DC Comics and Marvel Comics, the two major mountains of the North American comic market, each have a huge fan base.

After the 90s, whether it is sales or popularity, including the advanced consciousness of adapting movies to expand their influence, and even the concentration of superheroes' copyrights, the former is far ahead and occupies the absolute upper hand, and the heroic images of Superman and Batman are even more popular all over the world.

But after entering the 21st century, the latter has achieved a comprehensive overtake in the field of films, and has established a huge Marvel Universe, becoming an important part of Disney's giant crocodile, while the former has lost all its territory in the competition.

Why?

Objectively speaking, after the turn of the millennium, Sony Pictures' "Spider-Man" and Twentieth Century Fox's "X-Men" took the lead in debuting, reviving the boom of comic book superhero movies, but Christopher Nolan's "Batman" series can be called a classic in film history, with an incredible win-win situation in word-of-mouth and box office, even enough to go down in history.

At this time, DC Comics and Marvel Comics can be said to have their own merits, equally divided the world, and difficult to distinguish.

However, in 2008, "Iron Man" officially debuted, which not only revitalized Robert Downey Jr.'s career and rejuvenated it again, but also started a ten-year dynasty of Marvel frenzy, witnessed the era of Marvel's triumph, and also witnessed Disney's return to the top of the throne, after which, the gap between the two comics has become wider and wider.

To be more precise, the starting point of the decline of the Warner Bros. adaptation of the DC superhero movie is 2012.

It was a very, very special vintage.

For Marvel, the "Avengers" won a big victory, stepped onto the stage of history with the arrogance of creating history, officially announced the comprehensive victory of the first phase of the Marvel universe, and established the absolute market position of superheroes, which is difficult to shake. After that, a series of Marvel movies such as "Captain America 2", "Thor 2", "Ant-Man", "Doctor Strange", and "Guardians of the Galaxy" made their debut and blossomed in full bloom.

For DC, the official release of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" successfully drew a beautiful end to the Batman story built by Christopher Nolan, but it also officially marked that the weapon used by Warner Bros. to compete with Marvel was temporarily offline, and they had to restart the project, re-layout, and start over.

The reason for emphasizing the particularity of 2012 is due to the historical background.

After the turn of the millennium, Warner Bros. established an absolute dominance in Hollywood, with a leading market share, with the "Matrix" series as the beginning, the "Harry Potter" series as the rise, and the "Batman" series as the peak, and the three series of works connected together for a full decade.

At the same time, Warner Bros. has never given up on the development of DC Comics adaptations, such as "Catwoman", "Watchmen", "Green Lantern", "Superman Returns", "Detective Hell", etc., they have been trying to explore the market potential of superhero movies, hoping to continue to explore more possibilities beyond the three sets of carriages.

Unfortunately, all of these titles failed, at least at the box office, and the "Matrix" series ended in 2003, the "Harry Potter" series ended in 2011, and the "Batman" series ended in 2012.

So, when 2012 ended, Warner Bros. was in a difficult situation, and the successful series came to an end, unable to develop a new superhero movie, and at the same time facing the overwhelming weight of competitors. All of this makes 2012 special.

It is in this context that Warner Bros. has developed a new plan to create a DC universe in order to compete with Marvel movies. In this plan, there are many works such as "Superman: Man of Steel", "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", "Suicide Squad", "Wonder Woman", "Justice League" and so on.

Warner Bros. is undoubtedly the right idea, the three giants of DC Comics are Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and their powerful influence in American pop culture is unmatched, even Marvel's Iron Man and Spider-Man are difficult to compete with. Therefore, they are ready to use the three giants as the core to arrange the entire DC universe -

The first work is "Man of Steel", and then it leads to the confrontation of "Dawn of Justice", where it witnesses the historic appearance of Wonder Woman, and then, the Joker brings out the "Suicide Squad", and "Wonder Woman" appears alone, and then, the three giants of DC join forces to appear, leading to the "Justice League", and then deriving a one-player movie with each character.

But what went wrong?

To put it simply, it's too hasty!

Before the success of "The Avengers", Marvel spent four years and four works to build, two "Iron Man", one "Captain America", one "Thor", and even the failed "The Incredible Hulk" can also be counted, after all the story lines are sorted out, the actors collectively entered the story of "The Avengers", and completed the transition and success, everything is logical.

