Batman (Fictional Character)

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares99 Views

    Arleen Sorkin, Soap Opera Star With a Claim to Batman Fame, Dies at 67

    by

    Her “Days of Our Lives” character provided a rare burst of daytime-drama comedy. She was later the voice of Harley Quinn, the Joker’s henchwoman.Arleen Sorkin, an actress and comedian who created memorable characters in two decidedly different universes — the soap opera one of “Days of Our Lives” and the crime-fighting one of Batman, where her Harley Quinn became a fan favorite after she first gave her a voice in 1992 on “Batman: The Animated Series” — died on Aug. 24 in Los Angeles. She was 67.Her husband, the producer and writer Christopher Lloyd, said the cause was pneumonia coupled with multiple sclerosis, which she had dealt with for many years.Early in her career Ms. Sorkin was best known as part of a female comedy troupe called the High-Heeled Women, which formed in 1978 and performed all over the country, mixing jokes and comic songs. One number in their repertory was a rap called “For White Girls Who Have Considered Analysis When Electrolysis Is Enuf,” a riff on the Ntozake Shange play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”By some accounts, Lilly Tartikoff, the wife of the NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, saw Ms. Sorkin in a High-Heeled Women show and told her husband to look into signing her. In any case, in 1984 Ms. Sorkin made her debut on “Days of Our Lives,” the long-running NBC soap, as Calliope Jones (later Calliope Jones Bradford), an offbeat fashion designer who brought a rare burst of humor to the often overly earnest world of daytime drama.In an oral history recorded in 2006 for the Television Academy, Ken Corday, one of the show’s producers, said that the character was inspired by the stage persona of the singer Cyndi Lauper. In her audition, Ms. Sorkin nailed the character’s kookiness.“It was one of those things where we don’t need to read any more, we don’t need a screen test; she’s got the role,” Mr. Corday said.Calliope quickly established herself as the quirkiest thing in Soap Land.Ms. Sorkin as the outlandish fashion designer Calliope Jones Bradford in a 1986 episode of “Days of Our Lives.” “What I lack in talent,” she said, “I make up for in accessories.”Joseph Del Valle/NBCUniversal, via Getty Images“The sacrosanct dramatic aura of daytime soaps has never tolerated a giggle, much less a full-out belly laugh, in plots dealing with drug abuse, child molestation, abortion, murder, wife-swapping and worse,” Vernon Scott, who covered Hollywood for United Press International, wrote in 1985. “Then along comes Calliope Jones, a ding-a-ling character in ‘Days of Our Lives,’ who actually pokes fun at soap operas themselves. This revolutionary development is akin to electing Eddie Murphy to the Politburo or appointing Johnny Carson to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”Viewers loved it; the fan mail began pouring in. The producers let Ms. Sorkin ad-lib some of her lines, adding a spontaneity to the usually glum proceedings. Calliope’s outlandish wardrobe augmented the comedy.“What I lack in talent, I make up for in accessories,” Ms. Sorkin told Mr. Scott.Ms. Sorkin appeared in more than 400 episodes of “Days of Our Lives,” most recently in 2010. Throughout her appearances, she sought to make viewers pay attention.“I imagine women doing housework while they watch our show, things like ironing,” she said. “It’s my job to make them scorch something.”The Calliope character helped bring about Harley Quinn, the Joker’s sidekick, who has an inexplicable romantic attachment to that archvillain even though he is abusive toward her.When the character Harley Quinn first appeared on “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992, Ms. Sorkin provided the voice. “Arleen Sorkin’s voice certainly gave a great deal of life and dazzle to the character,” said Paul Dini, a writer for the show. Courtesy of DCHarley was introduced in a 1992 episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” called “Joker’s Favor.” Paul Dini, a writer for the show, told Entertainment Weekly in 2017 that he had been toying with creating a funny, snappy henchwoman for the Joker. Ms. Sorkin, an old friend from their days as students at Emerson College in Massachusetts, had appeared in a fantasy sequence on “Days of Our Lives” where Calliope was dressed as a sort of court jester. She had given Mr. Dini a videotape of her favorite “Days of Our Lives” moments, and the sequence was on it. Mr. Dini happened to watch the tape one day when he was sick and something clicked.“I was like, Well, there she is,” Mr. Dini said. “She should run around with the Joker dressed like that.”He and the animator Bruce Timm came up with Harley, a sidekick clad in red and black, and Ms. Sorkin provided the distinctive voice: “high-nasal, sing-song-y and filled with Brooklyn-ish inflections,” as Vulture put it in a 2015 article.