DC Implosion II: DC Comics in 2020 and Beyond

on reflection my cynical mind suggests that DC bought another year of publishing budget by arguing "reboots sell!" and that this is the last gasp while AT&T attempt to arrange an IP megasale for 2022/23

you think they're really going to sell any IP? I would think the lesson of 21st Century Disney/Fox is NEVER sell your IP because 100 years later it'll still be making money

Wasn't the theory that they would license comic book publishing to Marvel?

i'm no genius with this stuff but my sense is that AT&T needs to pay off a huge chunk of debt and that IP would probably take care of that and then some to satisfy their shareholders? seems like the fastest way to clean up their books and the most intangible asset... the superhero goldmine is still a relatively recent thing and there's no guarantee that this won't go the way of cowboys and indians in the 2030's.

licensing publishing to marvel/disney would probably work as a getting-to-know you strategy while they work out numbers and terms, sure.

I think they're looking to sell off DirecTV, while the DC IP is fueling all those hit movies (I didn't realize that even Shazam! was a hit).

Marvel is so bad at publishing that Disney license their catalogue to a company run out of an unheated, leaky house instead

superheroes come back every 25 years, give or take!

sure in one form or another but the current boom is both unprecedented and frankly unsustainable.

everybody betting their trillion dollar companies on the surety that Teen Titans 6 is gonna rule the (nonexistent) box office in 2032 confounds me. but then i'm just some dude on the internet, what do i know

xp true, i agree with that

Feel like the horrific wealth accumulation and corporate hegemony of this century is increasing and we're more likely to see things consolidating vs break-ups in the long run. Besides climate disaster I'm not sure what's going to even slow down that trend

Right now it does feel like a safe bet something from the Massive IP Farm will the biggest money-makers in 12 years. But who can know for certain

In fairness, they also have the Scooby-Doo and Space Jam franchises.

to clarify - yes the current superhero boom is unsustainable and will morph into something else at some point

but economies don't make sense anymore. how did Elon Musk make $133 Billion this year?

I mean, he didn’t.

I just like that they plan to combine the Robert Pattinson and Ben Affleck universes by bringing together Ben Affleck and... Michael Keaton?

are they gonna computer unage him or will batman be bald

this is a pretty good article about what we were just talking about:
https://musingsonmouse.substack.com/p/star-wars-nostalgia-fatigue-and-marvels
julia alexander's "Musings on Mouse" substack is well worth subscribing to

are they gonna computer unage him

I didn’t even consider this (just assumed it would be a Dark Knight thing); but now I’m expecting the worst, lol

xp is there a way to get that through RSS instead of email?

nah they're not gonna do it. assumed they're just make him Flashpoint Batman or Batman Beyond-era Bruce Wayne (like they did with Kevin Conroy in the recent Arrowverse crossover)

nm - found it searching on Feedly

They should bring back Val Kilmer.

https://static01-nyt-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/static01.nyt.com/images/2020/05/07/magazine/10mag-kilmer/10mag-kilmer-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg

as palpatine?

Unrelated, this new Superman looks like the dickhead from Accounts at a company barbecue:

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/supermanandlois-suit-1-e1607554527118.jpg

Not a new Superman by any stretch as he has portrayed Supes on multiple seasons of Supergirl already. He's dece.

Cool. He still looks like he’s asking a receptionist to “put Deez Nutz on hold.”

it's on like krypton

I mean, the point is that he's Dad Superman. If you put a moustache on him he'd look like the dad from Inside Out, so job done.

Kyle MacLachlan (dad from Inside Out) actually has voiced Superman, so I guess it all ties together?

A somewhat younger MacLachlan would have perfect as a (live action) Superman / Clark Kent, btw

https://i.imgur.com/MBIMkUK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HEGa0Yh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/9w6Gmht.gif https://i.ibb.co/wLXDRRV/giphy.gif

https://i.imgur.com/az295lc.jpg https://i.imgur.com/olwVPOp.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ufLJXDp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JCf7d41.png

<3

https://i.imgur.com/U2TP0jI.jpg https://i.imgur.com/75AGLJc.jpg

enhance

https://i.imgur.com/Z1Ssg2H.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/JzgbaZp.jpg

Anyone here read the “Wonder Woman: Dead Earth” miniseries? Sounds interesting.

it's good.

Guys.

They're changing Black Adam's name to

(hang on)

(wait for it, it's worth it)

SHAZADAM

Gesundheit!

His mother's name will be changed to Shazmartha.

Okay, u just about made me choke on my lunch there

Holy shit

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-comics-buyout-in-the-works-from-fans-with-lots-of-money/

(Also don't know why it didn't occur to me before but: Shazadam and Boogaloo Shrimp)

that sounds disastrous

t/s: dc is run by a bunch of clueless rich assholes on a salary vs dc is run by a bunch of clueless rich assholes who also own the company

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/other-people-who-have-heard-about-the-big-dc-buyout-pitch/

So weird to think that there's a pool of high roller comic nerd venture capitalists floating around out there. Like they clearly have accrued their wealth from some entirely different, non-comics thing but for some reason comics are the toilet they're eager to flush their money down (to which I say: welcome to the club).

gotta burn them $GME profits!

Bleeding Cool understands that it was former DC President Diane Nelson's decision to move DC Comics from relatively expensive offices in Manhattan to insanely expensive offices in Burbank that was the biggest factor in the decision.

I have been assuming this was likely a major factor, lol / nice to have it semi-confirmed

Why are the offices in Burbank more expensive? (It's not mentioned or explained in the link.)

Some quick Googling suggests that midtown Manhattan is #2 in the country, while Burbank is much, much cheaper -- on average, of course.

DC moved from 666 5th (now owned by Jared Kushner, and a major liability that he's tried to leverage through various of his governmental roles through the last four years) to across the road from Letterman around... 1993? '95?

When Levitz left all the way back in 2009 and Diane Nelson took over, moving the offices to the West Coast was once again considered—and a whole west coast office that was staff-ready was already built— but Levitz, or someone, had signed such a long lease on the offices that to break it would literally have cost more than the move.

Dc Entertainment staff began using that Warners-built office in 2010; in 2011 they signed a https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-entertainment-readies-move-new-2051786 million lease even closer to Warner, but it took a few years to purpose-build another space in the floor they leased in that tower. In 2013, DC Entertainment and relocated DC Comics staff moved in; in 2015 DC Comics as a whole was moved to the west coast.

MAD was a major canary in the coalmine of my thinking, too.

NB that Nelson told the Wall Street Journal in 2013 that the awkwardness of judging the office Halloween costume contest via video conferencing is what convinced her to require the entire New York staff to move a few buildings away from her, or to pay out their redundancies.

Haha