Which is exactly why we keep getting Lex Luthor and Zod in his movies. That is one big favor in Batman's point when it comes to movies - his villains are not much more than humans dressed in colorful costumes. That saves a huge amount for the budget.

I still have no idea why they didn't use Brainiac in Superman III in place of that supercomputer.

Why is "weird looking" villains hell on a budget? Every outer-space themed movie has "weird looking" creatures. Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, Independence Day, etc. all have "weird looking" creatures. I don't see why any Superman villain would be more hell on a budget than any of the aliens in those movies. Most of the Superman villains still look somewhat humanoid anyway. Doomsday looks humanoid, just with grey skin and bony protrusions. Brainiac looks humanoid, just with green skin. I don't see why they would be any more expensive to CGI than Gollum or Caesar from Planet of the Apes.

Those movies are all expensive. The weird looking creatures were hell on their budgets.

Well yeah. Those movies are all summer blockbusters, and summer blockbusters are designed to be expensive. Superman is also a summer blockbuster, so it is supposed to have a big budget too, just like any other summer blockbuster. The two posters above me though seem to think that Superman's villains would be more expensive than a typical summer blockbuster, and I am just not seeing how that is so.

I think it's more about alienating mainstream audiences with weird looking characters.

How so? Audiences love characters like Chewbacca, Yoda, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gollum, etc which are all weird looking. Many of the Pixar CGI movies have weird looking characters the audience loves.

Right, but at a high cost. They look cool because of the CGI processing it takes to make them look as good as they do, hence hell on a movie budget. Except Chewbacca. Man in suit.

But again, summer blockbusters are SUPPOSED to be expensive. So why does it matter? A poster mentioned they keep using Zod because he is supposedly relatively cheap. How? Zod has superstrength, eye lasers, flight, etc. That's all expensive CGI. How is something like Doomsday or Brainiac more expensive? Brainiac is just a green-skinned humanoid like Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. Green bodypaint isn't expensive, and so Brainiac shouldn't be more expensive than Zod.

Meh, that's a handful of characters over decades of science fiction films. Rocket Raccoon and Groot just debuted a year ago. Let's face it, until recently science fiction was considered nerdy. Star Wars was the exception to the rule, and audiences didn't line up around the corner for films starring characters caked in make up. Star Trek films never made much money. Let's not pretend like the nerd revolution has been the standard for decades now.

Anyway this is somewhat relevant:

Luthor is just the most recognizable Super villain, and Zod is easy to explain (same powers/origin as superman, except bad). But really the problem with Supes rogue gallery is that it's not as good as Batman's by a huge margin. I think few really want to see Mxy or Toyman; Parasite/Metallo/Bizzarro doesn't seem like a big enough threat to carry a movie by himself; Darkseid is like a JL sized threat. I guess you have Doomsday, Braniac, and Mongul.

They could always bring back "Nuclear Man" from Superman IV. Although, that mullet could be hell on the budget too.

No one's rogues gallery is as good as Batman's. Spider-Man may come up second. When they did the animated series on the 1990s, Timm talked about how Superman's rogues gallery is fairly weak, so they tried to pump them up a bit, and it's what eventually led to them adding Darkseid and the Fourth World stuff. And even there, they wound up inventing some new villains, and powering Superman way, way, way down. He's so hard to write for. And as failed Superman projects pile up around DC's ankles, TAS looks better and better every year.

The main cost in a Superman movie are the flashy FX performing superfeats like flying, lifting huge objects, etc. A CGI villain adds another huge expense on top of that, which is why they've avoided expensive villains like Brainiac and Metallo. $200 million doesn't buy you as much as it used to back in the day.

Back in the day? $200 million budget movies is a fairly new concept. Even back in the early 2000s, movie budgets weren't $200 million.

Also, why does Brainiac have to be CGI? I mentioned green bodypaint like Gamora in GOTG. Brainiac certainly wouldn't be more expensive than Zod.

Your idea that the Superman movies are avoiding these characters because they would be too expensive is highly flawed. What exactly about Brainiac or Metallo is so much more expensive than any other CGI work? Metallo wouldn't be any more expensive than Iron Man or heck even Cyborg who we already know is going to be in the DC movies.

Yeah. Brainiac wouldn't have to be CGI. Metallo sure but Brainiac could totally a guy in makeup w/ a costume for the character.

Except Braniac hasn't really been portrayed that way for awhile now. He's typically today depicted as a cyborg.

And even Metallo wouldn't require a whole lot of CGI. Make him a Terminator-style cyborg with a robotic endoskeleton. The only time CGI would need to be done is when he becomes damaged and the endoskeleton becomes exposed.

Agents of SHIELD did Deathlok on a TV budget. Metallo could easily be done on a movie budget.

.....I don't think bringing up AoS's deathlok means too much. It's AoS.

I forgot that Metallo has skin. Malcolm McDowell was his voice in the cartoon, I think. Even when he's damaged they could go T2 w/ it. It just looks better. I meant if he's losing massive sections go cgi but go makeup as much as possible. T3 looks so goddamn weird w/ it's CGI on Arnold. Ugh. Such a crap film.

Wasn't that just one storyarc? I'm not too knowledgeable on recent comics, but I thought that cyborg Brainiac was just in Grant Morrison's recent Action Comics story. Convergeance is DC's latest event and isn't Brainiac back to the classic green-skinned humanoid in that story?


I just brought up Agents of SHIELD to demonstrate that cyborgs aren't necessarily expensive considering that they can be done on TV budgets which are much more limited than movie budgets. There was also that Sarah Connors Chronicles TV series with cyborgs on TV budgets. If they can do it on a TV budget, then doing it on a movie budget would be absolutely no problem.

Well, plus they have to do, you know, Cyborg on a movie budget too...

Yeah, I mentioned Cyborg in post #6114.

Jeez, over 6000 posts on a movie that is still a year away from release.

If they can make an Avengers flick with Ultron, they can put Brainiac in a fucking Superman movie.

Yeah but can they make anybody give a damn about Brainiac?

I don't even like the character in the comic books...a movie version would be laughable.

People have said the same thing about Rocket Raccoon and Ant-Man.

I don't see what is so laughable about Brainiac though. He's a pretty serious character and could translate to the movies easily. I think you might be getting confused with Mxyzptlk or Toyman or someone else who would indeed be laughable in a movie.