Matthew Vaughn Wants to Direct The Avengers

why the hell does the superman charactor need reinventing?

Anyone can give any NEW character any powers they want to. But when it comes to existing characters it's very much up to whoever owns the character what is and is ot allowed.

Superman is, at the moment, in shared ownership and the estates / families of his two creators own all of his early characteristics but him being able to fly was one (of many, many, many increasingly boring) additions to his list of powers.

I'm not sure if this is a decent example, actually I know it isn't but it's a example of how weird it can all be.

Sony had the rights to the story Thunderball with al the characters therein, but mgm (broccoli) still had the wider James Bond rights so Sony remade Thunderball (it wasn't Sony at the time) as never say never again but couldn't make use of Bond in any other films.

I understand owning characters, but how do you own a power? anyone can write any character with the ability to fly if they acquired him/her/it, no?

Vic Holtreman
Hi Vic...

No it can't.
DC is owned by warners, technical speak ir is a subsidiary of Warners so it isn't going anywahere.

The estate / family of Siegel & Shuster (creators of Superman) have won back the rights to various parts of Superman, mostly from the first few weeks of the comic etc so Krpton, Krypton exploding him being found as a baby etc. Warners have kept the rest.

there's talk, surrounding an ongoing issue with the money owed from Superman Returns, which Warner won I believe.

In the trial Warners said that there was no Superman movie in production and consequently the earliest one could be in cinemas is 2012. So the court ruled that if a Superman movie isn't in production by 2012 then the siegeels and estate of Shuster can sue for damages; in other words for the money they would expect to make if they used their pieces of the Superman story to make a film.

There's a lot of grund to cover and IF, IF Warners / DC were to lose the rights it wouldn't be until around 2013 AND would probably require so many things to be poorly handled by Warners / DC as to remain highly unlikely.

Once again that is ONLY related to Superman and not either other DC charchters OR DC comics itself.

Here's a quote from the media release.

"The court ruled, for the most part, that the Siegels successfully recaptured most of the works at issue, including those first two weeks of daily Superman strips, as well as key sections of early Action Comics and Superman comics.This means the Siegels, repped by Warners' nemesis Marc Toberoff, now control depictions of Superman's origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lora, Superman as an infant, the launching of the baby Superman into space and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash.

But Warners/DC still owns other elements, including Superman's ability to fly, the term "kryptonite," the villain Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, and some of Superman's powers."

@Everton

Warner Bros. CAN lose DC if they don't get their butts in gear and start production on another movie SOON. The deadline escapes me, but it's not that far away.

Vic

You're confusing me again. To be honest I'm really not sure what you are talking about at all, and fail to see how I've said anythin that isn't common knowledge, and been clear where speculation / extrapolation has is being used. Also you seem to be confusing Marvel comics with DC ones. Superman is DC and has nothing to do with Marvel at all.

Warners can't lose Superman. Theyhave lost rights to some aspects of his character / backround to the creator's estate but that's a long way from losing Superman.

The Disney deal has nothing whatsoever to do with DC or Warne brothers. It is a deal between Disney and Marvel. So NO DC characters will have anything to do with it at all.

I have no idea when Nolan would film the next Batman film, although I remember reading that he would want to.

You can only adress what you believe will happen based on what you read / hear HAS been or IS happening. Warners were very clear on their intentions for the Justice league and the involvement of different actors for Batman & Superman. The only CHANGE to that that has been announced is the copying of Marvel's strategy of having the core team members appear in stand allone films BEFORE releasing the team movie. That's a statemnt of fact. What isn't clear iss if this new strategy means they WILL now TRY to have the same actors in the stand alone films (for example Bale's Batman, Routh's Superman {although Superman is alledgedly being rebooted AGAIN}. Reynold's Green Lantern and ???? Wonderwoman)OR if they are sticking to George Miller / Warner's original plan to have a cast complete;y seperate from those in stand alone movies. Which I say again SEVERAL people are / were oppossed to. The last news on the director and direction of the film was earlier this year and it is from that news, as well as an absence of any further news that we know Miller is still attached t the movie and that DC are following Marvel's blueprint of stand alone movies followed by a team movie. As stated though we don't know if that means the actors in the stand alones will play the characters in the team movie, as in the Marvel movies; OR if the original idea of having different actors will continue.

Given that the only DC characters that your average customer cares about are Batman, Superman and to a much lesser degree Wonder Woman the odds of any of those not being in a Justice league movie are pretty remote, and even more so given What we know about them using Marvel's bluepint.

