Is Warner Bros. Considering a Hawkman Movie?

Yesterday, I lamented that Warner Bros. might be overextending the appeal of Marvin the Martian by trying to develop a standalone movie for the Bugs Bunny character. I love Marvin, but a feature film? Striking while the Space Jam iron is hot, I guess. But now it looks like the studio might be miscalculating yet again, propping up Hawkman for his own movie. If you watched Super Friends as a kid, you no doubt saw Hawkman. But how many of us know the character? The smart money says not too many, but with WB and its DC Comics subsidiary drawing a line in the sand with the Marvel Universe, we're going to get a ton of comic book movies we just don't need. Shit, they can't even make a good Superman movie over at Warner Bros. now and they can't pick a direction for Wonder Woman, and suddenly the studio thinks a Hawkman movie is in order? According to Pajiba, "Warners is looking to make Hawkman a tentpole franchise, and describes the movie as part Indiana Jones, part Da Vinci Code and part Ghost," whatever that means. I think the fact that the studio can't make it part Hawkman and part Hawkman tells us all we need to know. Sounds like a fishing expedition, if any of this news is remotely reliable. No word from the studio yet, so please file this in the rumor category. But supposing for a minute that it's true, even though Warner Bros. is playing with house money after two stupendous years in a row, this is not the kind of project that has made the studio so profitable. This is a major league gamble. Green Lantern you can get by with because, in part, he's a real bad ass. Ask Superman, a character Lantern has bested a couple times in DC lore. Hawkman, while a good fill character, is not the strongest card in the company's deck. On the flip side, look at Thor. He's not exactly the Marvel equivalent of Hawkman, but it's a difficult movie to conceptualize, yet director Kenneth Branagh has an interesting cast and we can now see the pieces really coming together on that one, which was impossible about eight months ago. So maybe DC is using that film as the standard by which it will measure itself. I mean no disrespect to Hawkman or his fans, but good luck making $250 - $300 million with this character. I just don't see a lot of mainstream moviegoers buying into it.

Comments

[El Doucheo Bago]

Hawkman is awesome, looking forward to this.

[Charcole]

Didn't Jeremy Renner say in an interview that he was up for this role in the Thor movie? I'm pretty sure I read that a couple weeks ago.

[Get The Big Picture]

No, we was up for Hawkeye, or so he said. Different universe.

[pajiba]

why do people keep using pajiba as a news story? the site is total shit and i can't recall if any of their "exclusive news" has ever actually been correct.

[El Doucheo Bago]

The part where is says "Part Indiana Jones, part Da Vinci Code and part Ghost" is because thats Hawkman.