“Arleen Sorkin’s voice certainly gave a great deal of life and dazzle to the character,” Mr. Dini told Entertainment Weekly.Harley wasn’t originally intended as a regular, but she became one, and then, later in the decade, made the transition to DC comic books, a rare case of a character going from TV to the page rather than the reverse. Ms. Sorkin provided her voice not only in “Batman: The Animated Series” but also in assorted video games and subsequent TV series, including “The New Batman Adventures” and “Justice League.” Among the other actresses who have taken up the role in animated or live-action productions is Margot Robbie (“Birds of Prey” and “The Suicide Squad”), who has most recently owned the box office as the title character in “Barbie.”Mr. Lloyd, in a phone interview, was asked whether Ms. Sorkin would have described herself as a comedian, an actress or what. He said her choice might have been “clown.”That, though, he said, would have been misleading, as she also had credits as a writer, including on the 1997 Jennifer Aniston movie “Picture Perfect,” and as a creator of the 1990s sitcom “Fired Up.” She was also involved in various humanitarian causes.“These are not the typical achievements of a clown,” he said. “I think that’s how she would describe herself, but she went on to do quite a bit more than that.”Arleen Frances Sorkin was born on Oct. 14, 1955, in Washington to Joyce and Irving Sorkin. Her mother held various jobs, including real estate agent. Her father was a dentist with a longtime dream of having one of his film ideas adapted into a movie. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2007 on the occasion of his death, Ms. Sorkin recalled that when she was hired as an extra in the 1979 movie “And Justice for All,” when she left the family’s home in Washington headed for the assignment, he handed her a movie treatment he had written and asked her to give it to Al Pacino, the film’s star. (Dr. Sorkin’s dream was finally realized in 2004 when he received a producing credit on “Something the Lord Made,” an HBO film drawn from an idea he had long championed.)Ms. Sorkin with her husband, the producer and writer Christopher Lloyd, at an awards show in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2004. Asked how he thought his wife, who was a writer as well as a performer, would have described herself, he said her choice might have been “clown.”Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesMr. Lloyd, whom Ms. Sorkin married in the mid-1990s, said she pursued an education degree at Emerson, anticipating a career in teaching, but was also involved in theater there. She played Lola in a production of “Damn Yankees,” and a cast mate urged her to hold off on teaching and instead give performing a try.Lisa Pessaro, another Emerson alumna, was among the original members of High-Heeled Women and remembered her comic colleague in an interview with Emerson Today shortly after Ms. Sorkin’s death.“She was just simply an unharnessed gem,” Ms. Pessaro said. “She had incredible wit and was oozing with personality.”In addition to her husband, Ms. Sorkin is survived by her mother; two sons, Eli and Owen Lloyd; and two brothers, Arthur and Robert Sorkin. More

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Frank Miller Sues Widow of Comics Magazine Editor for the Return of Artworks

      by

      Two of Miller’s original drawings that were used in 1980s issues of David Anthony Kraft’s magazine Comics Interview were gifts, Kraft’s wife says. Miller says they were not.The comic writer and artist Frank Miller is suing the widow and the estate of a comics magazine founder over two pieces of promotional art he created that she was trying to sell at auction. The art, which appeared on covers of David Anthony Kraft’s magazine Comics Interview in the 1980s, includes an early depiction of Batman and a female Robin — from the 1986 The Dark Knight Returns series — and is potentially a valuable collectible.The lawsuit seeks the return of the Batman piece, which was used on the cover of Comics Interview No. 31 in 1986, as well as art depicting the title character of Miller’s 1983 Ronin series. He had sent both to Kraft for his use in the publication; the Ronin artwork was used as the cover of Comics Interview No. 2 in 1983. Miller contended in the court papers that he and Kraft agreed they were on loan, citing “custom and usage in the trade at the time,” and that he made repeated requests for their return.But Kraft’s widow, Jennifer Bush-Kraft, disagreed with Miller’s assertions. “My husband kept all his correspondence,” she said in a phone interview. “When I say all of it, I don’t know if you can comprehend the level of meticulousness. He bound all of this correspondence by year, by name and in alphabetical order by company.”When the question was raised about demands before 2022 to return the artwork, she said, she searched her husband’s files and found no such requests.Silenn Thomas, the chief executive of Frank Miller Ink, said in an email that Miller would not comment on the ongoing legal matter. