Is this why he droped off the Wonder Woman project?

He didn't drop off the Wonder Woman film. DC let him go to move in another direction.

i think it was Joel Silver more than anything that gave him the boot

I really bloody hope they get Wonder Woman ilm off the ground. I'm so mad we have a lot of male superhero movies, but not one single female lead superhero film.

i know Catwomen doesn't really count.... but at the same time you can't say "not one single"

Also, Elektra.

true. she shouldn't count either, but she does.

Okay, how about this?

There isn't a single GOOD female superhero film.

And invisible planes dont suck...

They do if you have to use the bathroom.

that's not really the point though.

broomstick was vocalizing a complaint that there are no female leads, not that there were no GOOD female leads.

and even if wonder women get's made, there is no guarantee that it will be good.

is there a GOOD female superhero? i can't think of one that's not on a team

Your mileage may varie, but...
Rogue?
Storm?
2 examples, straight off the top of my skull

it's 'vary' not 'varie' and i said one that's NOT on a team. rogue and storm are both on the SAME team...the only female superhero that rolls solo in an ongoing title and has done so for a long time is wonder woman, and she's a bit pants

I'm gonna guess spinoff characters count, but Batgirl and Spider-Girl had their own series. I don't know if they've been canceled since then.

i know. lol, i rest my case on the GOOD part ;)

Everyone is going to think it is hard to translate DC heroes to the big screen until someone successfully does it. Then in retrospect it will probably seem like it was all too obvious. I'm a comics reader on both sides of the fence, but it doesn't do justice to DC's writers of today to say that the characters are out of touch. If they were, people wouldn't read the comics, let alone see the films. Yes, there are dated concepts, and yes, invisible planes are stupid, but the reason that DC heroes don't translate well to the screen isn't because the material isn't there, it's because no one has made the movies yet!

i actually like the Gods of DC. something mythical as escapism is more my thing. DC movies usually suck?? i'm sorry, but what is that based on exactly. this compares to Marvel's stock pile of brilliant movies right? Being based in reality obviously makes a good movie. right daredevil? right punisher? Superman has already been proven to make good movies. GL sounds like it's gonna be great. this quote sucks. all these characters can make a good movie.

but yeah wonder woman's plane is kinda dumb. but jeez peter it isn't like that'd have to be in the movie. it's not like it's in the comics that often.

Those aren't the reasons why DC movies failed. They failed because the writers and directors suck. I love Joss but he's taking the easy fanboy excuse route instead of looking at the big picture: the filmmakers suck. Superman is practically a god, but that doesn't mean there isn't an interesting, gripping and intriguing story there. We all seem to be forgetting how incredible the first Superman movie is. And why wouldn't it? Look at the talent involved: Donner, Puzo, Reeve, Hackman, Brando...hell they even got a Mankiewicz involved. And who says you can't relate to someone that's detached from humanity? There's countless films about outsiders that contain loads of space for empathy. Just because someone is invulnerable doesn't make them unrelatable. That's actually a very skin-deep way of looking at things and I'm a little shocked that Whedon is playing this card. I thought he'd be a little more in-the-know when it came to comic books.

i love Peter hiding behind the "DC fanboys will be angry!!" when it takes a normal person to see how this quote doesn't really work at all.

I'm both a DC fanboy and a Marvel fanboy....but I enjoy Marvel comics better. Though I did like All-Star Superman and some of Geoff Johns' stuff.

Yes! All-Star Supes is the best.

good theory, here's my guess to complement his...

People around my age (early - mid 20s) and younger, have just been exposed more to the Marvel brand of characters and to Batman.

Growing up, I watched Spiderman, Xmen, and Batman. From watching the spiderman cartoon as a kid, I learned who other Marvel heroes were like Punisher. Fantastic Four also had a decent run, as did Iron Man when I was young.

I can barely remember Superman as an animated series, and NEVER watched Green Lantern.

I think the general public of this age just has more exposure to Marvel heroes, and Batman in general.

please post a reply if this is the case with you also, cause it was definitely my experience growing up.

Aww, but the Bruce Timm animated series rules. In fact, every Bruce Timm series rules.

Yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from. All of my friends are Marvel fans. I could never get into those Marvel shows as a kid because I hated the animation and have grown up with bad taste in my mouth for those characters. I loved watching Max Fleischer's Superman as a kid in the 90's, on late night Cartoon Network, and the Batman animated series. I also had a fondness for the Super Friends, dare I say it.
So I just recently got into the books for DC, and am also reading stuff from Marvel. But I'm sure I'm always going to prefer DC, lol.
And I just absolutely LOVE Justice League, Teen Titans and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Maybe that'll make more DC fans out of this new generation. hehehe. =)

yeah dark wing duck is awesome

but yeah all i remember is marvel and batman although that lois and clark show was pretty awesome

My experience was more or less similar, though i did see reruns of Wonder Woman, and Fleisher Superman toons.

And of course, exposure does count.

I'm glad to see that Joss is saying something respectable. Ever since Buffy and Angel were canceled I was under the assumption he had nothing valid left in his head.

But on the subject of the actual quote, I've always been a bigger fan of Marvel, and I used to always coin it to having better character interaction. I guess Joss's quote is another way of look at the same point. Of course, they're both very good and both make mistakes. And any time there's a blanket topic about Marvel I always want to add some sort of quip about how much I hate Punisher, but I don't want to start an argument about it, seeing as I've argued about it so much already I know that what I have to say is purely opinion based and could not sway anyone.

So, good quote Joss. Just another thing in my life reminding me to watch my Angel DVDs again.

forget watching the watchmen-Boring as bat shit.

good solid logic.

couldn't you also argue though, that if it WASN'T hard, someone would have already done it?

I think getting any film made is incredibly hard. I couldn't have less knowledge of how Marvel and DC go about handling their films, but perhaps DC is a little more stingy with their properties and haven't really taken the chances they should have. Obviously it paid off with Batman to let Christopher Nolan have so much control. Why Mark Millar isn't in charge of Superman yet is a mystery to me.

yeap. lets just hope they find some way to refresh the Man of Steel and make him more affable.

i'm sick of the "uncomfortable in my skin, only one of my kind" back story.

Agreed.

Actually, one of the reasons DC films tend not to be so good is because it is not DC who controls what happens with their IPs, but Warner Bros. Since Warner owns DC they do with their character whatever they please and whatever they think is going to make them a fortune, most of the time ignoring the character actual canon. I think an exception to this is Chris Nolan, because Warner has given such freedom to him and his team and Nolan in return has respected the Batman canon to a certain extend, which results in the quality films that we've been getting from Nolan.

Joss has had one show that was canceled. Angel and Buffy aired for a combined 12 seasons. Granted, I DO love Firefly and I hate that it was canceled, but that hardly means that it normally happens to him.

Angel was cancelled twice though.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was canceled by The WB and picked up by Paramount and put on UPN. And "Angel" was too.
I love Joss Whedon, but his shows do get canceled an awful lot. Despite being critical successes...

The were both canceled, even though they had a long run. Which makes me criticize the statement that "all his shows were canceled" because...isn't that true of any show that isn't on anymore? Aren't you just saying that he can't make shows that....are still on? Not as strong of an argument.

This is utter baloney. For starters, I don't know what DC movies he's referring to. There's been incredibly successful Batman films and a somewhat successful Superman film (it brought it revenue. It was not a flop, it just performed less than expected. It also cost a lot because there was a 50 million pricetag before SInger even touched it). Other than that, there haven't really BEEN any DC comic movies that have come out, so who the hell can judge if they work well on screen?! And don't tell me Marvel Comics are based on 'realism.' As someone pointed out, it's ridiculous. Thor is a God, Hulk is a beast, the X-men are mutants. They all stand for something, are symbols for something greater, but so are Superman and the DC crew.
The problem is people see the DC world as dated because it's been around longer, and everybody still thinks it's stuck in the Christopher Reeve era (For Superman Returns... Partly true). But modern versions of these characters will transfer perfectly to the big screen. Wonder Woman doesn't really have an invisible plane anymore, and Superman isn't quite the boy scout he used to be. Warner brothers just needs to get their stuff together and make these heroes come to life. Hopefully Watchmen performs well so they'll really get going. But who wouldn't want to see a sexy woman play Wonder Woman or Superman fight Darkseid when Earth is at stake? Yeah, it's fantastic, but it isn't 'unrelateable.'

