Turkish Airlines is the official airline for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As such, it produced the first fairly nifty set of Superbowl commercials this afternoon.
Take a look below at these in-universe travel ads for Gotham City and Metropolis, with cameos by Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor respectively.
From The Atlantic: “The Trouble With Superman”
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/the-trouble-with-superman/435408/
The problem “has less to do with the character himself and more to with DC Comics, which found itself stuck with a flagship character it thought needed fixing. In trying, it broke him nearly beyond repair.”
Trying to force Superman into the dark, grim and violent mold of Batman (and too many other heroes since the ’80s) DOES NOT WORK. The traditional, light-hearted tone of the Supergirl TV series is what DC should be going for.
“Trying to force Superman into the dark, grim and violent mold of Batman (and too many other heroes since the ’80s) DOES NOT WORK. ”
Except for the people that it does work for.
Superman Returns worldwide box office numbers: 391 Million
Man of Steel box office numbers: 668 Million
That’s a good point you raise Erik. I think the worldwide gross on BvS will tell the tale really. Did fans enjoy what they saw the first time from Snyder? Do they want to come back for more?
My gut says probably, but I’m not terribly in touch with what a non-comics audience is looking for.
It was funny that they can’t even use Superman in commercials the dread that surrounds the character right now….
The tale is likely told in the halls of power at WB when the smoke clears, all of those terrible expectations.
And then staying power until Civil War, which should give a good yardmarker to measure BvS’ success.
Okay… someone take the “imported from Detroit” Super Bowl ad
https://youtu.be/iHozLw6f5rI
and mash it with Gotham/Metropolis rebuilding.
Hmm… does this mean that Turkish Airlines will have product placement as an airplane caught in the middle of the action?
And doesn’t Luthor own LexAir? Wouldn’t Wayne and Luthor have private jets, or was this just for civic pride?
“Except for the people that it does work for.
Superman Returns worldwide box office numbers: 391 Million
Man of Steel box office numbers: 668 Million”
Ant-Man worldwide box office $519 million.
Iron Man 3 worldwide box office $1.,2 billion.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 worldwide box office $708 million
Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that dark and violent is probably NOT the best choice for Superman, when he’s doing just a bit better than freakin’ Ant-Man and a bit worse than a Spider-reboot-sequel so disappointing it stopped Sony in mid-trilogy and made them loan the character back to Marvel for Civil War.
Mike
Iron Man worldwide box office: $585.2 million
Thor worldwide box office: $449.3 million
X-Men: Last Stand worldwide box office: $459.4 million
Captain America worldwide box office: $370.6 million
All of these films were considered to be huge box office successes when they were released, and one or both of the dark Superman movies did as well or better than them.
Some people may not like the darker interpretation of Superman. That’s fine. But a lot of people (like me) do.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but don’t want a dark, grim, unsmiling Superman. Notice that Supes doesn’t smile once in the BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN trailers. Yes, this is serious, adult filmmaking! (He said with sarcasm.)
Audiences will go for a lighthearted, Silver Age-style approach in TV shows and movies. (See: ANT-MAN and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.) But the people who read comic books, it seems, will not accept that approach in comics. They want everything to be “dark and gritty,” as proof they’re reading “adult” material.
The Atlantic article nailed it here:
“Since the 1980s, the dominant trend in the industry has been specialty comics shops replacing newsstands as primary distributors. Given this change, companies like Marvel and DC have focused their marketing toward an ever-dwindling market of adult fans, darkening their characters in an attempt to keep the interest of a readership desperate for mainstream respectability. In effect, adults were colonizing young-adult narratives and warping them in the process—an early example of what later occurred with Michael Bay’s legendarily crass Transformers films.
“In one of the uglier paradoxes of the superhero-comics industry, characters who were devised to entertain children soon became completely unsuitable for them. Leaning into this trend in an effort to entice new adult readers, DC largely abandoned its strengths as a publisher of optimistic, bizarre superheroics and fumbled for an edgier identity.”
If DC’s sales are any indication, they’re still fumbling.
“All of these films were considered to be huge box office successes when they were released,”
The only one of those considered a real smashing success was Iron Man and that was because no one expected it to do that well. The first Captain America’s box office was definitely “meh” and X-Men: The Last Stand was absolutely disappointing.
If you like Dark Superman, that’s your right but it simply WASN’T a huge success with the public. It wasn’t a disaster but it wasn’t a success.
Mike
We *might* disagree about that box office for X-Men: The Last Stand. Its big drop on that Memorial Day weekend was troubling, but taken in context (2006 superhero film, prior to any of these films hitting a billion) it was a hit and the biggest earner of the franchise until Days of Future Past, which is the first time that series has ever hit the 700 million dollar mark.
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