Yes, but not because of some tariff. Typically, foreign market sales are handled by a third party distributor, which adds an additional middleman taking his cut. Even when the studio handles it themselves, there are additional expenses in foreign language dubbing/subbing.
It used to be that foreign releases were basically disregarded for purposes of making money, but that hasn't really been the case in years.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comIn general there is a lot more paperwork and hassle involved with getting movies shown in other countries, think about the efforts needed for dubbing, local marketing and applying to the standards of the MPAA equivalent. There is money to be made obviously but if foreign and domestic totals are equal 80 percent (or more) of the money they get is from the domestic take.
As for Returns budget, its hard to say how much of it was from the movie we got. 20 years of investments and false starts (The Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage version in the late 90's had teaser posters printed and everything) would add up to quite a significant amount. Shifty Hollywood accounting may have been involved but I do think most of the budget was the actual movie.
WB is moving forward to start production on JLA, which they want to release in 2015. Right next to Avengers 2. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-justice-league-superman-20121018,0,6421111.story
edited 18th Oct '12 1:28:39 PM by comicwriter
Seriously? They are going to try running JLA directly against Avengers 2? Talk about hubris.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comI hope DC's movie department improves in the next few years otherwise they are going to get wrecked.
That's kinda...rushed.
Blegh, I really like the Justice League and I don't want to see it pulled off like this.
Can we at least get movies for Flash and Wonder Woman before doing this?
For years we've been told Wonder Woman won't happen for a variety of reasons, most of which seem to come back to "Chicks don't sell". If they introduce her in Justice League first and that's a hit, that might finally be how we get a WW movie.
Given DC's track record with live action movies going the reverse Avengers route might be a better idea.
If they're filming already I hope they at least make Man of Steel part of this setting.
And personally I hope they pull this off despite everything going against this film. The Justice League are awesome and it'd be a shame to lose out on this much potential because of chasing after the Avengers.
Screenrant.com is reporting that it will likely be in-continuity with Man of Steel. There were rumors going around that it might be set in a unique continuity, but that was apparently out of fears of how the Shuster family lawsuit might impact the use of Superman. Now that the matter is settled they allegedly want the two films connected.
I hope it does well. Honestly I prefer individual movies to team ups for the DCU so if this gives us an Aqua Man and a good Green Lantern I'm fine with it.
How so? Going with Justice League first means a failure or fizzle preempts their ability to do any other franchise within it. Sure, you could use success of JLA to spin them off... but that depends on JLA being successful. Given that a JLA film would almost certainly be *harder* to do than any single hero movie. . .
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comBatman is the one comic book property they've had consistent hits with (discounting Batman & Robin of course). Launching their next wave of films with Man of Steel (assuming that's a hit) and Batman at the front could be a surefire way to at least introduce audiences to those other characters.
Especially since Wonder Woman has had a notoriously hard time getting greenlighted and a lot of people still think Aquaman is really lame. A cool Justice League movie that portrays them in a good light could go a long way towards finally giving us solo films for the characters.
That still requires them to actually *make* a cool JLA movie, all the more unlikely due to their seeming intent to ape Nolan at every step stylistically.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comI was under the impression that Man of Steel would inform the tone of the film more than anything.
And the producers so far have said that the Nolan Batfilms are informing the tone of Man of Steel, so. . .
Nevermind the issue of whether Mo S will, itself, be any good. I'm not predicting a disaster like Green Lantern, certainly, but the signals have been mixed, IMO.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comThat doesn't necessarily mean Man of Steel will be gritty or ultra grim. Nolan's take on Batman doesn't work for a shared universe and I think Nolan himself even said he envisions The Dark Knight Saga as taking place in a world without other superheroes. So I honestly don't think we'll be seeing the Man of Steel (and by extension JLA) using the exact tone from the Batman movies. Especially since the DC Cinematic Universe sounds like it'd be ignoring Nolan's Batflicks anyway.
That would be true if you were dealing with rational intelligent adults. Sadly, we are dealing with Warner Brothers. I suspect what we will get is "monkey see, monkey do."
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comI think the best we can hope for is the executives taking the movie's apparent different tone at face value and thinking and publicly saying it's like the Nolan movies, while the actual filmmakers just do their job the right way.
Basically, that's what Nolan himself did, in a way.
This reminds me of a quote from John Lassiter about people trying to follow the Pixar formula and he said basically that the formula was just trusting in the people you are working with to create a great movie. Nolan's choices regarding Batman was basically to make the character his own while celebrating the rich history he has.
What Warner Brothers needs to do is get a semi-unified creative team in place in order to direct the greater franchise while allowing the individual directors room to explore the intricacies of those characters. Starting with a Justice League movie with only the Superman and maybe Batman characters established then going into the specifics of the individuals like The Flash and Wonder Woman would give them an interesting twist in comparison to what Marvel has been doing.
The problem is, WB is not set up structurally to do that. All the various DC licenses are spread about amongst their internal production divisions, which allegedly don't like talking to each other. WB would really have to create a dedicated DC Entertainment division as an actual *studio*, with its own budget and creative control and dominion over all the DC IP, first. And given the nature of bureaucracy, even if someone up high did want to do that, they'd face constant opposition from everyone who currently holds some of the IP.
( and even if they *did* do that, that would just be the first hurtle. Then they'd need to actually staff DC Studios with competent leadership and creative types. I've yet to see evidence that they have anyone who could be their Feige. )
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comAnd it'd probably do well to dispel any sort of stigma WB might have right now about non-Batman or Superman superhero projects. The trick of course would be to somehow throw these characters together while having their individual origins be irrelevant for now.
One thing with the Avengers was that it heavily referenced the events of the past Marvel movies, to the point that a few scenes probably made little sense if you hadn't seen them. For the JLA you need to throw this team together and make it so the audience can grasp who they are even without solo movies to flesh them out.
And it's a lot harder to introduce characters with a setting in JLA, like Avengers did using S.H.I.E.L.D. - everyone's origins are totally separate here, and there's no huge super-organization that almost every hero has some kind of connection to help the "bringing them together" bit work.
The introduction problem is also why I think leading with an Injustice Gang / Legion of Doom plot isn't the best idea - not only do you have to introduce all those heroes but you also have to introduce all the villains (and their respective animosities towards the heroes) in a way that makes them relevant and strong.
If Bats and Supes are introduced before the movie comes out, I can see it starting with them... so there's a start. If the threat is cosmic and/or alien based, that's at least an easy way to introduce Green Lantern. The Justice League animated series introduced Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl (and technically GL and Flash) by way of having them show up during the plot with little fanfare - works in a show, since you can use later episodes to flesh them out, but I'm not so sure how well such a technique would work in a movie.
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.OTOH, a TV series can get away with leaving stuff unexplained much moreso than a movie, because there is the expectation of further episodes in the immediate future.
I think the best possible option that works in the fewest movies would be:
1. Superman movie ( must be good, must introduce a broadly usable DC setting )
2. World's Finest movie ( expands the setting, introduces the rebooted Batman, they team up )
3. Justice League
Sadly, they are rushing things, and using a Superman movie that at various points was *not* intended to be part of a joint setting. Who knows how that will go.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com
So do the studios not make as much money from foreign markets as they do from domestic ones? Is there a cinema tariff I don't know about?
"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko