Future of DC Films (DCEU)

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I'm still worried about Zaslav's "vision". From what I've read he's killing HBOMax, which is an absolute shame. There was a lot of amazing content there.

Probably just cutting back drastically with original new content for now since they’re way in the red. WB has an amazing extensive library of films. I don’t think they’re going to undo HBO Max. But I’m just speculating.
 
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Alright so…

I want to begin by saying let’s just acknowledge that there’s difference of opinion and taste about how our beloved DC characters are used in a cinematic universe. I genuinely respect those differences. At the end of the day what strikes a deep chord or rubs one the wrong way about fictional characters like this is ultimately for personal reasons, etc.

But from where I stand, I think what WB did under Tsujihara, Johns, Berg, Emmerich, Sarnoff, Hamada was idiotic in response to BvS. First of all, Josstice League is one of the worst decisions a major studio has ever made. It is so downright bad in comparison to ZSJL. Even Snyder antis basically agree with that. Secondly, the old WB regime stopped using Henry Cavill as Superman and apparently insisted on “hope and optimism” rewrites for Ben Affleck‘s solo Batman film. Ben, who was going through a lot of turmoil in his personal life, was alienated to the point he walked away from the role in disgust.

This is hard to fathom. Cavill and Affleck were perfect castings, and whether one loves or hates the deconstruction in BvS, both of them are awesome in the roles.

The old WB regime actively worked to get rid of Batman and Superman! Under Emmerich and Hamada the plan with The Flash was to kill off Batman and Superman and replace them with Batgirl mentored by a 70 y/o Keaton Batman, and have Supergirl replace Superman. As originally written the ending was going to set up a new timeline/universe for just that. And that was going to become the main continuity.

Thank God Zaslav came in and put an end to that disastrously stupid plan. Getting rid of Batman and Superman? Wtf? Mind boggling!

Fortunately the entire third act of The Flash is reportedly now being refilmed. Instead of killing off Affleck’s Batman, now instead they’re going to kill off Keaton’s Batman. Keaton will get the heroic death scene that was originally written for Affleck. (Note: almost immediately after WBD acquired WB this reportedly got rewritten to send Batfleck to the Knightmare universe instead; but after re-signing Cavill and Affleck it’s now changed again to simply restore the existing JL.) Keaton’s performance will be a one-and-done that will hopefully satisfy the cravings out there for nostalgia for his Batman films. (Following the appeal of the MCU’s NWH.) Now the buzz is that Cavill’s Superman and Fisher’s Cyborg will also appear at the end of the film, in addition to Batfleck surviving and continuing. The new reshot ending will preserve the continuity that was established at the end of ZSJL.

It hasn’t been announced yet but WBD has evidently signed Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill to return and continue. There’s no way in hell that they’re appearing in the coming films without having negotiated new contracts.

Both the old WB leadership and the Rock envisioned that with Batman and Superman gone, Black Adam would become the new apex superhero in the DC film universe. That was also a big part of Emmerich’s and Hamada’s plan. Now thankfully with Batman and Superman resuming their roles, how to resolve this problem moving forward is going to be interesting to watch. Zaslav reportedly wants Superman to be the central marquee superhero again—and for the DC trinity to be featured much more prominently.

How do they fit Black Adam as an antihero into some sort of relationship with the JL? Black Adam obviously isn’t cut out even to be a team member! His basic moral philosophy is antithetical to the JL. It would certainly be wonky for him ever to become the leader of the JL. But anyway, fitting Black Adam somehow into this universe in a way that remains true to who all the characters fundamentally are still has great potential to be very satisfying. It may not satisfy the Rock’s ego personally. But it can still be interesting to watch.

The Flash, even now with the third act now being rewritten, established the multiverse design, i.e., of there being infinite parallel timelines/universes that may be traveled between either using the speed force or “magic,” i.e., interdimensional portals. But whereas Emmerich and Hamada (and Johns when he was around) had planned to expand out into different parallel universes, Zaslav wants to consolidate the main continuity into just one timeline. MCU’s phase four has actually been the least satisfying for fans—and Zaslav and Horn are well aware of this. They want to follow the MCU’s most basic design in the sense of having interweaving plot lines among the solo and teamup films, and main arcs that dovetail into a grand finale.

