After Hollywood's film industry entered the 21st century, it has entered a stage of rapid development, especially the maturity and improvement of the commercialization system, which not only made the box office limit of the movie have been further increased, and there have been "Avatar" exceeding 700 million, "Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens" breaking through 900 million, and also increasing the average box office level of movies from 100 million to 200 million. The surrounding industries that were born for the www.biquge.info of Biqu Pavilion have flourished, and then a huge business empire has been formed.

Among them, comic book adaptations undoubtedly occupy the most important position.

With the stunning explosion of "Spider-Man" in 2002 as the www.biquge.info of the Fun Pavilion, it is not only the first work in North American film history to break the box office of 100 million in its opening weekend, but also the cumulative box office in North America exceeded 400 million, becoming the seventh work in film history to reach this height - and two of the six previous works were "Star Wars" series works. So, this naturally gave a revelation to the major North American film companies: "Star Wars" has been developed into the most important series of movies in North American film history, and the commercial value has been continuously tapped, so do comic books led by "Spider-Man" also have such potential?

It's no secret that Disney has been able to rank among Hollywood's top Hollywood for three decades, not because of the huge success of their films, but because of the long-standing sales of theme parks and merchandise centered on animation and fairy tales. And comics obviously have similar attributes.

After the success of "Spider-Man" and "X-Men", the Marvel Universe, which began with works such as "Captain America", "Thor", "Iron Man" and "The Avengers", swept through thousands of armies and created a new era. As of 2015, comic book adaptations occupy six of the top 20 box office charts in North American film history, of which Marvel has won four.

The entire Marvel universe has developed into the world's most well-known series of works, and the ability to attract fans has been flourishing for a long time, and Disney, which has completed the acquisition of Marvel, has created a new era, giving full play to the advantages of its own two-dimensional culture, and truly changing the composition and development direction of the film market; As Marvel's biggest opponent in the comic market, DC Comics, but it has collapsed, been suppressed to the death, and it is difficult to turn over.

Ironically, DC Comics once pioneered comic book adaptations and achieved incredible brilliance, but in the end it became a pathfinder for Marvel, only to watch as competitors swept through the army, creating a glorious era of comics.

This also makes DC Comics loyal fans hate iron and steel, and always uphold the view that "comics are non-mainstream, DC is orthodox", and look forward to DC Comics regaining control of the market initiative and reproducing its glory.

But is that really the case?

Turn the clock back to the thirties and forties of the last century, when DC Comics and Marvel Comics were created successively. For a long time, manga was considered a subculture that only free young people, especially otaku, would like, and it was not put on the table at all, and even in the traditional view, manga was denied recognition as a literary art. But it is undeniable that the advent of comics is gradually forming a special two-dimensional subculture.

Before 1968, DC Comics was the ruler of the sales market, with "Superman" and "Batman" as their trump card pillars, and the average sales of the two series were as high as 700,000 copies, easily killing all comic book characters in seconds, ushering in the heyday of comic book heroes. It reached its peak in the sixties, and at its most exaggerated, DC Comics sold more than three times as much as Marvel!

However, after 1968, Marvel Comics caught up, and the "Fantastic Four" became a key factor in changing the times, with an average sales of up to 600,000 copies, gradually completing the overtaking of competitors, and the high school hero created by "Spider-Man" has won the support of countless otaku, with an average sales of more than 400,000 copies, which makes Marvel Comics always maintain a sales lead in the next 20 years, occupying more than 60% of the market, and it can even reach 70% at its peak!

In fact, DC Comics almost went bankrupt in the 80s, and was even willing to sell all its comic book characters to Marvel, but because DC Comics couldn't sell at all at that time, Marvel rejected them as junk stocks.

It is undeniable that DC Comics and Marvel Comics are divided into two worlds, and the two companies have joined forces to dominate the entire market, but historically, DC rose first, and Marvel then overtook it. So, why do fans of DC Comics keep emphasizing that "DC is legitimate"? This brings us to the Marché du Film.

After witnessing the powerful influence of the two-dimensional subculture of comics, Time Warner acquired DC Comics at its peak in 1969, took the film adaptation rights of all comic book heroes in his hands, and worked to bring comics to the big screen, and they succeeded!