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Law360, was filed on Monday in the Gainesville division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.Bush-Kraft said she believed that Miller had gifted the art to Kraft. “If it was not given, David would have given it back,” she said. (Another promotional piece by Miller, for his Sin City comic, was used by Kraft in the 1990s, and was returned, he said in the lawsuit.)“He wouldn’t have ruined the relationship with someone he would potentially work with in the future,” she continued. “He certainly wouldn’t have ruined his relationship” with DC Comics, which published The Dark Knight Returns and Ronin. The art was created for promotional use, she said, and it was common practice for Kraft to keep those types of pieces.The dispute started in the spring, and in May, a lawyer for Miller sent a cease-and-desist letter after Miller learned of a potential sale of the works on Comic Connect, an online auction house devoted to comics and pop culture memorabilia, saying he had given them to Kraft as a loan and expected their return after a period of time.A lawyer representing Metropolis Collectibles, a sister company of Comic Connect, wrote in response that “the actual, relevant ‘custom in the trade at the time’ was that comic artists would give — not loan — artworks to Mr. Kraft and other comic publishers in the hopes that publishers such as Mr. Kraft would use the artwork in their publications and thereby provide publicity and exposure to the artist and their work.” The lawyer also wrote that because Miller was only just now demanding the artwork be returned, decades later, his request might be untimely because of the expiration of the statute of limitations and under other theories.But Miller, in the court filing, wrote that he and his publisher had sought the return of the works directly and indirectly since the 1980s, and that they believed the works were lost. Miller is seeking damages for the value of the works “in an amount, exceeding $75,000, to be determined at trial.”The sale of the artwork could be lucrative: In June, the cover of Issue No. 1 of The Dark Knight Returns was auctioned for $2.4 million. In 2011, a page from Issue No. 3 of the series that showed the older Batman and Carrie Kelley — then a new, female Robin — mid-leap over the Gotham City skyline, sold for $448,125.“I can’t afford to go to court and I can’t afford not to go to court,” Bush-Kraft said. “I’m just one person. I’m not Frank Miller. I don’t have a company.”Currently, neither Miller nor Bush-Kraft is in possession of the art; Bush-Kraft had given it to Comic Connect ahead of the auction, which had been planned for June. (Both works were pulled from the auction before it started.)“We will let the court decide who owns the pieces, and in the meantime we are retaining possession,” said Stephen Fishler, the chief executive of Comic Connect and Metropolis Collectibles. More

    • 50 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      The Antihero’s Last Gasp

      by

      In the popular Amazon Prime series “The Boys,” Hughie, an irrepressibly earnest young man who runs with the title group of misfits, is forced to decide — several times — if he’s willing to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for justice. And by “the devil” I mean Billy Butcher, the ruthless, potty-mouthed leader of the team of soldiers and assassins devoted to fighting, extorting, torturing and killing superheroes.Hughie’s our Everyman — our well-meaning protagonist who gets thrown in with Butcher’s crew and serves as his moral compass. While Butcher viciously feeds his vendetta against “supes,” Hughie tries to fight for justice without shedding more blood.In the inside-out world of “The Boys,” which just concluded its third season, Hughie discovers that there are no moral absolutes. The superheroes who are Butcher’s targets? Murderers, rapists, and (in the bland smiling visage of Homelander) a proto-fascist. Clear-cut understandings of who’s a hero and who’s a villain fly — like a bird, like a plane, or like a Superman — out the window.Three members of “The Boys,” who recognize that superheroes aren’t all that super, from left: Tomer Capone as Frenchie, Jack Quaid as Hughie, and Karl Urban as Billy Butcher.Panagiotis Pantazidis/Amazon StudiosAnd with them goes the longstanding comic-book archetype meant to split the difference: the antihero. The old model — the brooding, traumatized crusader in black who toes the line between good and evil, whom we root for even as he descends into moral (and too often, literal) darkness — has become a gross parody of itself.Once a contradictory figure meant to represent both the fresh sins of a modern world and a righteous crusade for justice, the antihero is too often written to such base extremes that it negates the very reason he first became a popular trope — because antiheroes can exist only in a universe in which idealized notions of heroism, and the concept of good and bad, still exist.Plenty of observers have argued that prestige TV reached this impasse, too, when the warped values represented by such beloved characters as Tony Soprano, Walter White and Dexter Morgan grew tired, giving way to the cheery “Ted Lasso” and the family of outsiders in “Pose.”In the comic-book-spawned worlds that, for better or worse, dominate popular culture, creators have tried to resurrect the antihero, to varying degrees of success.There’s more to their struggle than fluttering capes and face-contouring masks. Comic book heroes reflect the morals of our society; the antihero has become a symbol of our muddled ethics and the contradictions we embrace under the guise of justice.‘The Batman’ as Dead EndHow did we get here? We need to talk about that billionaire with the bat fetish — Batman, the quintessential antihero.It’s 1940, just months after his comic book debut, and two goons are escaping in a truck. Into his Batplane our hero goes: “But out of the sky, spitting death the Batman!” one panel reads. In the next he grimaces from the cockpit as he looks through the sight of the plane’s machine gun. “Much as I hate to take human life, I’m afraid this time it’s necessary!” he insists while the bullets fly. He’s only a threat to Gotham’s criminals. He’ll bend the rules but won’t break them.The campy 1960s TV series rendered him into a milk-drinking do-gooder, in keeping with attitudes about violence and ethics in children’s television of the time. When the film franchise began, the directors Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher introduced the dark and garish Gotham. Still, their portrayals were threaded with loony humor and irony.In Christopher Nolan’s movie trilogy, based on the comic book writer Frank Miller’s gritty Dark Knight reboot, Gotham gradually crumbles, the rubble and squalor are palpable, the impact of a crime-ridden city meaningful.Robert Pattinson as the title hero in the preposterously dour Matt Reeves film reboot of “The Batman.” Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.In three hours of listless dolor, Matt Reeves’s oppressively dour “The Batman,” which came out this spring, turned its hero into a comically emo Bat-adolescent. Though Bruce Wayne was traumatized by witnessed his parents’ murder, the film focuses so heavily on his forlorn expressions and tantrums that his pain seemed merely ornamental.It’s why the barbs delivered by a parody like “The Lego Batman Movie” hit their self-serious target. “I don’t talk about feelings, Alfred,” the Lego-block Batman declares while caught mournfully looking at his family photos. “I don’t have any, I’ve never seen one. I’m a night-stalking, crime-fighting vigilante, and a heavy-metal rapping machine.”The Jekyll-and-Hyde SolutionIn the 2018 movie “Venom,” Eddie Brock is a dogged investigative reporter who loses his job (and his relationship) for refusing to compromise his ideals while reporting on the shifty doings at a major corporation. Then he’s infected with Venom, a sentient alien being that controls his body and gives him superhuman abilities. Venom wants to kill and eat people; Eddie wants to help them.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘Thor: Love and Thunder’: The fourth “Thor” movie in 11 years, directed by Taika Waititi, embraces wholesale self-parody and is sillier than any of its predecessors.‘Ms. Marvel’: This Disney+ series introduces a new character: Kamala Khan, a Muslim high schooler in Jersey City who is mysteriously granted superpowers.‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’: With a touch of horror, the franchise’s newest film returns to the world of the mystic arts.‘Moon Knight’: In the Disney+ mini-series, Oscar Isaac plays a caped crusader who struggles with dissociative identity disorder.“Venom” is one of several recent films and TV series that make the antihero into a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure, caught between his worst inclinations and best intentions.The Hyde side of the Jekyll-and-Hyde-like antihero Venom.Sony Pictures, via Associated PressIn this year’s “Morbius,” the title character is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist on a search for a cure for his chronic illness. He combines his DNA with a bat’s and becomes newly healthy, but a feral human vampire. He regrets his research, deciding he’s made himself into a monster. Yet when his best friend steals some of the serum for himself, he transforms into an even more vicious beast whom Morbius must stop.That’s another trick to keep the antihero in play: Throw in someone who’s worse than our protagonist. Morality is relative, so at least for a moment, while there are worse villains in the world, we can have something that resembles a hero.Laughing MattersAnother way the culture industry has kept antiheroes popular is by lacing their stories with a dose of often self-deprecating humor. Deadpool, Harley Quinn and the Peacemaker — in the movies and TV series built around them — break the rules and kill rampantly, yet still save innocents.All the while they get distracted by zany side-quests, pal around with odd sidekicks and preen narcissistically. We laugh because they remain fully aware of the pitfalls of hero worship and the ridiculous notion of a bad hero; they either embrace the gray area between good and evil or all but erase it completely, acknowledging that the world is rarely that simple.Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, whose violent ways are laughed off in the movie of that name.Joe Lederer/20th Century Fox, via Associated PressEven his allies find holes in the moral code put forth by the Peacemaker, played by John Cena. “I think liberty is just your excuse to do whatever you want,” one tells him.HBO MaxThe Peacemaker, a character who appeared in James Gunn’s 2021 film “The Suicide Squad” and this year got his own spinoff series on HBO Max, starring John Cena, is a dimwitted, misogynistic Captain America-esque hero who fights for justice — even if that means killing women and children.In “The Suicide Squad,” his teammate Bloodsport calls out the inconsistencies in the Peacemaker’s moral code: “I think liberty is just your excuse to do whatever you want.” And in the series, other characters point out his glaring biases, like the fact that most of the “bad guys” he confronts are people of color.It’s worth stopping to point out that some of the disparity in how antiheroes have evolved can be attributed to the different philosophies of competing franchises.In the family-friendly Marvel Cinematic Universe (owned by Disney) the antihero can be rehabilitated. Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, even “The Avengers” antagonist Loki all get redemption arcs, despite the wrongs they’ve committed in the past.The challenge — and it’s a big one, as the franchises morph and blend and reboot, to keep going and going and going — is maintaining any sense of coherence or moral logic.In 2016’s “Batman v Superman,” DC’s miserable Batman fights a miserable Superman over who has the authority to be the hero. In “Captain America: Civil War” from that same year, Marvel’s Captain America and his allies fight Iron Man and his friends over whether or not their actions should be regulated by the government. These battles are equally inane.If one hero is a vigilante on the run for protecting his assassin best friend, and one hero is pro-government but made his money selling guns for warfare, who has the moral high ground? Is there really any difference between a hero and an antihero if everyone is making rules up as they go?Women WarriorsAs I’ve been talking about antiheroes, I’ve been using the pronoun “he.” That’s intentional, because the antihero is so often an avatar of traditional markers of masculinity. He broods over his past. He muscles his way through his obstacles, almost always with a six-pack and bulging biceps. He’s a rapscallion who can fight the law because coded within the archetype is a male privilege that depicts him as an unstoppable force; he is his own judicial system.The female antihero (as scarce as they still are) resists being a cookie-cutter figure. She is less emotionally opaque than her male counterparts, but she can be devious. She is willing to break the rules because she realizes the rules weren’t created for women like her anyway.Krysten Ritter, the title character in “Jessica Jones,” being terrorized by David Tennant as Killgrave.David Giesbrecht/NetflixTake Harley Quinn. She arrived on the scene as the girlfriend of the Joker in an animated “Batman” series. But thanks to Margot Robbie’s dotty performance in “Suicide Squad,” her popularity led to her own film, “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).” As its lengthy subtitle suggests, the movie frees the character from being a sidekick.The brutally hilarious “Harley Quinn” animated series from 2019 does the same work; it begins with another female villain, Poison Ivy, helping Harley Quinn to realize that her self-worth lies outside of her toxic relationship with the Joker. She can make for herself a life of both high jinks and crime.Jessica Jones, the title character of the Marvel series of the same name, offers a useful contrast to what Batman has become. She, too, witnesses the death of her parents. In her case, it’s caused by an accident that leaves her with superhuman abilities.She is an alcoholic and a loner with trust issues, who for years was assaulted and manipulated by the mind-control villain Killgrave. Her suffering is gender-specific, and when she uses her powers in ways that are less than heroic, she feels utterly human.When Fans Call the ShotsIn a widely seen photo of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, a Proud Boy jumps the railing in the Senate chamber; on his vest, printed over an image of the