But it seems to me your allowing the past rather than present or future situations govern your reasoning. Your aware as I am that WB/DC could lose Superman. That's been discussed here. Then there's the issue that Nolan could want to do a 3RD Batman movie sooner than you expect. That rumor is already public too. Their's no indication that Nolan would want or need to go beyond 3 movies. Finally Batman doesn't have to be out front in a Justice league movie. The movie line-up your arguing could easily change, especially if the Disney/Marvel deal goes through.

You make it sound like you know about contracts and projects that are already signed and in motion beyond what's been publicly announced. I'm sure everybody would be interested in you elaboration on that...

Anxiously awaiting your breaking news.

@ TheOldMan

Hi again.

No I'm not making assumptions, this is all there from when Warners actually went into pre-production on a Justice League movie that only stalled because of the Writers' strike. They had a director (Geroge Miller) and a full cast, the most famous of which was Common as Green Lantern). They also annoyed Nolan to such a degree that there was doubt as to whether he was ging to walk from his new series of Batman movies (rumours).

Post the writer's strike Dc have (again) decided to copy Marvel and have 4 solo movies before doing a J League movie. This throws up all sorts of questions though as the Green Lantern movie stars Ryan Reynolds which suggests that He would be the J league lantern thus stopping Dc from having one of their tiny number of non white characters (the John Stewart Lantern) from being in the team movie. It also suggests that the solo Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman and (new) Superman movies will now have their actors in the J League movie, which again is something that Nolan and (I think) Bale have said they are not happy with.

As to Superman, he's a DC character and ALL of their characters belong to Warner Bros, who own DC comics.

Disney are tryiing to buy Marvel. Marvel are by far the more successful comic book business but many of their most famous characters have their movie rights owned / leased to different film stuios. Fox has the X-Men and Daredevil; Sony have Spider-man and the Ghost Rider.

Everton you're possibly making some premature assumptions.
First of all a "Justice League" movie doesn't have to be made before Nolan/Bale puts a capstone on his version of the franchise. Secondly Batman doesn't have to be that involved in a first "Justice League" movie, unless DC/WB insists on an origin movie. In fact, it would probably be nice to have him more in the background, if only a year or two separates a 3RD Batman film from "Justice League."


If it was my choice It would all depend on where Superman goes at this point. If he goes to Disney then make the movie about how the Justice League moves on without him. If he stays then focus a little more on him but still make the real story about the other characters. It wouldn't please everybody, however it would put a Justice League movie in the can. As long as it's profitable and entertaining it doesn't have to be the acme of the DC universe. Even if Disney ends up with Superman, nothing is stopping them from licensing him back out to WB. Making the movie would overcome one or two big hurdles. No one could say it couldn't be done or that it wouldn't be profitable. A proven property, even a weak one, is better in the eyes of the studio than an unproven one. We've all seen time and again that pattern of studio behavior.


Here's an impossible but interesting proposition. What if WB were to offer Disney licensing opportunity to its characters?
Let Disney make a Justice League movie! It spreads the risk, puts more talent to the problems and lets Warner focus on other properties for awhile.

You know it wouldn't surprise me if neither studio ended up owning Superman. Why not just license him for particular projects? It's a long term strategy that could pay off down the road. Let Universal get a crack at him or better yet let Fox make a movie. When they get done making a mess out of things WB can come back in and pick him up for cheap...

UWE BOLL!!

How could we forget the master?

Actually I'm waiting for his remake of The Dark Knight.

Uwe boll must direct the movie based on the videogame based on this movie.

You come back to the old problem of Marvel not owning the movie rights to many of its characters. Blade is New Line, which means Warner Brothers now have the rights; Ghost Rider is with Sony.

Of course I don't know if this new $4b takeover by Disney includes a hefty buyback of some of the characters though? Hard to see how when Sony are in pre production on a new Spider-man trilogy and Fox have started work on Wolverine II, Deadpool, young X-Men and Magneto.

I still think it's fine to have Wolverine in X-Men movies as a 12a (PG13) movie Character, but one of the advantages of making a stand alone Wolverine movie, has to be the same as writing stand alonne Wolverine comics. He can cut loose and be 100% badass, 100% beserker rage etc. A 15 / 18 (R) rated ~Wolverine could go much deeper into many aspects of Logan's life and yes violence. Blade i another film that Tarantino could probably do a job on, especially getting a fuller perspective on the Vampire's point of view. but Blade shouldn't mix with the other Marvel Characters (except maybe Ghost Rider where again the rights are with two different companies) because it shatters the "it's the real world except.." illusion that pretty much all of the other Marvel charater movies have built.