I think Black Adam must be set in an alternate universe. In ZSJL Batman rounds up all the known metahumans to protect earth from Steppenwolf (and by extension Darkseid). We see at the end of SS that Bruce Wayne probably has the same sort of access to ARGUS’s data that Amanda Waller does, i.e., maybe he can hack ARGUS at will as Luthor did. But anyway, somehow neither Luthor or BruceWayne doesn’t know about the existence of the JSA? I mean, maybe the JSA somehow managed to stay under ARGUS’s. LexCorp’s, and Wayne Enterprises radar. Bit imho that’s a gigantic plothole.

I think at the end of Black Adam Doctor Fate is going to bring Black Adam to the main continuity where the JL is. There will be some sort of existential crisis where entire universes could get wiped out by the traveling Barry does in the Flash, perhaps. So Black Adam is kind of forced to visit the DCEU universe.

The plan under Hamada when BA was filmed was to run with the multiverse design and expand outwardly into the branches of all those parallel universes. But that is changing now.

Batgirl that was going to develop the old regime‘s plan to replace Batfleck with Batgirl and Keaton’s 70 y/o mentor Bruce Wayne. Sasha Calle’s Supergirl solo film was also part of the plan to replace Cavill’s Superman. Those films won‘t work anymore now that the WBD has decided to keep the ZSJL cast and start working from the ending of ZSJL as their new launchpad moving forward.

Blue Beetle simply introduces that character, so no rewrites will be required. Henry Cavill will get at least one solo Superman film if not multiple films. Hopefully Ben Affleck will want to make his solo Batman film versus Deathstroke. I think we’ll still get JL Dark or Swamp Thing, hopefully by Guillermo Del Toro. And reportedly Sasha Calle is great as Supergirl in The Flash, has wonderful scenes that will be crowd pleasers, and WBD wants her in the universe—but they’ll work her in differently than how The Flash was originally intending.

All of this suggests that after some more solo films there will indeed be a JL 2 and 3 as Snyder had planned. I do still think think Snyder will return to direct those two films after Rebel Moon. JL 2 will be the Knightmare future more or less as Snyder has already described. But JL 3 will be significantly different from what Snyder, Johns, and Lee had spitballed way back when.
I say this objectively: if they kill off Keaton’s Batman, I wash my hands of them. I hate that crap. Every friggin’ movie these days parades the old fogeys out to get that last bit of nostalgia money before offing them unceremoniously…and I’d rather they just leave it the hell alone than be like “hey, that universe you wanted to see explored? All those emotions you felt after all these years? That’s all you get. And we’re going to close the door behind us so nobody else can do anything with it.”

Honestly? There’s a part of me that thinks it’d be easier to shut the whole thing down and who wishes Affleck wasn’t Batman anymore. Dude gets his life back together and the studio wants to push him back into the role that made him pick up a bottle again in the first place. And I adored Snyder’s casting choices. Cavill is as charismatic and wonderful as they come in real life, but he was utterly wasted in that role. Every decision belying those films was questionable. “We’re gonna get Mr. Red Blooded American, himself, Kevin Costner, to play Pa Kent…but he’s not going to fill his son with the idealistic values Superman should have. Oh, no. He’s going to be a real, down to earth, gritty Pa Kent: one who adopted an alien despite being weary of outsiders.

We’re going to have him fill our beacon of hope with doubt and fear and the good old fashioned American isolationism that led us to turn boats full of Jewish refugees in New York Harbor back around to the camps in the 1930s and told us ‘you know what the most American thing to do for that Mexican woman who crossed a desert and climbed a mountain to get here with her infant child is? Send her right back.’”

Maybe that’s too pointed and maybe it gets this post deleted, but it’s real. Make no mistake about that. You want a gritty, real Superman? I’m sure this is as close as you’re going to get, but lemme tell you, when I think of Superman and Pa Kent’s wisdom: “maybe it’s God’s will that you let a bus full of pre-teens drown in the bottom of a river” doesn’t even REGISTER as a good idea. Patty Jenkins did infinitely more to define Wonder Woman than Snyder did…and promptly squandered her good will with whatever Wonder Woman 84 was.