American flag, is a white skull.This is the logo of the popular comic book character known as The Punisher.The Punisher has been featured in three live-action movies and, most recently, a Marvel TV series starring Jon Bernthal. He’s a Marine-turned-vigilante who begins a vicious war on crime after his family is killed by the mob. Murder, torture, extortion — the Punisher’s methods make Batman’s worst throttlings look like playful slaps on the wrist.Jon Bernthal, who stars in “The Punisher” on Netflix, has publicly taken issue with the alt-right fans who’ve embraced the character as a hero.Jessica Miglio/NetflixHe is also the character who makes most clear that if not handled with care, the ambiguity and sympathetic back story granted a violent antihero can offer real-world cover for despicable actions.For years police and military officers have embraced the character as a can-do man of action. But more recently he’s been adopted by the alt-right Proud Boys, the skull image showing up at the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville as well. Both Bernthal and the character’s creator, Gerry Conway, have publicly chastised the alt-right fans who’ve heralded the Punisher as a hero and adopted him as a model of justice.In fact, this year Marvel Comics has officially moved the Punisher to the dark side; he’s now an enforcer in The Hand, an underground syndicate of supervillains.“The Boys” is especially shrewd on this dilemma, explicitly satirizing toxic fandoms. As the so-called heroes got even more brazen this season, lying and committing crimes in public, their fans grew more enamored with them. What used to look like an engaged fan community was perverted into an incipient fascist movement.Where ‘The Boys’ May Take UsIn the original “Boys” comics on which the TV series is based, everyone is equally corrupt and equally punished. It’s a thoroughly nihilistic vision.The TV version, now that we’re three seasons in, is more optimistic, contending that people are as good as they challenge themselves to be, redeemable when reckoning with their wrongs.In the beginning of this season, Hughie seems to have found a middle place in the war between Butcher’s crew and the superheroes: He leads a government agency set up to regulate the behavior of heroes who’ve stepped out of line.Butcher scoffs at Hughie’s career move, and turns out to be right. Hughie soon discovers the job isn’t what he thought it would be, and the challenges are more than bureaucratic: There’s corruption on this path as well. So Hughie decides Butcher’s brutal approach has been right all along: stopping the superheroes by any means necessary.Butcher, meanwhile, bends his absolutism, occasionally granting supes mercy and even looking after Ryan, the superpowered child who accidentally killed his wife.The categories of hero and villain — and, yes, antihero — don’t do the job in “The Boys,” which is why the series is so arresting. We’re left with complex individuals breaking from the simple archetypes these scripts so often place them in.Such labels are certainly letting us down, and not merely in the world of the comics. Tales of heroes and villains feel, right now, like the stuff of fables. Mass shootings, climate change, human rights, women’s rights — each has been twisted into a narrative of right and wrong that suits the needs of the storyteller, whether that’s the politician, the judge, the voter, the media.About halfway through “The Boys,” one do-gooder supe tries to convince a corrupt corporate henchwoman to do the right thing, but she replies, uneasily, that she doesn’t have superpowers.How can she help save the day? The hero replies, “You don’t need powers. You just need to be human.”Forget the capes, the masks and the powers. We need humans — being good, being bad. As for heroes? They’re the ones who make mistakes and atone for them, who try — and fail, but still try — to stay honest in a broken world. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      Managing Movie Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot More Complicated

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesDC Films, led by Walter Hamada, plans to release movies featuring DC Comics heroes like Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman at a much faster pace.  Credit…Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexManaging Movie Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot More ComplicatedWalter Hamada, who runs DC Films, is overseeing a dizzying number of projects, part of a swarm of comics-based stories coming from Hollywood.DC Films, led by Walter Hamada, plans to release movies featuring DC Comics heroes like Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman at a much faster pace.  Credit…Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 27, 2020, 5:05 p.m. ETLOS ANGELES — Walter Hamada is not a typical superhero wrangler.He doesn’t have a booming, fanboy-in-chief personality. His modest home office, at least as it appears on Zoom, is light on the usual cape-and-cowl collectibles. Hollywood was not even his first calling: He set out to be a mechanical engineer.As the president of DC Films, however, Mr. Hamada, 52, manages the movie careers of Wonder Woman, Batman, Cyborg, the Flash, Superman and every other DC Comics superhero. And the new course he has charted for them is dizzying.The most expensive DC movies (up to four a year, starting in 2022) are designed for release in theaters, Mr. Hamada said. Additional superhero films (two annually is the goal, perhaps focused on riskier characters like Batgirl and Static Shock) will arrive exclusively on HBO Max, the fledgling streaming service owned by WarnerMedia.In addition, DC Films, which is part of Warner Bros., will work with filmmakers to develop movie offshoots — TV series that will run on HBO Max and interconnect with their big-screen endeavors.“With every movie that we’re looking at now, we are thinking, ‘What’s the potential Max spinoff?’” Mr. Hamada said.If you thought there was a glut of superheroes before, just wait.To make all the story lines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously. Coming up, for instance, Warner Bros. will have two different film sagas involving Batman — played by two different actors — running at the same time.The complicated plan involves a sharp increase in production. Last year, Warner Bros. made two live-action superhero movies, “Joker” and “Shazam!” In 2018, there was only “Aquaman.” All three were smash hits, underscoring the financial opportunity of making more.For various reasons, including creative misfires and management turnover at DC Films (Mr. Hamada took over in 2018), Warner Bros. has badly trailed Disney-owned Marvel at the box office. Over the last decade, Warner Bros. has generated $8 billion in worldwide superhero ticket sales, including $36 million from “Wonder Woman 1984” over the weekend; Marvel has taken in $20.6 billion.Gal Gadot and Chris Pine in “Wonder Woman 1984,” which arrived to $16.7 million in North American ticket sales over the weekend, the best result for any movie since the pandemic started.Credit…Warner BrosSuffice it to say, Warner Bros., which invented the big-budget superhero movie in 1978 with “Superman,” has been under pressure to get its act together.Disney has succeeded in part because its divisions collaborate in a way that siloed Warner Bros. never has. But that is changing. AT&T mandated greater cross-company synergy when it took over WarnerMedia in 2018.“In the past, we were so secretive,” Mr. Hamada said. “It was shocking to me, for example, how few people at the company were actually allowed to read scripts for the movies we are making.”More than ever, studios are leaning on pre-established characters and brands — especially if their corporate parents are building streaming services. HBO Max has 12.6 million subscriber activations. Netflix has 195 million. How do you delight Wall Street and quickly close the gap? You start by putting your superheroes to work.This month, Disney announced 100 new movies and shows for the next few years, most of them headed directly to its Disney+ streaming service, which has 87 million subscribers. Marvel is chipping in 11 films and 11 television shows, including “WandaVision,” which arrives on Jan. 15 and finds Elizabeth Olsen reprising her Scarlet Witch role from the “Avengers” franchise.Warner Bros. has at least as many comics-based movies in various stages of gestation, including a “Suicide Squad” sequel; “The Batman,” in which Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) plays the Caped Crusader; and “Black Adam,” starring Dwayne Johnson as the villainous title character.Television spinoffs from “The Batman” and “The Suicide Squad” are headed to HBO Max. WarnerMedia’s traditional television division has roughly 25 additional live-action and animated superhero shows, including “Superman & Lois,” which arrives on the CW network in February.Robert Pattinson in “The Batman,” which is scheduled for release in theaters in 2022.Credit…Warner Bros. Entertainment, via Associated PressSony Pictures Entertainment has its own superhero slate, with at least two more “Spider-Man” movies in the works; “Morbius,” starring Jared Leto as a pseudo-vampire; and a sequel to “Venom,” which cost $100 million to make in 2018 and collected $856 million worldwide. Sony also has a suite of superhero TV shows headed for Amazon Prime Video.And don’t forget Valiant Entertainment, which is turning comics properties such as “Harbinger,” about superpowered teenagers, into movies with partners like Paramount Pictures.Superheroes have long been Hollywood’s most reliable moneymakers, especially when sales of related merchandise are included. (Wonder Woman tiara for cats, on sale for $59.50.) But how much speeding spandex and computer-generated visual effects can audiences take?More than you think, said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consultancy. “If the stories are well written and the production values are strong,” he said, “then there will be little sign of fatigue.”Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Warner Bros. involves the recent prioritization of HBO Max. “The risk is, will watching these movies first on television degrade the entertainment experience, and later the value,” Mr. Gross said. “For an individual movie, there is no more profitable business model than a successful theatrical release — creating the biggest pop culture event possible. It’s the locomotive that pulls the entire train: merchandise, theme park licensing, other income.”On Friday, Warner Bros. released “Wonder Woman 1984” in North America, where it collected $16.7 million. Citing the coronavirus pandemic (only 39 percent of cinemas in the United States are open), the studio simultaneously distributed the film in theaters and on HBO Max. Warner Bros. will release its entire 2021 slate in the same hybrid fashion.WarnerMedia provided only vague information about the sequel’s performance on HBO Max, saying in a news release that “millions” of subscribers watched it on Friday. Andy Forssell, WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer general manager, said the movie “exceeded our expectations across all of our key viewing and subscriber metrics.”So far, “Wonder Woman 1984” has collected $85 million worldwide, with $68.3 million coming from cinemas overseas, where HBO Max does not yet exist. The film, starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins, cost at least $200 million to make and an estimated $100 million to market worldwide. It received much weaker reviews than its series predecessor.Toby Emmerich, president of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said on Sunday that he had “fast-tracked” a third Wonder Woman movie. “Our real life Wonder Women — Gal and Patty — will return to conclude the long-planned theatrical trilogy,” Mr. Emmerich said.Mr. Hamada rose to power through New Line, a Warner Bros. division that mostly makes midbudget horror films and comedies. Among other achievements, he worked with the filmmaker James Wan and others to build “The Conjuring” (2013) into a six-film “world” with $1.8 billion in global ticket sales. (“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” arrives in June.)“A lot of times in studio meetings, executives just repeat buzzwords, and it becomes a joke,” Mr. Wan said. “Walt always brings something constructive, useful and important to the table. He talks to me in a language that I understand.”Mr. Hamada and Jason Momoa, the star of “Aquaman,” which was the lone superhero movie from Warner Bros. in 2018.Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesWhen Mr. Hamada arrived at DC Films in 2018, the division was in urgent need of stability.Two terrifyingly expensive movies, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) and “Justice League” (2017), both directed by Zack Snyder, were deemed almost unwatchable by critics. Ben Affleck, who played Batman in the films, wanted to move on, complicating sequel plans. At the same time, filmmakers were developing other DC movies that had nothing to do with the existing story lines — and, in fact, contradicted some of them.Mr. Hamada and Mr. Emmerich had two options: Figure out how to make the various story lines and character incarnations coexist or start over.The answer is the multiverse. Boiled down, it means that some characters (Wonder Woman as portrayed by Ms. Gadot, for instance) will continue their adventures on Earth 1, while new incarnations (Mr. Pattinson as “The Batman”) will populate Earth 2.“The Flash,” a film set for release in theaters in 2022, will link the two universes and feature two Batmans, with Mr. Affleck returning as one and Michael Keaton returning as the other. Mr. Keaton played Batman in 1989 and 1992.To complicate matters further, HBO Max gave Mr. Snyder more than $70 million to recut his “Justice League” and expand it with new footage. Mr. Snyder and Warner Bros. had clashed over his original vision, which the studio deemed overly grim, resulting in reshoots handled by a different director, Joss Whedon. (That didn’t go well, either.) “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” now four hours long, will arrive in segments on HBO Max in March.At least for now, Mr. Snyder is not part of the new DC Films blueprint, with studio executives describing his HBO Max project as a storytelling cul-de-sac — a street that leads nowhere.The multiverse concept has worked on television, but it is a risky strategy for big screens. These movies need to attract the widest audience possible to justify their cost, and too much of a comic nerd sensibility can be a turnoff. New actors can take over a character; James Bond is the best example. But multiple Gothams spinning in theaters?“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,” Mr. Hamada said. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More