Let's just hope that Iron man II, Captain America and Thor all work because The Avengers can't come quickly enough for me.

And I also agree that a smaller/lesser character would better.

Tarantino should direct a Marvel Knight's movie, Blade, Punisher and Ghost Rider. That would be right up his alley.

One of the biggest problems with a Justice league movie (other than that The Avengers are beeter) is that you can't really have Batman in it. Having two different Batman films at the same time just wouldn't really work, and having Bale's Batman in it also wouldn't work, as it would ruin the "real world" efforts of the last two Batman films.

@ the old man

Like the boogeyman or Yeti? He would definitely be larger than life to the other leaguers..The all powerful star quarterback for the team..if he came on board..

Perhaps some thought should be given to the idea that Superman is mythic even in the minds of the other Justice League members. We don't need another Superman picture. We need Superman contributions to the other character's stories. If Superman is rarely seen then perception of his actions can be controversial without betraying his character. Does that make any sense? We don't need another Superman movie before a Justice League movie.

I like this idea. Thanks for the post, Rob. I'd like to see McTeigue's take on Superman. Vaughn doesn't seem bad tho. He may be right for Avengers. :)

The reason I suggested it is because that particular storyline is very tarantinoesque. A lot of the imagery and the style are similar to both Tarantino's imfamous conversation scenes AND his "hyper-violent" style. He's actually possibly the best equipped to translate the story that is beind adapted to the big screen. There's also a feeling, around the Wolverine fanbase, that after four 12A (pg-13) Wolverine performances it's time to allow the movie audience to see the Wolverine that appears in the stand alone Logan stories, as opposed to the X-Men titles.

I don't think it'll happen in a million years, but outside of Singer coming back to the X films I genuinely think Tarantino suits the story being written for Wolverine 2.

As for Superman Returns (beautifully shot, poorly written) It actually shows that you can be too close to something and that the person who loves something the most isn't neccessarily the best choice to direct it. It wasn't Singer's stamp on that film that killed it it was Richard Donner's. Singer was so in love with Donner's Superman 1 that he basically remade it, almost scene for scene. The problem was that the humour was missing, we'd seen it before, in the original movie and there were some mind meltingly awful ideas in there. How on Earth does Superman fly an Island made out of Kryptonite into space?

300 & Sin City work very well as almost direct translations of the books onto film. there aren't a lot of Superhero comics that that can work with though. X-Men had to change into a movieuniverse x-Men to work, the Spandex etc just wouldn't work, whereas in Spider-man the skintight costumes work.

dude this comicbook thing is a whole essay in waiting! We could be here all night!

@Everton

Can't agree with the T-meister directing Wolverine in Japan I'm afraid. Tarantino's very good at what he does but for me it's not superhero movie material. His style is too idiosynchratic, comic-book adaptations should be translated onto the screen as intact as possible (300 backs me on that one) not twisted by a director's influence (I'll cite Superman Returns here).

Having said all that though, a Tarantino Punisher? I'd watch it! :D

@ Jordi

Now that is a pretty good idea. They really can't make a 4th Punisher vs the mob film.

As for Vaughan Those not convinced by Layer cake and Stardust (which reached number 13 in the Sci-fi channel UK's all time best fantasy films list) will, apparently, be blown away by Kick Ass! It's a good read, so we shall see.

Despite my faith in Vaughan's abilty to handle a film like this I still believe that one of the four "solo Avenger" films should get The Avengers. That's favreau: Iron Man (who I recall saying he'd produce but not direct, Leterrier: Incredible Hulk (who really wants to), Branagh: Thor (can definately handle inimate character moments and has shown flashes of action prowess. A real wild card here)and Johnston: Captain America. (I think he's a decent choice for a WWII set Cap Movie but I think The Avengers needs more flair than I've seen from him. It also seems likely that Avengers will need to be in pre-production when Cap is likely to still be in Post-production.)

One more thing, with Tarantino back on form does anyone fancy letting him direct an R rated Wolverine in Japan movie? We already know the story should be class with McQuarrie writing a screenplay based on Frank Miller and Chris Claremont's Wolverine comic books.

