RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Levitz Out, DC now DC Entertainment

Paul Levitz No Longer Publisher & President of DC Comics

• Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI) has created DC Entertainment Inc., a new company founded to fully realize the power and value of the DC Comics brand and characters across all media and platforms, to be run by Diane Nelson, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, and Alan Horn, President & COO, Warner Bros.
  
  DC Entertainment, a separate division of WBEI, will be charged with strategically integrating the DC Comics business, brand and characters deeply into Warner Bros. Entertainment and all its content and distribution businesses. DC Entertainment, which will work with each of the Warner Bros. divisions, will also tap into the tremendous expertise the Studio has in building and sustaining franchises and prioritize DC properties as key titles and growth drivers across all of the Studio, including feature films, television, interactive entertainment, direct-to-consumer platforms and consumer products. The DC Comics publishing business will remain the cornerstone of DC Entertainment, releasing approximately 90 comic books through its various imprints and 30 graphic novels a month and continuing to build on its creative leadership in the comic book industry.
  
  In her new role, Nelson will report to Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group, in order to best capitalize on DC Entertainment’s theatrical development and production activities and their importance to drive its overall business with each of the divisions of Warner Bros.
  
  Nelson will bring her expertise and more than 20 years’ experience in creative brand management, strategic marketing and content development and production to ensuring DC Entertainment’s dual mission of marshalling Warner Bros.’ resources to maximize the potential of the DC brand while remaining respectful of and collaborative with creators, talent, fans and source material. Additionally, Nelson will continue to oversee the franchise management of the Harry Potter property, which she has done since 2000, and also continue to represent the Studio's interests with the author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling. Nelson will segue from her post as President, Warner Premiere but maintain oversight responsibilities of that division. (An executive succession plan for Warner Premiere will be announced shortly.)
  
  Paul Levitz, who has served as President & Publisher of DC Comics since 2002, will segue from that role to return to his roots as a writer for DC and become a contributing editor and overall consultant to DCE. This transition will take place as expeditiously as possible without disrupting DC’s business operations.
  Paul Levitz
  
  In his new role, Levitz will be called upon for his deep knowledge and more than three-decade history with DC Comics, both as a comic creator and an executive. Besides serving as a writer on a number of DC Comics titles, he will be a contributing editor and consultant to DC Entertainment on projects in various media. Additionally, he will consult as needed on the transition and integration of the DC Comics organization into DC Entertainment and will utilize his unique experience, knowledge and relationships with the comics industry’s creative community to help achieve DC Entertainment’s goal of maximizing the value of DC properties. Further, Levitz will advise DC Entertainment on creative and rights-holder relationships, in particular regarding the legacy relationships that have been a part of DC Comics for decades.

The whole thing is long but I get the impression that gist of it is that DC is now officially more about licensing characters to movies than producing comic books.

Well it says they will continue to publish 90+ titles a month, so I really dont see how you are seeing that.
What I do see though is they are certainly stepping up the licensing part though.
From what I read, DC Comics will essentially be one division of DCE, with DCE being the bridge between them and Warners.

You could be correct. And I hope you are.

This is more of gut feeling than anything, but the references to "maximizing the value of DC properties" and the fact that Levitz "resigned" to be a consultant just seem to be corporatespeak for "comics don't make money and TV/movies do so this is the direction we are going to head."

I would assume, that by making DC Comics a division of DCE, then the expectations of profit would actually be less, rather than if it was the whole company.
The probability is that the likes of DC Comics and DC Direct, would be considered completely seperate enitities, and as such would have individual targets to hit, based on the customer market they are supplying.

It could actually be somewhat of a relief to the DC Comics, with some of the pressure taken off of them.

I dont think that this is coincidental that its happened at the same time that Disney has bought Marvel.

However, as Rich Johnston points out, Levitz was actually the one who sold WB on the "expectations of profit" idea years ago:

• It was his negotiating tactics with Warner Bros that would see DC placed within the company in such a fashion that it wouldn’t have to generate instant sales to justify success, but could be considered as a research and development department for Warner as a whole, the Superman movie justifying that investment. As a result, he is directly responsible for the more experimental aspects of DC, such as Piranha and Vertigo that would, in some cases, create books he disliked but that would open up a new audience to comics.
  
  Levitz also pushed the move to graphic novels and trade paperbacks within the company, providing new income streams for publishers, shops and creators, keeping readers who might have abandoned the form without bookshelf appeal, and presented a modern publishing face to new readers. The term “graphic novel” and its prevalence in bookstores has done more to make the comics format acceptable to a wider demographic than anything else in the last thirty years. And the comic shop is the place where they are stocked in depth.

So if that was already the status quo and it was due to Levitz why is he leaving now?

