Rumor: Warner Bros. Imposes "No Jokes" Rule On DC Comics Movies

Muscular men in spandex are serious business.

Just ask any NFL fan.

kuwisdelu said:

Muscular men in spandex are serious business.

Just ask any NFL fan.

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lol

Actually, I am not opposed to the "no jokes" policy. Personally, I really dislike humor in most productions, except when it's done well, which is rare. Most so-called jokes are embarrassingly unfunny. So yeah. Leave out the jokes by all means. But not the spandex

Celia Cyanide said:

Their animated movies are excellent.

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This is what bugs me. Their animated movies are fantastic. Why can't they do that with their live action films? I've been so frustrated with DC and they hold my fave superheroes.

Humor and drama. Such a great balance. *sigh*

The biggest takeaway SHOULD be that the story matters just as much as the talent, action and visuals. But I'm sure those in charge of DC properties will simply add talking animals, vegetation a quirky soundtrack or maybe double down on grimdarkserious and wonder why they can't have nice things.

The idea of a Wonder Woman movie without any sort of "lightness" bothers me.

Kweei said:

This is what bugs me. Their animated movies are fantastic. Why can't they do that with their live action films?

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They can't do it because their live action movies are expected to self contained and start with origin stories. The animated movies are usually based on actual graphic novels in which the characters already exist. The stories don't always have to be about becoming a superhero the villain becoming a villain. In the animated movies, the characters are already fully formed.

Diana Hignutt said:

There were certainly jokes in Nolan's Batman Trilogy (a couple of funny ones) and there were a couple in MOS (one was even mildly funny--"Well, here's it's an S")...so, this seems not genuine.

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No, but it does seem plausible.

DC/Warner has suffered from a serious case of stick-up-ass and green eyed jealousy at the success of Marvel Studios. They don't get how is it their two best-known properties, Spider-Man (Sony) and X-Men (20th Century Fox) could be out of their control and along comes a no-name, no-stars group of adventurers featuring a former fat actor, a wrestler, an actress best known for being supporting eye candy and a talking raccoon and tree which becomes the biggest damn movie of the summer.

Oh, and eclipsing both the latest Spider-Man and X-Men flicks along the way. Not too shabby for a film nobody saw coming as becoming the monster Guardians of the Galaxy is.

And it does so by not only being funny, but being fun. I don't care how much anyone likes the Nolan films or Man of Steel. They're serious as hell. Even The Dark Knight, the Joker's best "joke" is the gruesome Pencil Trick. After that, the funniest gag is when the Joker messes around with the detonator before he blows up the hospital and that scene was improvised by Heath Ledger.

Dark and gritty works for a dark and gritty hero like Batman, at least as long as Warner Brothers keeps mining the Frank Miller stories and nothing else, but for Superman it fails entirely because there was always a contrast drawn between the Man of Steel's bright and shiny Metropolis and the Dark Knight down-and-out Gotham City. Making Superman more like Batman diminishes Superman, it doesn't enhance him.

Warner and DC need to remember these are still comic books they are adapting and not everything has to be deadly serious to be taken seriously. That's the Number One takeaway from Guardians of the Galaxy them as much as anything else.

1. Superhero movies can be fun.

As fantasy authors Kameron Hurley and Harry J. Connolly observed, the success of Guardians of the Galaxy heralds "the sound of grimdark being over." Superhero movies have had to struggle to be taken seriously, and for a long time a lot of the best superhero films have eschewed any hint of lightness, for fear of seeming campy. (Obvious exception: the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films.) But Guardians proves that superhero adventures can be zany and fun, and have loads of humor, and still win out. Superheroes are basically about escapism, after all. You can even be kind of silly. We don't have to have endless shots of grayscale heroes brooding in the rain.

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Celia Cyanide said:

They can't do it because their live action movies are expected to self contained and start with origin stories. The animated movies are usually based on actual graphic novels in which the characters already exist. The stories don't always have to be about becoming a superhero the villain becoming a villain. In the animated movies, the characters are already fully formed.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that it's because DC doesn't take the animated movies seriously, so the crew has more freedom to be not quite so serious. Sort of a "when the cat is away, the mice will play," scenario.

robjvargas said:

I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that it's because DC doesn't take the animated movies seriously, so the crew has more freedom to be not quite so serious. Sort of a "when the cat is away, the mice will play," scenario.

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Then why do the Marvel animated movies suck so bad?

Celia Cyanide said:

Then why do the Marvel animated movies suck so bad?

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Their team plays Counterstrike instead of making a good cartoon?

DC may be re-evaluating their position.

http://www.newsarama.com/22036-shazam-will-have-a-sense-of-fun-and-a-sense-of-humor.html

Somehow, I don't think we'll be seeing Uncle Marvel or Mr. Tawny, though.