DC and Warner — getting their act together?

Marvel Comics has been having lots and lots of success lately, first with its standalone franchises such as X-Men (2000-2006) and Spider-Man (2002-2007), and now with Iron Man and, to a lesser extent, The Incredible Hulk, the two of which Marvel plans to bring together in a few years with a couple more superheroes for a major, major cross-over called The Avengers.

Meanwhile, what is DC Comics doing? They’ve got a successfully rebooted Batman franchise, of course, but beyond that? There are rumours of all sorts of superhero projects in the works — from Wonder Woman and The Flash to Green Lantern and the Justice League — but it’s not clear which of these projects are related to each other and which are not. And in any case, everything — even the Superman franchise, which Bryan Singer tried to revive a couple years ago — seems to be stuck in development hell right now.

Well, it sounds like someone at DC Comics or Warner Brothers, the studio that has dibs on all of DC’s properties (both companies are owned by Time-Warner), has had enough of this confusion too. Variety and the Hollywood Reporter say “a big shake-up” could be in the works, as the head honchos of both companies have been meeting recently “to discuss a new direction for film adaptations.”

Meanwhile, there has been some buzz over an interview that Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier gave in France, where he seemed to suggest that Warner had asked him if he would be interested in making the next Superman movie.

This comes only a week or so after comic-book writer Mark Millar said that he and a “very well known American action director” were pitching a Superman reboot to Warner. Is Leterrier, who is French but recently made the move to Hollywood (having just rebooted the Hulk franchise, he is now attached to Warner’s remake of Clash of the Titans), the “American action director” in question? Or is that a whole different round of discussions?

And is Warner still talking to Bryan Singer, as well?

Well, whatever is going on with that franchise, it’s probably safe to say no particular project will be greenlit until DC and Warner have come to some sort of agreement on their master plan.