If what Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes recently let fly during a conference call is true, I think we're about to see a deluge of superhero films on the horizon...
"We are going to have a fairly interesting set of announcements and presentations pretty soon like in a matter of weeks, I think, about our plans for DC," Bewkes said. "And basically if you look across the title of the whole band of hits whether its Batman, The Dark Knight, Green Lantern coming up, Superman, there have been a huge number of franchised films that have been part of the Warner [tent pole] strategy that's been the reason for Warner's unparallel high and consistent earnings advantage over the other studios and DC has already been a part of that and we are now going to outline an even more expansive plan for that in the coming months."
Let's not mince words: This means Superman. Despite Batman's monster box office success, I think few would argue that Superman is the most visible and recognizable superhero in the world. Superman Returns, while financially successful, was a creative disaster that ground to a halt any plans to expand the franchise. Attempts at another film, either a reboot or an imagining, have been on the backburner ever since, although rumors have never really stopped. In fact, Bewkes makes sure to mention Supes later on in the call...
“We look at Harry Potter. It’s fantastic to have franchises that last that long. We want to do that with Batman and Superman and perhaps Sherlock Holmes. The sequels are as good, with new characters added, as were the originals. That wasn’t the case in the years ago. Warners has more tentpoles as an on-going strategy taht very much lifts its distribution and performance. We think that’s going to hold up our slate in the 2009 - 2010 period. We’ve got four more big tentpoles coming this year.”
What was that? Seven Batmans? Seven Sherlock Holmes'? Que? On it's face, this isn't really that outlandish of a statement. Every studio head wants their movies to be so successful that they can spawn endless sequels. It's just unrealistic, due to (typically) dwindling profit margins, talent departures, creative differences, contract woes, etc. I think the main thing to take from these two statements from Bewkes, is that they're going to be looking beyond Batman and Superman, and probably digging deeper into the DC catalogue. We've already seen some of this with the Lobo project, and the upcoming Jonah Hex. I expect it's going to not only continue, but get a whole lot more crowded in the superhero film genre.
Thanks to Slashfilm and Superhero Hype for their coverage of this story.
