spidermanrocks
Senior Member
Originally posted by Newjak
First off Alien vs Predator is a bad example imo not only because it wasn't that good, I actually kinda liked it myself but mostly for nostalgic purposes, but because when these movies were first created they had no intention of a shared universe. That came way later after fans wanted it because of an Alien Skull prop in the second Predator's movie which was just thrown in there for fun.That spawned the comics, the game which led into the movies. This kind of showed to as they were basically trying to shoehorn in two separate Universes into one movie.
Now while some would say the time and effort given to showing that the Avengers were a combined universe detracted from the overall story for the individual movies it served to help create a really great one.
Showing them as a shared Universe throughout helped add some depth to the Avengers movie personally. People like Agent Choulson, items like the Cosmic Cube helped link the world a lot better. Howard Stark in Captain America was a brilliant move imo.
Not to say it has to be this way but I do think that marketing choice by Marvel did help give the Avengers movie and the fans a little extra which the JL movie could use.
You could possibly link them all together by say Cademus considering them a threat and deciding to build a super weapon (Doomsday/Amazo) to help the world should these super gods go bad except it gets out and can't be stop. The linkage in every movie could be a Cademus Agent being shown doing something taking something. Superman's DNA or Kyrptonian Tech, GL's bad guy's power source, Wonder Woman DNA Sample, piece of Batman tech or Batman Villain tech, Flash DNA sample stuff like that. Maybe not even that straight forward.
Or you could go a very low brow type of thing and just include a teaser trailer at the end of every movie for the next JLer individual movie coming out.
Just something to get people excited.
I know Alien vs. Predator wasn't originally planned. But it's the same idea if you pretend like you didn't do any research on why the crossover was made. Movies taking place in the same universe having either no connection whatsoever or small cameos and references (like the Alien skull in Predator 2) until the big crossover comes out. It's the exact same case except that unlike Alien vs. Predator, DC would have JL planned out from the start.
I disagree that showing a shared universe being present = bigger box office success. It worked with Marvel because it was the first time something like this was ever done. It was something new that hasn't been tried in live-action before. But now we've already seen it. Not saying it won't work again but just that it's not a guarantee that this marketing can work again now that it's been already used.
I said as long as they don't show it's a shared universe or they have just small cameos/few names being mentioned, it should be fine. I would count the Cadmus thing and the after-credits trailer as being more of a cameo. As long as it's not "in your face" about it like the Marvel movies were (especially Iron Man 2), then it should be fine. But when you have Superman showing up in a Batman movie to have a talk with him or something like that, that's where the problem would be IMO.
And maybe not showing all the movies taking place in the same universe just might be a good marketing technique. Imagine if you weren't a comic book fan, you saw a bunch of (hopefully) great DC movies for the past couple of years all having little to no connection to each other, and then while you're sitting in theatres waiting for a movie to start while watching the trailers, all of a sudden you see Batman, Superman, and the rest of the JL members (who by that time, if their movies have been successful, would have reached the iconic status and popularity of someone like Iron Man or at least Thor or Captain America) standing side by side fighting against something/someone. Unlike the Avengers movie, which you knew would happen from the start, JL would take you by surprise. Kinda like how the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins took many by surprise. It wasn't expected. Not saying this marketing will definitely work but hey, you never know...