User blog comment:HombreHormiga/Marvel/DC/@comment-1895174-20130415045709

DC's problems at the movies are more political than anything.

Back 2006-ish there were plans for a Captain Marvel movie. It got pretty far along, even bringing on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to portray Black Adam. The movie was going to be a bit more kid-friendly, or something along the lines of an action-comedy, going along the lines of the franchise's cheesiness and the age of the main character. However, the commercial failure of Speed Racer made Warner Bros. rethink the movie, and they shelved the project.

I imagine Flash would have a similar problem. The character looks ridiculous, and his villains are just as ridiculous. Anything but an action-comedy would feel weird.

The problem with Wonder Woman, arguably the most notable superhero not to have appeared in film, is...well, to put it frankly, sexist. Remember that movie from a few years back starring that female MMA fighter Gina Carano? There was buzz that she really delivered in that movie, and there was talk about Hollywood finally finding their Wonder Woman. You know where that talk went? Nowhere, the film tanked. It's been proven time after time that action films with a female lead don't really perform well at the box office, unless they have a strong built-in audience like The Hunger Games or Aliens. But the disappointing sales of the Wonder Woman DCUOAM disc (which, in all fairness, is now one of the more successful titles in that line, but was the weakest for a long time) may have scared WB away from a standalone Wonder Woman movie.

The prospects of an Aquaman movie are so laughable it was one of the core jokes on the show Entourage.

Green Lantern had a shot at being a real franchise, but that opportunity was squandered with the godawful 2011 film.

With a bunch of dead ends, the natural conclusion would be a Justice League film. Do the opposite of what Marvel did - instead of building up to a movie with a bunch of standalone films, spin-off a bunch of franchises with the one movie. Build that audience for a Wonder Woman movie, or even an Aquaman movie. Unfortunately, the idea's received a lukewarm reception, with many fans just saying they're trying to cash in on what Marvel did with The Avengers (which they are), and the news of terrible scripts and other production issues might kill that project.

This is why it shouldn't be any surprise that most of DC's films have come from Superman and Batman, their two most reliable properties. However, looking at it that way is skewing the picture. You left out a lot of DC movies from your list: Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, V for Vendetta, Red, and a bunch more titles from their imprints. They've had a lot more success with titles like that than they have with getting any of their heroes except Batman and Superman on the screen. Meanwhile, there's also the DCUAOM line of films, where they've gotten a lot of their comics' storylines into a movie. The Dark Knight Returns (in two parts), Batman: Year One, All-Star Superman, JLA: Tower of Babel, DC: The New Frontier, etc. And there's also takes on The Death of Superman and Jason Todd's return.

Both those arenas are areas Marvel isn't doing all that well. Their straight-to-dvd titles (or straight-to-video, if we're talking 20 years ago) haven't done that well, and the only stuff from their imprints we've seen anything from are Men in Black and Kick-Ass. So it doesn't matter that much that DC falters where Marvel dominates, since it's doing a lot better where Marvel drops the ball.