What are your Top 5 favorite DC Universe movies?

[BigFatHairyDeal]

You know what's a really good DTV that doesn't enough love?

The Death of Superman. That was fantastic and I actually got some feels when Superman "sacrificed" himself.

Well, it certainly sold well. The-numbers.com has it at $6.5 million BluRay and DVD, which is a good haul. I don't know the digital sales, but I imagine physical + digital combined has got to be one of the better-selling movies.

I happen to think it's a good movie, but I'm so burned out on "Death of Superman" stories that I ended up enjoying Superman: Doomsday more.

 

[Fone Bone]

Heresy! Animation these days might look more bright or whatever but it looks so stale and lifeless.. digital animation is not doing it any favors. Action scenes are so much better these days but I'd take expressions on characters faces rather fancy action. Hand drawn animation just has more soul that digital will never have.

Just look at Two Face Part 1 or If You're So Smart Why Aren't You Rich. You don't see emotions like that in character's faces these days

Even if today's animation is in part hand drawn or not (I don't really know) it just doesn't have that same feel.

Guess Im just a sucker for hand drawn animation.

I'm talking specifically about the boarding and animation of action sequences. The DCAU definitely has better character expressions. But even Teen Titans Go has better looking fights than BTAS.

 

[hobbyfan]

GODS N MONSTERS: Actually, our friends at DC were very supportive of the entire JL:GM concept — at one point, they were even talking about turning the scripts for our un-filmed web-series into a comics series. And as far as I remember, there wasn’t much push-back from DC purists either — alternate universes are practically a DC staple, going back at least as far as the first JLA / JSA crossover, so longtime DC fans were kinda primed to accept it. Simple fact is, the JL:GM movie just didn’t sell all that well, so nobody wanted to pony up the dough to make a sequel. Alas.

I see. Thank you.

Glad you liked YEAR ONE — I thought we did a pretty decent job of it myself.

I agree with you about NEW FRONTIER. Just too much story to squeeze into a 70-minute movie. If we’d had just another 20 minutes to play with, it would have made a world of difference.


SUPERMAN : DOOMSDAY : At the time, our friends at Home Video were just testing the DTV waters and weren’t about to finance a two-part movie. Which left us with some serious story challenges. We knew right away we couldn’t just end the movie with Superman being killed — way too sad and depressing (and no way to start a franchise). And we also knew it would be impossible to do a satisfying adaptation of the sprawling ‘Reign of the Supermen’ storyline in the second half of the movie. So, we just did the best we could with what we had to work with.

Since Reign was done some time later, in hindsight, would you have waited to do Doomsday, and adapt something from the pre-Crisis era in its place?

 

[b.t.]

I see. Thank you.



Since Reign was done some time later, in hindsight, would you have waited to do Doomsday, and adapt something from the pre-Crisis era in its place?

Kinda hard to answer that question. Doing an adaptation of the Death of Superman storyline for the first DCU DTV wasn’t my choice in the first place. That concept was already a done deal before I was brought on board. I’m sure the astronomical sales of the original comics event was a major selling point, and helped to convince the Home Video folks to greenlight the entire project — so I could certainly see how it made sense to adapt it, from a P.R. and sales perspective.

But creatively, it was kind of a “no win” situation. I knew fans would be disappointed with the changes we made but also knew that if we tried to cram in all those Superman wannabes into just 40
minutes (or less) of screen-time, we’d probably end up with a rushed mess that wouldn’t have satisfied ANYONE.

 

[Dallas Kinard]

Kinda hard to answer that question. Doing an adaptation of the Death of Superman storyline for the first DCU DTV wasn’t my choice in the first place. That concept was already a done deal before I was brought on board. I’m sure the astronomical sales of the original comics event was a major selling point, and helped to convince the Home Video folks to greenlight the entire project — so I could certainly see how it made sense to adapt it, from a P.R. and sales perspective.

