Warner Bros. to continue this whole "lightening up" thing with a Plastic Man movie
Aux Features Film
Capitalizing on the welcome buzz around its upcoming slate of less-oppressively-dour superhero movies—projects like Aquaman and Shazam!, which both dare to acknowledge the existence of this thing you hoo-mans call humor—Warner Bros. has announced that it’s putting a movie about one of DC’s jokier heroes into production: Plastic Man. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the film—centered on safecracker-turned-rubber-bodied-goofus Eel O’Brien—is being written by up-and-comer Amanda Idoko.
For those keeping track, PM is one of several stretchy heroes unsettlingly noodling their way across the DC Universe. (Not to be confused with Ralph “Elongated Man” Dibny, who’s currently serving as a supporting character on the TV version of The Flash.) He’s also a favorite among cartoonists and fans of the lighter side of modern funny books, mostly because he can look like and do pretty much anything the artist wants, with a personality that lends itself to a whole lot of goofiness. (Voice actor MVP Tom Kenny has had a lot of fun voicing him in various animated projects over the years.) DC has shown a willingness in the last few years to lighten the fuck up with its superhero movies, so hopefully Plas will get the lighthearted treatment he deserves, with the absolute bare minimum shouted “MARTHA!”s, and, hopefully, an improvement in Hollywood’s “stretchy dude CGI” technology since the last few Fantastic Four movies premiered.
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The part at the end of Dark Nights when Plastic Man wakes up and turns into three sharks, two dinosaurs (one with a baseball bat), a hammer, an octopus, a jigsaw, and a rock crusher all at the same time and mows everything down is one of the most insanely comic-book-ass things ever.
This movie could never compare, but I’m still down to see it try.
“and, hopefully, an improvement in Hollywood’s “stretchy dude CGI” technology since the last few premiered.”Honestly as much as I’d really love a proper F4 movie in the MCU after the rights are fully cleared, this is the thing that makes me most nervous about it. I can’t figure out how you make “real” looking stretchy-dude CG without it coming out like some sort of Cronenbergian horror show.
Elongated Man on Flash is already better than Fantastic Four, on a CW budget. Seeing that is the first time I’ve thought “Hey, maybe they could do a decent Ms. Marvel movie.”
The ArrowVerse version (Ralph) is better
That’s Elongated Man. He goes like this. Plastic Man goes like this. Totally different.
Actually they are totally different and while I’m loving Arrowverse Ralph Dibny, he’s more Plastic Man than Elongated Man. Plas can contort his body into any shape and color as well as stretch his vocal cords to change his voice. Elongated Man is simply stretchy like Reed Richards.Yes, sometimes it is a wonder that I ever managed to get married.
What’s a wonder is you took yourself off the market with all that mad puss you must have been crushing.
Can he really change color though? Every comic adaptation I’ve seen shows him turning into a red-and-black mailbox or whatever.
Seems so. He’s disguised himself as a bunch of different people. Here’s the time he even looked like Sinestro.
Well that’s just confusing
Oh shit that’s funny. It’s right up there with the moment during Grant Morrison’s JLA in which he assumes Batman’s silhouette to get a bunch of supervillain jail rioters to back down, and later says, “Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot. I know I was.”
Ralph Dibney did do some shape-shifting in the Nu52 version of Secret Six, though.
Can we get 1993 Bruce Campbell to star in it?
1985 Bruce Willis
1976 Ernest Borgnine
1953 Gene Kelly
1953 Donald O’Connor would be better.
Have you seen Plastic Man’s outfit? And you wanna waste that on Donald O’Connor?
1920s Buster Keaton.
Did I hear “2018 Steve Buscemi”?
2018 Buster Keaton.
2018 Michael Keaton channeling 1920s Buster Keaton. (Any era Diane Keaton optional.)
The first 45 minutes will be a terrifying body horror film where he’s screaming in agony because he’s a puddle of human flesh and can’t pull himself together.The screams force Woozy Winks to try and commit a mercy killing but the moment he pulls the trigger Plastic Man forms into a faint shape of a man to grab the gun.
