Dear DC...

So, Brodie Fanns...

I've never really made an effort to hide that when it comes to the great Marvel vs. DC debate, I side with Marvel. I think their characters are better written and better developed. And Superman's kind of a pansy. He is. Face it.

Anyway, I came across this interesting article over at Movie Retriever, about the future of DC films. And it raises some very interesting points. Basically that while The Dark Knight is the greatest cinematic achievement known to man, woman, child and certain cave dwelling amphibians, two great movies out of three since the comic book genre caught fire seven years ago isn't exactly a stellar track record when compared to other comic book publishers, say for instance, Marvel, who have gone back and forth with their adaptations, but their top-tier flicks tend to be solid offerings.

So far DC's offered us two great Batman flicks, and a barely passable Superman retread. I would have liked to see Singer do to Superman what Nolan did with Batman. Forget the first franchise, and take it in a newer, more mature level. I don't mean "mature" in the boobies and swear words sense, but mature in the advanced story telling sense.

They had some great ideas for the future of DC and I agreed with some of them. It boils down to Keep Batman confined to his movies, Superman confined to his movies, set up a Wonder Woman franchise, keep her confined, and then bring out the B-Listers for crossovers (Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The Flash, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter). That's all well and good.

But I was discussing Batman, Superman and DC with a good friend of mine and came up with the following strategy:

Christopher Nolan, who is doing absolutely amazing things with Batman, signs a longterm contract with Warner Bros./DC. ties him to at least two more movies, with the allowance to do side projects if he so chooses (The Prestige, anyone?). But he is contracted for 2 more DC movies, at least.

The third Batman film needs to start introducing more aspects of the DC Universe, particularly Metropolis and Superman. And this is where he starts a creative collaboration with Bryan Singer.

For the next Superman movie... Singer basically needs to abandon the notion of tying the Routh Superman to the Reeve Superman, and take it in it's own direction. And he can start doing tie-ins and crossovers to the rest of the DC Universe, particularly Gotham City and Batman.

Now, Singer and Nolan do a full on creative collaboration for the subsequent films in their series'. Here's why... do a two part Batman/Superman flick, Nolan taking part I, Singer taking part II.

So the franchises would go in this order: Superman II, Batman III, Batman/Superman I, Batman/Superman II. In the second part, you could introduce some of the other DC heroes, though not in major roles. Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, and Wally West/The Flash.

You could do that to do introductions of characters. Then once you've got it all set, move on to the big Justice League Movie, and the runs of Batman and Superman with that, and spin off with the aforementioned heroes.

It follows an opposit pattern as Marvel, and it does away with the "Origins story" for them, because we're setting them up. Then once they get to their own flicks, they can jump right into their own stories.

It works. Trust me. You hear that, Joe Quesada. Put me in charge of cinematic development. Cause I'm a cat who knows what's what. Hells yeah.

- Brodie Mann