$. Basically they don't need to pay him to be President and Publisher as there will likely be a middle manager in charge of this now, someone the higher up suits trust. Remember he was in charge of a lot of things inside DC that are now responsibilities of the broader company of which the publishing is just a part.

I wonder if this will affect distribution at all...

He's been announced as the writer for the new Adventure Comics title (Johns and Manapul are moving to Flash). Obviously he's an appropriate choice to write the Legion back-up, but... Superboy? A Superboy comic by Paul Levitz sounds as exciting as a Ramones cover album by Paul Anka.

Anka Anka We Accept You Anka Anka One Of Us!

Barry's very good.

I'm betting he's gonna end up writing the Legion.

Calm down spanky, he's not "out" in the way you're hoping.

Levitz is openly gay, already, isn't he?

It was a joke pro, don't ruin it.

he's not "leaving", he's simply not directly overseeing the comic publishing anymore. the article pretty well explains that. hopefully this will end ridiculous pulping of comics with "edgy" material.

As I understand it, he'll be taking over Johns in both the main feature (Superboy) and the back-up (Legion).

Deadline Hollywood:

• Warner Bros Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov... has quietly gone to producers like Chuck Roven and Joel Silver and Akiva Goldman and "called back" all their high profile DC titles in development like The Flash and Wonder Woman. Not only was that shocking to the producers, but even more so when they found out this was part of Robinov's strategy to severely limit the number of gross participants on the projects. Because the producers were told that they may get the titles back to develop, but with far less rich deals. "Jeff always wanted some kind of oversight of DC, and now he wants Warner's to hold onto ownership," my insider explains. (My understanding is that Joel Silver, who is buddies with Robinov, was allowed to continue bringing low profile The Losers to the big screen under his Dark Castle banner. But Silver's 10 years of developing Wonder Woman is history now.)

Great. Sounds like one of the most unfortunate things about WB owning DC (namely, the propensity to make shitty movies out of the characters with little or no veto power from the comics division) may be about to get even worse. WB wants to exert more, not less, control over the characters and who gets to make the films.

That may be a good thing, I mean, with DC having a degree of control may have been what gave us shit like Catwoman.

And lets be honest, Silver hasnt exactly done much in 10 years, so why should he keep Wonder Woman.

I also still say that this propensity for crappy movies seems to be somewhat of a fanboy whine, seeing as the DC movies relased to date, tend to be fairly successful, or well recieved.
To my knowledge, in the past decade, the only DC movie that has been universally derided is Catwoman.
Superman Returns, wasnt great, but there are still lotsa people out there who liked it.

The only other DC projects have been the two Bat flicks, Watchmen and Constanine.
Constantine was the weakest of those movies, but once again, it does actually have a degree of fans.

At the end of the day, the percentage of sub par DC movies has been no worse than Marvels.

And, somewhere, Pro is weeping.

However, it was always my understanding that WB forced shit like Constantine, Catwoman and Superman Returns (and, potentially, shit like Kevin Smith and JJ Abrams aborted proposals) on DC whether they wanted it or not.

And, yeah, Marvel's had some clunkers but that was largely from when their parent company at the time was selling off rights in the 1990s to forestall the bankruptcy. Later they figured out it was better to keep creative control (though whether that's still the case with Disney will be seen) and we got stuff like Iron Man.

DC's never had the opportunity to take control the way Marvel did and now it looks like they may have even less.

Sorry, but Marvel produced the second Punisher film, and that was hardly what you call a huge success.
Also, the second Hulk movie was one of theirs, and that was hardly a roaring success either.

Apart from Iron Man, all the big Marvel successes have been the ones farmed out like Spidey and the X-men.

Marvels creator developed titles have been 2 so so films, and one great film.
Not the best hit rate!

I'm right here, I'm bored, and that joke is about as old as you are...

No, I don't get upset over you ruining jokes anymore. I think everyone has gotten used to it.

Not only was that genuinely funny, but I respect the fact that you didn't just throw a up there...

Who is this Andrea Jenna slut the google ads are showing.

Why do you have an photograph of a male derrier in your signature? I must say I find it rather pleasing.

Fuck off!

I actually think Dark Horse has had the best adaptations into film. (The Mask, Mystery Men, Sin City, 300, Hellboy I and II...)



Early on, I thought DC did phenomenally well with their movies (Superman I, II, II and IV I all liked, less so the latter 2. The 1989 Batman movie was well done, and Early 90s animated series). But they lost their way after that.

I'm hard pressed to name any Marvel movies I think were more than functionally well done, despite millions in special effects.

I won't comment on whether DC is heading more into other media and less into comics --or should-- because as everyone here knows I've hated their new material for approaching 20 years. I don't see the product being overly impressive or the print books worth saving. They lost me as a reader a long time ago, and like Marvel, they just keep endlessly re-inventing what's already been done.