When the audience saw the Avengers debut, except for the newly debuted Hawkeye and the Hulk who changed actors, all the other characters were clear at a glance, and the ins and outs had been connected, which means that the screenwriter did not need to spend a lot of pen and ink to introduce the characters, and could save more space to lay out the story, outline the characters, and even shake off the baggage.

So, in the end, the audience saw a wonderful popcorn blockbuster!

But Warner Bros. is not so patient, there are wolves in front of them and tigers in the back, they simply don't have enough time to calm down and polish every superhero role.

After "Man of Steel", "Dawn of Justice" drove ducks directly to the shelves.

Batman is a new actor, Wonder Woman is also a new appearance, and even Superman's own story thread is incomplete - Iron Man in "The Avengers" has already had two works before, which also makes Iron Man the core of this work and drives the whole story, but Superman has only one.

Without a clear character outline and story line, the characters of "Dawn of Justice" are full of disconnection, and each character is incomplete, so that the philosophical theme discussion becomes dissimilar, and it can be seen that Zack-Snyder, the director who directed the comic book "Watchmen", has been trying, but with little success.

After that, everything became a disaster.

The same goes for the failures of the "Suicide Squad" and the "Justice League". In the movie, the screenwriter and director have to spend pen and ink and space to introduce each character, but the limited space is simply unable to outline the complete character, and it is self-defeating to further compress the time of its own narrative, which makes the already weak story of Popcorn even more fragmented.

Among the many works in the DC universe, "Wonder Woman" is the only one that succeeds, and the reason is the same, in turn, this movie spends enough pen and ink to tell the origin and appearance of Wonder Woman, the ins and outs are extremely clear, but the simple story connects the whole character, and then integrates laughter, slots, cuteness and baggage, and the movie has successfully won the hearts of the audience.

If - just hypothetical, if Warner Bros. is willing to slow down, don't rush to form a confrontation with Marvel, but start with the three characters of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, shoot a separate movie, step by step to complete the foreshadowing, and then the Big Three join forces to appear on the stage, shoot a work similar to "The Avengers", and then lead to a single movie of the Joker or The Flash, and start the second phase of the layout.

So, will the market landscape change?

This is a question that everyone is curious about, but time cannot be reversed, and even if Barry regrets not doing so and wants to overturn it again, he is already powerless.

Incidentally, Universal Pictures tried to build a monster universe with works such as "New Mummy" and "Godzilla", and they made the same mistakes.

Now Lan Li was curious, he wasn't sure if the man at the helm he had never met would be willing to listen to the advice he had ever met if he had asked Ron Meyer, but at the very least, he could try Barry Meyer in front of him, and perhaps, it could change the fate of Superman and Batman.

As a childhood memory, Lan Li still has a unique feeling for DC Comics, just like for Marvel's Spider-Man, every child more or less dreams of being Peter Parker, that frizzy and impulsive high school student, but because of a magical accident to change his fate.

Lan Li has no ambition or interest in changing the pattern of the entire market, just out of childhood memories.

Lan Li simply informed Barry of his thoughts, believing that Warner Bros. should slow down, not delusionally eat a fat man and immediately confront Marvel Studios, but seriously build a separate work of each superhero first, ensure that each series can get a place, and then consider the entire DC Universe, instead of standing on the height of the DC Universe to create a separate movie for each superhero.

Barry listened quietly, a curious look between his eyebrows.

Everyone knows that Lan Li has a unique vision for choosing roles, especially independent art films, which are even more unique. Although Lan Li's talent for commercial films has not been confirmed more for the time being, it can still be felt that his perspective and insights are different.

Barry thought back to the conversation at the Almeida Theater for the second time, and a bold idea popped up, "Would you be interested in being involved in the production of the Superman and Batman films, I mean, as a producer, and of course, if you're willing to be involved as an actor, that's great." ”

"No, no, no. After Lan Li was slightly stunned, he laughed and waved his hand again and again, the panic that he could not avoid made Barry interested and asked "why".

Lan Li spread out his hands and expressed his helplessness, "I am an actor, a pure actor, not a producer. I can sit here and give my opinions, but these are just theoretical knowledge, and there is no feasibility in any way. Professional work should be left to professionals. ”