But creatively, it was kind of a “no win” situation. I knew fans would be disappointed with the changes we made but also knew that if we tried to cram in all those Superman wannabes into just 40
minutes (or less) of screen-time, we’d probably end up with a rushed mess that wouldn’t have satisfied ANYONE.

I just re-visited this one yesterday. It holds up incredibly well! Fluid animation, great voice cast and dark/intense tone! Still a favorite of mine to this day.

 

[hobbyfan]

Kinda hard to answer that question. Doing an adaptation of the Death of Superman storyline for the first DCU DTV wasn’t my choice in the first place. That concept was already a done deal before I was brought on board. I’m sure the astronomical sales of the original comics event was a major selling point, and helped to convince the Home Video folks to greenlight the entire project — so I could certainly see how it made sense to adapt it, from a P.R. and sales perspective.

But creatively, it was kind of a “no win” situation. I knew fans would be disappointed with the changes we made but also knew that if we tried to cram in all those Superman wannabes into just 40
minutes (or less) of screen-time, we’d probably end up with a rushed mess that wouldn’t have satisfied ANYONE.

There are also some great Batman stories dying to be adapted, modified for today's audience, like, for example, the "Bat-Murderer" arc in Detective Comics in the mid-70's, which preceded the Joker stories that were already done (i.e. "The Laughing Fish") by a couple of years. You've given us some great stories over the last several years. Thank you.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

The moment you don't force yourself to think of Superman: Doomsday as an adaptation of "The Death of Superman," it becomes really easy to appreciate it as a stand-alone movie. Of all the animated movies from 2007 to present, I still think it's the best Lois Lane story, and it's the only one in which the angst in her relationship with Superman feels really compelling.

And as far as I can tell, it probably is still the best-selling movie in the line. Adjust that to inflation and I don't think it'll be topped unless they drastically change the marketing on these films.

 

[Fone Bone]

The moment you don't force yourself to think of Superman: Doomsday as an adaptation of "The Death of Superman," it becomes really easy to appreciate it as a stand-alone movie. Of all the animated movies from 2007 to present, I still think it's the best Lois Lane story, and it's the only one in which the angst in her relationship with Superman feels really compelling.

And as far as I can tell, it probably is still the best-selling movie in the line. Adjust that to inflation and I don't think it'll be topped unless they drastically change the marketing on these films.

The reason it's the best selling movie is because it's been out the longest. That's it.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

The reason it's the best selling movie is because it's been out the longest. That's it.

I'm not sure that's entirely the reason. Superman: Doomsday came out 9/18/2007 and is at $12.5 million, per the-numbers.com. Gotham Knight might be the second-highest-grossing at $9.7 million, coming out on 7/8/2008. I don't think that $2.8 million advantage is the result of coming out 10 months prior. Of course, this doesn't take digital into account, so maybe including digital the gap is a lot smaller.

 

[Dallas Kinard]

What's everyone's favorite musical score from these DTV's?

 

[-batmat-]

To be honest, I feel like Doomsday was the highest selling one because it was the first one. Not saying anything about the movie itself (which I actually haven't watched in a long time) which I kinda like, but I guess the novelty of the format was the reason for the high sales.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

To be honest, I feel like Doomsday was the highest selling one because it was the first one. Not saying anything about the movie itself (which I actually haven't watched in a long time) which I kinda like, but I guess the novelty of the format was the reason for the high sales.

I almost feel bad for way overanalyzing numbers, but I think it's a combination of novelty and quality. Going back to the-numbers.com, I see that Gotham Knight actually outsold Superman: Doomsday when you compare both movies' first three weeks, $6.9 million to $6.4 million. Seems like Superman: Doomsday just had more legs, and I think it has to do with how fans enjoyed the movies. Maybe Gotham Knight would've sold more if it weren't a collection of short films? I dunno.

Okay, enough from me about sales numbers.