To sum up the characterizations of the Marvel/DC debate, I suggest everyone watch the "Marvel vs. DC After Hours" on youtube.
"Why aspire to Superman when it's so much easier to relate to Spiderman? Nobody wants to look up to you, Superman. They don't want to strain their necks."
-Lex Luthor, "After Hours"

I absolutely LOVED Marvel vs. DC After Hours. What a great quote that he said. The creator of that series understands all those characters so well!

That was an awesome quote, I'll have to check that out.

Joss Whedon has always been more of a Marvel guy, but nothing he said is really anti-DC. Hedoes have a point though. I'm more of a DC guy than a Marvel guy, always have been, but I can concede that more of Marvel's characters work better on film for the reasons he states. Having said that, DC has taken a page from the "Marvel Method" of writing comics for nearly 30 years now, if not more. Those same humanizing aspects that DC brought to their pantheon in the comics can be brought on screen. Superman: The Movie got it right 30 years ago..,make Superman's "Godhood" and the weight of his mission his flaw. Same with Wonder Woman (and anyone who says WW can't work as a movie, just watch the new animated film. It's the template for what a live action Wondy movie should be. And yes, the invisible jet is in it) Green Lantern and Flash are ordinary people who get gifted with amazing powers. They aren't Gods either. As far as I'm concerned, the other 3 members of DC's "Big 5" can easily have movies as good as the first 2 Spidery and X-Men flicks or Iron Man. Warners just needs to go ahead and actually MAKE THEM.

I understand what he means concerning DC characters being God-like and fantastical...but I don't understand how that can't possibly translate to a good movie. I started really reading comic books last summer, and I just feel that the stories that are from DC are far more compelling and have more...grandeur and a much more compelling legacy (Wikipedia helped me out in that area), I suppose, to them. Marvel never had as much appeal to me. I enjoy the characters to some degree, but the stories that I've been presented with never fascinated me. A lot of the spider-man comics I've read just play out like a soap opera sometimes.
I love how the animated movies are working out though. Like Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm, Superman: Doomsday and The New Frontier. They seem to be very faithful to the comics they're based on and are actually very good.
I think it's possible to make DC movies work out well. I'd like more focus on plot and story than maybe the character and his origins. I just jumped into a random comic book for Teen Titans once, did not understand all the characters they were referring to, but grew to understand the basic idea of them, and who they are, and I thought that it was a great story! Maybe if a movie tried to focus on a story from the comics, didn't try to mold the story AROUND the character...it could be good? (Just throwing ideas out there, don't stone me)

yeah. all this sounds good.

its just too bad the next superman is going to be a reboot. i'm sick of re hearing stories I already know. being able to jump into a comic world from the start keeps you on the edge of your seat.

rehearing origin stories over and over and over tends to bring the entertainment level down a notch.

To me, it's just a stereotype because Superman and Wonder Woman are powerful right? What about Thor and Ghost Rider? I think Marvel knows how to market their characters better, but they are on par with DC.

And Ghost Rider is one of my top three worst movies.

I think that concern was valid a few years ago, but I think the two companies have had a major shift recently. I look at Marvel, where they've created characters like Red Hulk and had events like Secret Invasion, where Aliens have replaced us all, and Spider-man has sacrificed years of his life by making a deal with the demon Mephisto, and then I look at DC, where we are seeing the death of gods, the big, powerful characters, and comics like JSA where they've injected characters into Hurricane Katrina and Racial Riots in history. Green Lantern is a human character, and we can connect with him, as he's had plenty of problems, overcoming fear, loss, and his own sibling abandonement. Superman has had to accept the fact that he's caring for people despite having no real relation to them. Green Arrow is human, he's had to deal with building himself from nothing, betrayal, etc. There is plenty of humanity to these characters, the real problem is that WB hasn't portrayed them well on film.

Pfff, I'd love to do a proper Superman movie and I honestly think it'll be awesome. The original Superman was fantastic despite Supes being invincible.

VARIETY HEADLINES: WHOSE WATCHING THE WATCHMEN-NOBODY.

This proves your not a comic guru then. Wonder Woman doesn't even fly the damn plane anymore, she flies upon her own will. DC has altered a lot of their mythologies to fine tune it to modern times. I still think a lot of DC properties would do excellent if given the proper attention they deserve. IE Christopher "The MOFO" Nolan.