Give him "Howard The Duck" to direct!

@ Everton Carter

I totally agree with you that the Avengers director should be someone who also directed one of the standalone Marvel movies. I just hope it'll be the director who best captures the feel and flavour of the comics as opposed to the highest grossing film...

At the minute I would have to give that accolade to Favreau.

Also agree with your assessment of the Punisher as an 80s movie throwback (not that it's a fatal flaw as I still like them anyway) and would like to see it more grounded in the Marvel universe. Have Castle take on some super-villain using cunning, determination and (naturally) flying lead. That would at least deviate from the last 3 Punisher movies which each followed the same plot.

@the old man

I agree with your plan to give Vaughn a 'lesser' piece to direct before tackling a bigger project. It really is a win-win for him if he's as good as he says. If he can turn one of the comic-world's b-list heroes into movie gold then he definitely earns the right to play with comic-worlds golden heroes.

@ The old man. Unimportant eh? Well it's important in terms of Marvel giving Vaughan something "smaller" to work with, as to do so they'd really have to be Marvel films. I do get what you mean though. Honestly though I have faith that Vaughan could pull it off, based on his producing and directing record, however I stand by my gut feeling that the Avengers is most likely to be best served by a director of one of the solo Avenger projects. Well, that or James "add $100m to the budget" Cameron.

On Vaughan's other point, someone needs to breathe new life into Superman. Oddly enough, having stated above that The Punisher is inherently un-cinematic I feel that Superman is purely cinematic. As an impossibly God-Like superhero with myriad contrivances concocted to make him seem interesting and con people into believing he has any worthy foes. His one interesting trait is that his disguise is a pretence at normality as opposed to a disguise being a costume as with other superheroes. Of course I am aware that many, many people don't share my apathy to the man of steel and I readily admit that Batman aside I've always felt Marvel to be far superior to DC.

@ Everton Carter; Interesting points but ultimately unimportant. What's important is if Vaughn is to be given a chance it shouldn't be by handing him one of the two hottest comic book properties Carte Blanche. I'd say if he really deserves doing "Avengers" then lets see him work a behind the eight ball property, mine were just examples, and produce a profitable movie.

Better yet, if he could work in some responsible capacity on the "Ant Man" movie, say direct, that could tell us whether he understands, on fundamental levels, how to handle high profile team dynamics. That's going to be in any "Avenger's" movie. Let's see how he handles it in the real world.
Besides Wright is a co-producer on "Ant Man" and Avi
Arad is executive producing so its not like Vaughn's work couldn't be measured.

I think Ant Man isn't being considered as part of the "Avengers Project". It's definately a straight line through Iron Man II (Which is still hoping to have Norton's Bruce Banner in believe) Thor, Captain America and then The Avengers.

I think even if Marvrl do decide to make some other films in between, like Nick Fury, Black Widow or Ant Man they'll be bonus movies rather than must be made ones. The Avenger iniative is the big aim here.

As for the Marvel characters ruined by Fox and Sony (Daredevil (not good enough but I've seen worse) Ghost Rider (50 year old Rider?), I don't think Marvel have been able to get the rights back, like the did with Hulk from Universal, so any hope of better versions of those films.

As for The Punisher, I actually didn't mind the Thomas Jayne version, but there's a reason why there have been 3 film versions and none have really worked. Punisher is about the least worthy comic book in existance for movifying. Once you get past the pathos of jis family getting killed it's just 80#s style , straight to video killing. You make it interesting by adding some detective work, infiltration etc and it stops being a Punisher movie.

Well if Edgar Wright is still doing "Ant
Man" then he's already got one film in
post and two other films on his plate.
That's beside "Ant Man," which is listed
in production still. Does this man have
enough talent to go around? Maybe Wright
should look to team up with someone other
than S.Pegg? Could that person be Vaughn?
Now that would be a challenge on so many
levels!

Paul,
Ant Man is delayed but it is still going to be made.
the director wants to do something else first.

We should not worry about a director until we see the next 3 films. What is the status on Ant-Man is that on hold or completely over?

Cheers Rob.

It's like you say, we're not sure who's going to be the best fit. It could be who is best at controling a massive, multi layered story, without just giving in to the action. Let's just hope they write a big enough story to give the 4 main heroes and the supports some juicy scenes.

This isn't a wish, but I bet you'd get short odds on Michael Bay! I hope not, but It wouldn't surprise me.