More than that, though, I don’t like how okay Snyder has been with the social media campaigns and the way they’ve gaslit everybody into thinking there’s no toxicity by pointing to his dead daughter as some sort of totem of how decent his fan base is. “LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY THEY RAISED FOR MY CHARITY, YOU GUYS!” And how much would they have raised if they weren’t first spamming the furthest reaches of the internet to get their beloved Snyder Cut? If they didn’t think they could weaponize charitable giving as a way to legitimize their campaign? And what about all the decidedly unproductive ways they went about pitching their fit?

I say this as somebody who really, really, really liked the Snyder Cut, too. I think there was a lot that should’ve still been left on the cutting room floor, but I did enjoy it and I felt like seeing what he’d do with Part Two and Darkseid would be great, but I don’t think it’s worth it. I actually agree with WB Discovery’s assessment of that. I don’t think it’s worth playing to the Ayer Cut people and the Snyderverse people. I’d sooner see it buried if I was in Zaslav’s position and I don’t say that lightly.

I get not wanting to start from scratch, though, and I did think making Keaton the DCEU’s de facto Batman was a weird choice, but I still don’t think you should kill him when, in all earnestness, the Multiverse is rife with potential for exploration. Personally? If they need a Feige, I feel like they should pursue James Gunn for the job: Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad were both phenomenal and those, along with Harley and the Birds of Prey, Shazam, and Wonder Woman showed that the DCEU isn’t necessarily beyond saving. But there’s just so much baggage and so far, Gunn’s seemed the most adept at owning it and parlaying it into something awesome. TSS was a masterclass in how to do that.

Factor in that, 1.) we’re talking about someone who’s familiar with Feige’s playbook because he worked under it, 2.) seems to have a genuine love for comic books and isn’t above delving into the weirder corners of it to mine for material and 3.) seems to be fiercely loyal to WB, at this juncture, for having gone ahead and taken a chance on him when Disney hung him out to dry, he seems like a great choice.

To my mind, the biggest reason WB’s had an endless stream of failures is that the money people aren’t willing to dissociate and trust in the creative process and they haven’t been for decades. Ultimately, I think it goes back to 2 things: relations to the IP and intent. The reason The Mouse has had so much luck with Marvel is because they saw a viable plan that was already in action at different studios, but that was in need of financing, and trusted in its architects to deliver if they brought them in and gave them the resources they needed. Look at where it got them: A thriving, decades’ long, multibillion dollar enterprise.

But if it was at WB? They would’ve scrapped the whole thing after Iron Man 2 didn’t deliver the way they wanted it to critically and commercially. Talks would’ve fallen apart and there never would’ve been an Endgame. Because their money people don’t look at the creative process and the potential for growth: they just look at the bottom line and lump everything in under the same umbrella. They look at a new Batman movie and they don’t see “well, here’s where we could go from here,” they just see “it’s part of our 2021-2022 film slate along with 15 other theatrical releases including an Anna Kendrick romantic comedy, Sex and the City 3D, our Oscar-bait Richard Simmons biopic, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Act I, Part I” and they look at the overall budget of those projects and the potential revenue they’ll bring in for the year and that’s where their tunnel vision ends.

Because ultimately? It’s about roots. Right now, Disney’s core identity is still a creative one; however big they may be, they’re still a legacy animation studio whose primary focus has been on entertaining people. WB/Discovery, however? Their identity is the same thing that led AT&T to buy Cingular and spread all over America and the world: maximizing profitability and growth and shuttering any division that can’t be in the black by the 1st quarter, and, unfortunately, that includes The House Jack Warner Built.
 
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I say this objectively: if they kill off Keaton’s Batman, I wash my hands of them. I hate that crap. Every friggin’ movie these days parades the old fogeys out to get that last bit of nostalgia money before offing them unceremoniously…and I’d rather they just leave it the hell alone than be like “hey, that universe you wanted to see explored? All those emotions you felt after all these years? That’s all you get. And we’re going to close the door behind us so nobody else can do anything with it.”

