1. Comic Book Movies May Not Be the Way to Go
The comic book film world peaked with The Dark Knight. Warner Bros. was the fortunate studio that enjoyed the financial success of it, but it also bares the burden of having every subsequent comic book inspired film living in the shadow of it. Like a heroin addict trying to get back to that first high, Warner Bros. may try to duplicate the success of The Dark Knight, but are unlikely to do so, especially without Christopher Nolan's involvement. Similar to the aforementioned dating website profile, looking good on paper is not always enough. Sometimes it takes the hard realization that that profile may be a better match for someone else regardless how promising it looks. Even though they possess the film rights to much of the DC Universe, Warner Bros. should leave the team superhero films to the superhero movie studio. So if not comic book films, then what? Math has never been my strong suit, so I stick to very simple math problems; and I will employ that logic with my proposed solution: take the phrase 'comic book films' and just subtract the word 'comic.' Warner Bros. should instead focus its efforts for big budget tentpole movies on books. They have already enjoyed immense success from the Harry Potter films, and The Hunger Games again proved that films based on books - especially those for young adult readers - can be quite lucrative. With the popularity of the iPad people, including children, are reading a lot more. Books also offer the opportunities for studios to stretch stories far beyond a trilogy. Regardless of my thoughts, Warner Bros. will still make a Justice League film, and I'll be there at midnight on opening day to see it. I really hope it succeeds and that it is a fantastic movie. In full disclosure, I thought making an Avengers film was a bad idea at first, but I immensely enjoyed it. So just as a pre-Commissioner Gordon told Batman when he was taking out the trash in Batman Begins, "I've been wrong before."