I want this Cronenberg-esque horror film take of Plastic Man to exist.
Jeff Goldblum will star in it.
That would be brilliant
I mean they can’t just rip off the Grant Morrison run of JLA wholesale.
Man, the DCEU would have been so much better if the had decided to rip off Grant Morrison wholesale from the beginning!
Well…
They’ve got a movie for the Plastic Man? I’m happy. Hope you’re happy, too. I’ve watched all I need to watch.
Pffft, that’s nothing! The MCU is building Phase 4 around the fearsome Stilt-Man. Wake me when DC has the guts to make a Matter-Eater Lad movie.
Well Wonder Woman does consist him extremely capable and extremely dangerous. Plus he did this.
But is anyone else extremely attracted to Plastic Man’s costume?
When the creator of Plastic Man committed suicide he wrote and sent two notes, one to his wife and one to Hugh Hefner.This has been today’s incredibly sad comics fact.
Well that is a thing I now know. Wonder what his letter to Hefner said.
“Dear Hef, When you read this I shall be dead. I cannot go on living with myself and hurting those dear to me. What I do has nothing to do with you.” (they were friends and Cole worked for playboy)The whole thing is just immensely upsetting
The densely illustrated book about him, well designed by Chip Kidd, was amazing and heartbreaking.
The DCEU currently has 24 films in various stages of development, 25 if you count Birds of Prey, which is supposed to start filming in January. Maybe they should pick one, focus on it and get it done, instead of just announcing one after another after another.
1. Cyborg
2. Green Lantern Corps
3. The Flash
4. The Batman
5. Lobo
6. Justice League Dark
7. Justice League 2
8. Man of Steel 2
9. Booster Gold/Blue Beetle
10. Booster Gold
11. Blue Beetle
12. Gotham City Sirens
13. Suicide Squad 2
14. Deadshot
15. Deathstroke
16. Nightwing
17. Black Adam
18. Batgirl
19. Harley Quinn and the Joker
20. New Gods
21. The Joker (Jared Leto)
22. Supergirl
23. Aquaman 2
24. Plastic Man
At this point, “various stages of development” must include “not officially struck from the list, but we have no fucking idea if this will ever get made.” Oddly, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie isn’t on there, even though it’s actually filming right now and is coming out next October.
I didn’t include Phoenix’s Joker becuase it sprung from that brief period where DC was like “we’re stepping away from the shared universe concept” and then didn’t do this.
OK, that makes sense. (More than the DCEU right now, amirite?)
I’ve been wondering about this. Could be DC’s answer to Deadpool if they do it right. Plus Eel actually has some genuine conflicts behind his goofy exterior; his fears over reverting to his criminal past were done really well in Waid’s JLA run.
So they’re making a film of what Supergirl wore to that movie premiere in Teen Titans Go to the Movies.
Yay! But please please please, no Baby Plas. He’s worse than Scrappy-Doo (maybe.)
Who wants to bet they’re trying to make this their Deadpool, complete with fourth-wall breaking?
What I’d love is an Arrowverse Elongated Man spinoff.
I’m so worried about this for two reasons:
1) I love Plastic Man so much.
2) I’ve read the original Plastic Man movie script the siblings who did the Matrix movies were about to start working on before the Matrix films and it was worse than Catwoman, turning him into a litter obsessed environmentalist.
It’s Adrian Brody’s time to shine!
This is a good character and super-power set for DC to take a stab at a computer animated film like Gru and Minions but with a little more innuendo, if they want to keep things light. It opens up a world of possibilities of the things Plastic Man can transform into without having to also walk a fine line of “realism”.
I’m down for this. My favorite thing about Plas is his interactions with the more serious heroes of the Justice League. So hopefully he has some kind of gruff straight man to play off of in this.