Honestly? There’s a part of me that thinks it’s be easier to shut the whole thing down and who wishes Affleck wasn’t Batman anymore. Dude gets his life back together and the studio wants to push him back into the role that made him pick up a bottle again in the first place. And I adored Snyder’s casting choices. Cavill is as charismatic and wonderful as they come in real life, but he was utterly wasted in that role. Every decision belying those films was questionable. “We’re gonna get Mr. Red Blooded American, himself, Kevin Costner, to play Pa Kent…but he’s not going to fill his son with the idealistic values Superman should have. Oh, no. He’s going to be a real, down to earth, gritty Pa Kent: one who adopted an alien despite being weary of outsiders.

We’re going to have him fill our beacon of hope with doubt and fear and the good old fashioned American isolationism that led us to turn boats full of Jewish refugees in New York Harbor back around to the camps in the 1930s and told us ‘you know what the most American thing to do for that Mexican woman who crossed a desert and climbed a mountain to get here with her infant child is? Send her right back.’”

Maybe that’s too pointed and maybe it gets this post deleted, but it’s real. Make no mistake about that. You want a gritty, real Superman? I’m sure this is as close as you’re going to get, but lemme tell you, when I think of Superman and Pa Kent’s wisdom: “maybe it’s God’s will that you let a bus full of pre-teens drown in the bottom of a river” doesn’t even REGISTER as a good idea. Patty Jenkins did infinitely more to define Wonder Woman than Snyder did…and promptly squandered her good will with whatever Wonder Woman 84 was.

More than that, though, I don’t like how okay Snyder has been with the social media campaigns and the way they’ve gaslit everybody into thinking there’s no toxicity by pointing to his dead daughter as some sort of totem of how decent his fan base is. “LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY THEY RAISED FOR MY CHARITY, YOU GUYS!” And how much would they have raised if they weren’t first spamming the furthest reaches of the internet to get their beloved Snyder Cut? If they didn’t think they could weaponize charitable giving as a way to legitimize their campaign? And what about all the decidedly unproductive ways they went about pitching their fit?

I say this as somebody who really, really, really liked the Snyder Cut, too. I think there was a lot that should’ve still been left on the cutting room floor, but I did enjoy it and I felt like seeing what he’d do with Part Two and Darkseid would be great, but I don’t think it’s worth it. I actually agree with WB Discovery’s assessment of that. I don’t think it’s worth playing to the Ayer Cut people and the Snyderverse people. I’d sooner see it buried if I was in Zaslav’s position and I don’t say that lightly.

I get not wanting to start from scratch, though, and I did think making Keaton the DCEU’s de facto Batman was a weird choice, but I still don’t think you should kill him when, in all earnestness, the Multiverse is rife with potential for exploration. Personally? If they need a Feige, I feel like they should pursue James Gunn for the job: Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad were both phenomenal and those, along with Harley and the Birds of Prey, Shazam, and Wonder Woman showed that the DCEU isn’t necessarily beyond saving. But there’s just so much baggage and so far, Gunn’s seemed the most adept at owning it and parlaying it into something awesome. TSS was a masterclass in how to do that.

Factor in that, 1.) we’re talking about someone who’s familiar with Feige’s playbook because he worked under it, 2.) seems to have a genuine love for comic books and isn’t above delving into the weirder corners of it to mine for material and 3.) seems to be fiercely loyal to WB, at this juncture, for having gone ahead and taken a chance on him when Disney hung him out to dry, he seems like a great choice.

To my mind, the biggest reason WB’s had an endless stream of failures is that the money people aren’t willing to dissociate and trust in the creative process and they haven’t been for decades, and, ultimately, I think it goes back to 2 things: relations to the IP and intent. The reason The Mouse has had so much luck with Marvel is because they saw a viable plan that was already in action at different studios, but that was in need of financing, and trusted in its architects to deliver if they brought them in and gave them the resources they needed and look at where it got them. A thriving, decades’ long, multibillion dollar enterprise.

But if it was at WB? They would’ve scrapped the whole thing after Iron Man 2 didn’t deliver the way they wanted it to critically and commercially. Talks would’ve fallen apart and there never would’ve been an Endgame. Because their money people don’t look at the creative process and the potential for growth: they just look at the bottom line and lump everything in under the same umbrella. They look at a new Batman movie and they don’t see “well, here’s where we could go from here,” they just see “it’s part of our 2021-2022 film slate along with 15 other theatrical releases including an Anna Kendrick romantic comedy, Sex and the City 3D, our Oscar-bait Richard Simmons biopic, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Act I, Part I” and they look at the overall budget of those projects and the potential revenue they’ll bring in for the year and that’s where their tunnel vision ends.

