters apart from Superman need to be introduced in a 2 hour period. It seems to be an impossible task. They will either play major roles and therefore have a poor introductions due to time restrictions or the majority will be cameos, which would make me question why they’d been forced in the film in the first place.

The picture of Poseidon was pretty much what I expected. Jason Momoa looks like the Aquaman I have been familiar with in DC comic for several years now. Essentially, this picture changes nothing of my feeling towards how he will play the character, just the way in which I think the Batman vs Superman film will play out. I truly hope it isn’t a case of having too many big fishes in a small pond.

Conor M.

The Best Comic Book Directors and How they Rank

With the resurgence of the superhero genre and comic book adaptations in general in the late 1990’s, there has also been an emergence of directors who seem to be specialists in this genre of film. This is a list acknowledging these perhaps lesser known film makers and seeing to what degree they are specialists.

Bryan Singer

Bryan Singer had already established himself as a great director in general when he provided films such as The Usual Suspects in the mid 90’s, but since his directing of X-Men in 2000 his name has become synonymous with comic book films. X-Men and X2 both led the way he way for how future comic book adaptations should be approached. Superman Returns...not so much, but then he won us all back with arguably his best comic book adaptation yet X-Men: Days of Future Past

Overall Rating: 8/10

Joss Whedon

This man has never been a stranger to comic books as he has had a successful and critically acclaimed run as the Astonishing X-Men’s lead writer, while also successfully adaption his TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a long running comic series. Whedon’s really moved into the public eye which his 2012 release of The Avengers, the first cinematic venture into a film with a vast number of superheroes, and boy did he pull it off, as I’m sure he will do with Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Overall Rating: 9/10

Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi is something of a veteran of the modern superhero film, because as early as 1990 Raimi had created his own superhero in Darkman and made the sort of brooding, dark adaptations we are used to seeing more recently. He then went on to make two of the most quintessential comic book adaptations in the form of Spiderman 1 & 2. He also did Spiderman 3 though...he loses points for that one.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Christopher Nolan

There is no possible way i could claim Chris Nolan is a strictly ‘comic book’ director, rather, he is one on the finest directors of the past 20 years. However, his Dark Knight trilogy is an example of a experienced film maker, making comic book adaptations that will not be seen as great comic book films, but great films in general, and in an arguably snobbish film era we live in, that takes some doing

Overall Rating: 9/10

Matthew Vaughn

Matthew Vaughn is different from almost everyone else on this list in that he is not well known for directing traditional comic book adaptations (bar X-men: First Class, which was excellent), but rather for directing more obscure comic books in the form of Kingsman and Kick-Ass. The two aforementioned films really complimented the directing style that I feel Vaughn is most comfortable with, and bring out the best of Mark Millars comics.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Conor M.

Cinema paving the way for TV?

Cinema has always been seen as a more prestigious format than television. You can see it how Academy Awards are seen as more important than the Emmy’s, in how film releases are donned with red carpet premieres, or simply in how Alfred Hitchcock famously refused to have any of his creative efforts go into television. But the days of Alfred Hitchcock in his prime are long gone, and now it seems that TV has taken on some of the traits of cinema and is consequently coming up in the world.

The ‘Cinematic Universe’ is something that has always been related to Cinema (obviously) in instances such as Star Wars and more recently Marvel. A Cinematic Universe created a continuous story within a fictional world that allowed moviegoers to become a part of. Now, from this description it would seem this concept of a cinematic universe is somewhat already the format television operates within, long form stories spanning across series. Right? Not quite. The format of TV never really had the layers that a cinematic universe had, the closest thing TV had previously had to a cinematic universe was spin offs. But, there was a disconnect with spin offs a lot of the time, and the spin off series, while related to the original series, was taken in isolation. What TV is now doing though is applying the cinematic universe format more effectively, perhaps most notably with The CW and what they have done with Arrow and The Flash, series’ on a single network interlocking in both story lines and characters to create a large entity.

That is a way in which Cinema has allowed Television to borrow a concept, however there are other instances where Cinema has made mistakes which TV has noted and is aptly avoiding, one of the main ones is the idea of the blockbuster. Cinema, with the growth of CGI and scope has lost its way slightly with storytelling. Films like Transformers dominate the box office, Transformers which is a film that is comprised of 70% CGI fighting robots, 30% irrelevant forced love story, and 0% real plot.  As the budget of Blockbusters continue to rise, in a lot of cases the quality of the films is decreasing due to narrative taking a back seat. Now, narrative, long form storytelling, and plot in general are all things that play neatly into Televisions hands. TV will always remain grounded because it will never get the income that films can from a £7 admission, and so, as of late, TV has taken this understanding of what is important and run with it, leading to some of the most critically acclaimed programmes ever to be shown on TV.

The final favour that cinema has done for TV is lend it its star power. There are more A list actors on TV now than there has ever conceivably been in the past. We have Kevin Spacey, Matthew Mcconaughey, Woody Harrelson, Lawrence Fishburne, Madds Mikkelsen etc. The list goes on. With the audiences that these names draw, the interest that compelling long form storytelling has, and the ideas that TV has taken from film, TV looks to not only keep growing as an industry but maybe one day put the Emmys at around the same level as the Oscars.

Conor M.

Could The Marvel Cinematic Universe Become The Greatest Movie Franchise?

It all started with a little film called Iron Man in 2008, a film that introduced us to a new and revamped Robert Downey Jr as he stole our hearts with his roguish bravado and hilarious one liners. We continued on through Phase One being introduced to Hulk, Thor and Captain America as well as a LOT of great supporting cast such as Black Widdow and Nick Fury. Marvel were playing a long game that none of us had ever seen before, instead of going straight to an Avengers movie, they patiently built up a cinematic universe that helped give wide exposure to their lesser known characters.

I remember believing that The Avengers wasn’t going to work, I mean, how could it? How could you find the right script that could give all these fantastic characters their due? I thought that it was going to descend into an ‘Iron Man and Friends’ movie with Marvel falling back on their most popular character for support. Imagine my surprise when Avengers became one of my favourite films of all time and the gold standard I hold comic book movies to, even to this day.

Marvel’s patient approach had worked; The Avengers was both a critical and commercial success, raking in over $1 Billion at box office. And as we near the end of Phase 2 and await Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel show no signs of fatigue as they rolled out sequels to Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. Not only are they giving us worthy sequels, Winter Soldier was phenomenal, but Marvel are also taking risks with Guardians of the Galaxy – a film that brought back the memories of all the fun I had with Avengers.

Marvel can do no wrong at the moment, I mean, when you release a film with a talking tree and it becomes the biggest movie of the summer, you know what you are doing. The question is, can they keep it up? Age of Ultron looks amazing, and I don’t expect anything less from Joss Whedon but what about Phase 3? We are being introduced to a lot of new, lesser-known characters such as Ant Man, Doctor Strange and the Inhumans.

Under the guidance of any other production company, I would worry about the fate of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it juggled so many vastly unique characters. But here’s the thing, I trust Kevin Feige. That guy could be the smartest guy in Hollywood, the way he is overseeing Marvel as it churns out successful movie after successful movie. I seriously believe that as long as Mr. Feige is in charge, Marvel Cinematic Universe will grow to become the greatest and most ambitious movie franchise that the business has seen as it defines a generations of movie goers to come.

Alex A.