Warner Bros. put "Superman" and "Batman" on the big screen, creating a classic superhero image that will go down in history, even in the eighties when information dissemination was not developed, the image of Superman swept the world, deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and even became synonymous with superheroes for a time, truly changing people's perception of comic superheroes. This has transformed comic book characters into pioneers who can change cultural trends.

Superman and Batman completely dominated the movie screen in the 80s and 90s, and although the sales of DC Comics were still difficult to improve, these two characters shined on the big screen, and once made playing superheroes the dream of every actor in Hollywood; Comparatively speaking, Marvel's "popularity" journey seems to be very struggling.

Marvel once launched the movie version of "Captain America" in 1944, but it ended in a fiasco, and then Marvel's "Doctor Strange" and "Hulk" were made into TV movies, and the 1979 version of "Captain America" did not even get the opportunity to be released on the big screen, and directly entered the home video market, until 1986, the release of "Divine Soldiers", which was Marvel's second work to be released, but unfortunately the box office still failed miserably.

In terms of the film market, as of the release of "Blade" in 1998, only three Marvel works have been released, and the results have been dismal. Even for "Blade", this work is in the style of an R-rated film, which has achieved good returns compared to the low cost, but the impact is very limited.

It can be said that under the leadership of Superman and Batman, Marvel Comics has little to fight back. After entering the nineties, the sales of the entire comic market were declining, but DC Comics relied on movie adaptations to maintain its vigorous vitality, and Marvel lacked the support of other forces and gradually began to decline, and in 1996, Marvel Comics filed for bankruptcy.

Thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi, ten years ago, Marvel witnessed the bottom of DC Comics; And just ten years later, the situation between the two has been reversed, and the decisive key factor is the movie.

This is also the source of fan opinion, DC Comics has relied on Superman and Batman to dominate the film market for more than two decades, and Marvel has not been able to get out of the "two-dimensional subculture" circle of comics for a full half century. It can be said that for ordinary viewers who don't read comics, Superman and Batman are the representatives of comics, and as for Marvel's ......, "What kind of company is that?" ”

However, after entering the 21st century, it was Marvel that really broke out in the film market and led to earth-shaking changes in the entire film market.

This is not only unacceptable to fans of DC Comics, but also puzzled many Americans, even the major Hollywood studios. If you delve into the historical causes, the market, timing, decision-making, etc. cannot be ignored, but to put it simply, success is also Superman and Batman, defeat is also Superman and Batman.

Warner Bros. discovered the commercial value of comic book adaptations a long time ago, so they persevered in developing the possibility of DC Comics film adaptations since the seventies, successfully creating two characters, Superman and Batman. In the second half of the 90s, the fiasco of "Batman and Robin" made Warner Bros. shackled, and even the comic book adaptation became infamous for a while, which also made Warner Bros. shelve the comic book adaptation rights, coupled with the success of the "Harry Potter" series, so they temporarily abandoned any attempt.

The success of "Spider-Man" in 2002 allowed Warner Bros. to once again take the rights to adapt DC Comics - and Superman and Batman were the first to be considered.

But things are obviously not so simple, because Superman is too famous, in the past thirty years has been put on the screen countless times, the image of tights with red underwear is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, becoming an iconic hero accessory, the new movie is difficult to let the audience with aesthetic fatigue into the cinema without any new ideas, Superman's adaptation has become a dead end in place, especially Clark Kent's screen image can not produce a chemical reaction, so Superman's development has been continuously blocked.

The Batman series handed over to Christopher Nolan (Christopher-Nolan) has a new vitality, Christopher injected dark elements into Batman, reconstructed the story and context of the series, and discussed the philosophical core of the opposition between good and evil, but interdependence, elevating comic book movies to a new level, and "Batman Prequel: The Dark Knight" has become a classic in film history.

In this situation, Warner Bros. naturally began to lean towards Batman, which also made the adaptations of DC Comics have a dark temperament, while focusing on delving into the personal struggles and responsibilities of the heroes, but they ignore the important fact: not every comic is suitable for the dark style, and not every director is Christopher Nolan.

A mistake in decision-making, in the wrong place at the wrong time, led to an incredible rout, and a game of chess became fragmented, forcing Warner Bros. to overturn all the settings and start all over again. (To be continued.) )