Vaunted comic book writer Mark Millar has found considerable success in both the Big Two (the critically acclaimed Captain America: Civil War is largely based on Millar’s 2006-07 Marvel Comics’ crossover), Marvel and DC and through his own independent work (Kick-Ass, Wanted, Secret Service to name a few) — and it’s perhaps this impartiality that makes his judgement of why the Marvel Cinematic Universe is faring so much better than the DC Extended Universe on the big screen so interesting.
“I think it’s really simple, the characters aren’t cinematic,” Millar explained in a recent interview with Yahoo Movies. “… And I say this as a massive DC fan who much prefers their characters to Marvel’s. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are some of my favorites, but I think these characters, with the exception of Batman, they aren’t based around their secret identity; they are based around their super power. Whereas the Marvel characters tend to be based around the personality of Matt Murdock or Peter Parker, or the individual X-Men, it’s all about the character.”
Spider-Man: more relatable than Green Lantern and Superman, according to Millar.
Though he admits he’ll likely be slammed for his opinions, Millar contends that DC’s characters might be too antiquated for big screen success and that this generation just can’t relate as much to characters from 1952 who’ve “peaked”:
“We’ve seen great directors, great writers and great actors, tonnes of money thrown at them, but these films aren’t working. I think they are all too far away from when they were created. Something feels a little old about them, kids look at these characters and they don’t feel that cool. Even Superman, I love Superman, but he belongs to an America that doesn’t exist anymore. He represents 20th Century America and I think he peaked then.”
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Are the DC Extended Universe characters too old-fashioned for today’s audiences or have they just been lacking the right creative direction? Are Marvel’s characters more relatable and thus better suited for big screen success? Sound off in the comments.
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