Max

I think part of the reason killing a hero off at the climax, and then bringing him back just in time for the credits, is so prominent now is because of the obsession with franchising works. They (whoever they are) want to kill the character to create a better single work, but they need to him to be alive at the end in case it’s successful enough to warrant a sequel. This doesn’t apply as much to Sherlock Holmes on account if it already being the sequel and it being an adaption of a already written death and return, but I think the point stands.

I agree with this. Even in the DCAU, which I think functions well as condensed examples of the prominent relationships of the DC characters even if it isn’t technically relevant to a comics continuity list like this, Darkseid is presented as a big bad… and then almost exclusively fights Superman.

At this point, between the issues with legal rights and the denseness of the remaining Tolkien penned works I think it’d be just as easy to make an original story and set in in Middle-earth a la Shadows of Mordor (except following the rules of the universe a little better) as it would be to adapt anything from The Silmarillion. Some people would be upset that someone not named J.R.R. Tolkien was writing Middle-earth stories, but people would be upset with the necessary liberties that would be taken in developing a further film anyway. Maybe separate canons between the book and film universes? We’ve sort of got that anyway.