 

[Fone Bone]

To be honest, I feel like Doomsday was the highest selling one because it was the first one. Not saying anything about the movie itself (which I actually haven't watched in a long time) which I kinda like, but I guess the novelty of the format was the reason for the high sales.

It also got a lot more promotional push than the other movies. It's the only one with an animated menu to start with.

 

[#TeamMike]

Here's a controversial opinion. Outside of the crazy decision to have Batgirl and Batman have sex, I wouldn't have any problems with the movie otherwise. One of the biggest complaints I hear about the movie is something I totally disagree about. And frankly, it's something you yourself should have pushed back on. You've sort of simply said that wasn't the creator's intention. I think maybe it should have been.

Having just watched the Killing Joke again since 2016, there's two big problems with the first half of the film.

Making the story in the first half unrelated to the actual Killing Joke story was a mistake, because it makes Barbara's story feel like filler.

The idea to give Barbara some character work before getting shot isn't bad, but the way it was done was completely misguided. There's no way around it, the film's treatment of Barbara is fairly misogynistic. Aside from her dad, the other 3 main male characters in the film either want or do sexual acts to Barbara (Batman, Joker, and Paris Franz).

The irony of this whole thing is that B.T. was critical of how the Killing Joke comic handled Barbara because she was more of a plot device than an actual character. Which is completely true, but the film's treatment of Babs is much, much worse.

 

[JAG2045]

Havent logged in for ages hence why I'm just posting now

Best - Batman: Under the Red Hood, Justice League: Gods and Monsters, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight & Justice League vs Fatal Five

Worst - Batman: Assault on Arkham, Batman and Harley Quinn and Batman: The Killing Joke

Reposing with my reasons as per the forum rules

Best:

Under the Red Hood - an emotional adaption that streamlines some of the stuff from the comic (Superboy time punch) and some terrific voice acting (John DiMaggio is such a creepy Joker!)

Justice League: Gods and Monsters - a cool & unique "what if" story

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight - a great story of the Victorian era Batman

Justice League vs Fatal Five - great seeing the DCAU designs again and its awesome seeing them adapt Jessica's fears and Starboy's mental issues in a mainstream film

Worst:

Batman: Assault on Arkham - the whole film hinges on a stupid idea, Amanda Waller wants the Riddler dead so rather then do the smart thing and bribe a guard to just poison him she sends in the Squad who murder a bunch of innocent people and blow the place up, freeing all the villains - how the hell is that being covert!? Its just dumb that someone as clever as Waller thought this was a good idea!

Also having the Joker say "I'm here bitches" .... 'nuff said!

Batman and Harley Quinn - not terrible but its essentially a rehash of "Harleyquinnade" of Harley working with Batman to stop a villain, not the worst film ever but it was too wacky for my taste

Batman and Harley Quinn and Batman: The Killing Joke - would have been great but that damn prologue...

 

[khuddle]

Suicide Squad movies and Teen Titans movies not making anyone's "Top 5" lists. DC take note.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Suicide Squad movies and Teen Titans movies not making anyone's "Top 5" lists. DC take note.

And? The Teen Titans movies and at least one of the Suicide Squad films have at least gotten honorable mentions. Anyway, Warners is going to pay more attention to sales figures than to 'top 5' lists.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Now that I have HBO Max, I've been playing catch up with the DC movies I haven't seen yet.

I may have to somehow make room on my list for Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders. It was a big love letter to the Batman '66 series- you can tell the staff studied it extensively and wanted to pay homage, like it was more than just what is usually parodied whenever Batman '66 is referenced. They even noted that the fight scenes are done in dutch angle! I loved that.

But it was the plot twist in the middle that really sold the movie for me- Batman suddenly acting like a jerkass (firing Alfred, telling off Aunt Harriet, insulting Miles O'Hara and Commissioner Gordon and taking over their jobs, cloning himself repeatedly to create a one-man police force), Robin having to team up with Catwoman to solve it, good stuff.