Warner Bros. CEO Calls DC Movies "Edgier" Than Marvel's
The battle between Marvel and DC rages on. Many fans have been strong supporters of whatever company produced the comics they grew up reading, and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was certainly successful enough for DC fans to hold their heads high as Marvel continued its meteoric rise. But now that Zack Snyder has launched a DC Cinematic Universe with Man of Steel, it still remains to be seen how Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and its sequels are going to fare against Marvel's epic upcoming schedule. Now new shots have been fired by Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara.
The executive spoke at a telecom conference today (via Variety) and here's some of what he had to say:
“The worlds of DC are very different. They’re steeped in realism, and they’re a little bit edgier than Marvel’s movies.”
Some fans might call that a slap in the face to darker films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron (which looks pretty grim), but it's true that Batman is inherently a darker character than most of the people in the Marvel stable, and Snyder's Superman obviously isn't afraid to kill his enemies if the situation calls for it, so I suppose he has a point (so far, anyway). He also said:
“The key thing is that the movies and the television shows and the games, everything looks very different …you have to be able to take advantage of the diversity of these characters."
With WB's approach to television, it's clear that they're embracing those differences. They're keeping Arrow and The Flash separate from their big-screen worlds, and they have Gotham running alongside a developing Batman movie (and since Gotham is an origin story, don't expect any of those actors to pop up elsewhere). It's a different method than Marvel, but I'm actually glad they're branching out and trying to do things slightly differently because it would be really boring if every company approached their superhero properties in exactly the same way. Now at least we can sit back and judge it all and see which way we like this content delivered to us.