Todd Phillips's Joker finally comes to theaters today and if it is a successful commercial venture, it could open the door for DC to make more movies from its huge stable of comic book villains. I mean other than the 50 movies featuring
Actually I already did one (or two really) months ago in this post where I came up with two potential Lex Luthor movies with a black Luthor in mind. And I think either idea would work. Or maybe find a third and make a trilogy! People love trilogies, right? Like Todd Phillips's unnecessary Hangover trilogy?
Vengeance of Bane: This idea comes from the Bane prequel miniseries that came out around the time of the Knightfall storyline. The idea was to explain who Bane was and where he came from. That story barely features Batman, hence making it easy to adapt into a stand-alone movie.
It'd be sort of like The Shawshank Redemption or Count of Monte Cristo meets a gangster movie like The Godfather or Scarface. Bane is born in a prison in the fictitious island country of Santa Prisca and grows up there to serve the time his father couldn't serve. He's taken under the wings of a couple of other prisoners (Trogg, Zombie, and Bird I think in the comics) and manages to grow to manhood. All the time he reads lots of books to train his mind. While in solitary he also trains his body and soon defeats the top convict to rule the prison until his escape. In the comics he of course ends up in Gotham to destroy Batman, but a movie wouldn't have to do that.
Black Adam: The Dark Age: Another miniseries that features a villain but not really a hero so it's easy to adapt. Black Adam was supposed to be played by The Rock but I have no idea if that's still going to happen or not. Anyway, Black Adam was given the ancient powers of Shazam but used them for evil to take over his own country in Africa or the Middle East. He was married to Isis but then she died. This story then features Black Adam after he's lost his power. He tries to get back his power and his wife, going literally to the ends of the Earth to do so. A lot of that journey could be changed but the gist is a great love story and non-traditional "villain" story.
Catwoman: Obviously this has already been done--badly. It's time to do it right! First don't hire a stupid French director with a mononym that sounds like a rice dish. And secondly don't come up with some stupid origin story about getting cat powers from an Egyptian goddess or whatever the hell it was. Just stick to that she's a thief who sometimes robs rich assholes to help other people. It should be easy enough with anyone competent at the helm. Oh and no basketball scenes with Benjamin Bratt featuring gratuitous ass shots.
League of Shadows/Court of Owls: These are two interchangeable ideas. They're both evil organizations from the Batman comics that have been around for centuries. So you can do a story in modern times or a story in olden times or maybe do a combo with some modern stuff as a framing device to flashbacks to older stuff. A League of Shadows movie could focus on the rise of Ra's al Guhl while a Court of Owls movie could feature a plot to kill Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Talon: the henchmen of the Court of Owls are these sort of Winter Soldier type guys called "Talons." There was a short-lived New 52 series where one of the Talons went rogue against the Court of Owls. So that could be a movie on its own or an extension of a Court of Owls movie.
Deathstroke: He's not "the Merc With a Mouth" but he's a Merc and he has a mouth. And one eye. Another that should be really easy to do because there are tons of comics out there. And as a super-mercenary there's no need for any superheroes to be involved; just find some run of the mill action movie baddies to fight: drug lords, human traffickers, etc.
Lobo: Similar to Deathstroke only he's an alien and probably about as crazy and unkillable as Deadpool. It could easily be set in outer space to not involve any Earth-bound heroes. Maybe a cameo by a Green Lantern or something.
Sinestro: Speaking of space and Green Lanterns, why not a movie on the traditional Green Lantern villain? There are a few ways to do this: an origin story of how Sinestro came to be a Green Lantern. A story about his time in the Green Lanterns. A story about him breaking away from the Green Lanterns (something that was rushed into a cookie scene of the not-as-terrible-as-people-think 2011 movie). Or a story taking place after he's broken away. You could use the Sinestro Corps with its yellow fear rings or the more traditional solo blue costume.
Mister Mxyzptlk: This would be a fun one for an animated movie. You don't really need Superman since I'm sure the imp from the 5th Dimension could find all sorts of other hijinks around the universe.
Bizarro: Similarly they could do an animated movie starring Superman's weird opposite Bizarro. I didn't read it but there was recently a goofy series where Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen went around having fun adventures so that could be something to look into. Or you could do a horror movie version based on B-Zero, a fucked-up clone of Superman made by Lex Luthor.
Bizarro: Similarly they could do an animated movie starring Superman's weird opposite Bizarro. I didn't read it but there was recently a goofy series where Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen went around having fun adventures so that could be something to look into. Or you could do a horror movie version based on B-Zero, a fucked-up clone of Superman made by Lex Luthor.
Penguin: I think instead of the Batman Returns Penguin you'd use more of the Gotham TV show Penguin: a weird guy who gets into a local Mafia outfit and winds up running it. Since it'd be before Bruce Wayne becomes Batman you don't need him around.
I'm really just scratching the surface here. There are probably a ton of other ones they can do. But it's Warner Bros so they'll probably just fuck it up.
*BONUS: COBRA! Forbes Film Critic Scott Mendelson retweeted a post about a Cobra trooper figure and jokingly suggested that Paramount would make a movie about Cobra, the ruthless terrorist organization from GI JOE. Which actually isn't the bad idea he thinks it is! If you ask people like Tony Laplume they would mention that IDW put out some really good comics by Mike Costa focused primarily on Cobra that could make a decent movie. So, yeah, it's really not as far out there as people would think.
So there you go. Happy Holidays!
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