Because ultimately? It’s about roots. Right now, Disney’s core identity is still a creative one; however big they may be, they’re still a legacy animation studio whose primary focus has been on entertaining people. WB/Discovery, however? Their identity is the same thing that led AT&T to buy Cingular and spread all over America and the world: maximizing profitability and growth and shuttering any division that can’t be in the black by the 1st quarter, and, unfortunately, that includes The House Jack Warner Built.
This!!!
 
I say this objectively: if they kill off Keaton’s Batman, I wash my hands of them. I hate that crap. Every friggin’ movie these days parades the old fogeys out to get that last bit of nostalgia money before offing them unceremoniously…and I’d rather they just leave it the hell alone than be like “hey, that universe you wanted to see explored? All those emotions you felt after all these years? That’s all you get. And we’re going to close the door behind us so nobody else can do anything with it.”

Honestly? There’s a part of me that thinks it’d be easier to shut the whole thing down and who wishes Affleck wasn’t Batman anymore. Dude gets his life back together and the studio wants to push him back into the role that made him pick up a bottle again in the first place. And I adored Snyder’s casting choices. Cavill is as charismatic and wonderful as they come in real life, but he was utterly wasted in that role. Every decision belying those films was questionable. “We’re gonna get Mr. Red Blooded American, himself, Kevin Costner, to play Pa Kent…but he’s not going to fill his son with the idealistic values Superman should have. Oh, no. He’s going to be a real, down to earth, gritty Pa Kent: one who adopted an alien despite being weary of outsiders.

We’re going to have him fill our beacon of hope with doubt and fear and the good old fashioned American isolationism that led us to turn boats full of Jewish refugees in New York Harbor back around to the camps in the 1930s and told us ‘you know what the most American thing to do for that Mexican woman who crossed a desert and climbed a mountain to get here with her infant child is? Send her right back.’”

Maybe that’s too pointed and maybe it gets this post deleted, but it’s real. Make no mistake about that. You want a gritty, real Superman? I’m sure this is as close as you’re going to get, but lemme tell you, when I think of Superman and Pa Kent’s wisdom: “maybe it’s God’s will that you let a bus full of pre-teens drown in the bottom of a river” doesn’t even REGISTER as a good idea. Patty Jenkins did infinitely more to define Wonder Woman than Snyder did…and promptly squandered her good will with whatever Wonder Woman 84 was.

More than that, though, I don’t like how okay Snyder has been with the social media campaigns and the way they’ve gaslit everybody into thinking there’s no toxicity by pointing to his dead daughter as some sort of totem of how decent his fan base is. “LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY THEY RAISED FOR MY CHARITY, YOU GUYS!” And how much would they have raised if they weren’t first spamming the furthest reaches of the internet to get their beloved Snyder Cut? If they didn’t think they could weaponize charitable giving as a way to legitimize their campaign? And what about all the decidedly unproductive ways they went about pitching their fit?

I say this as somebody who really, really, really liked the Snyder Cut, too. I think there was a lot that should’ve still been left on the cutting room floor, but I did enjoy it and I felt like seeing what he’d do with Part Two and Darkseid would be great, but I don’t think it’s worth it. I actually agree with WB Discovery’s assessment of that. I don’t think it’s worth playing to the Ayer Cut people and the Snyderverse people. I’d sooner see it buried if I was in Zaslav’s position and I don’t say that lightly.

I get not wanting to start from scratch, though, and I did think making Keaton the DCEU’s de facto Batman was a weird choice, but I still don’t think you should kill him when, in all earnestness, the Multiverse is rife with potential for exploration. Personally? If they need a Feige, I feel like they should pursue James Gunn for the job: Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad were both phenomenal and those, along with Harley and the Birds of Prey, Shazam, and Wonder Woman showed that the DCEU isn’t necessarily beyond saving. But there’s just so much baggage and so far, Gunn’s seemed the most adept at owning it and parlaying it into something awesome. TSS was a masterclass in how to do that.

Factor in that, 1.) we’re talking about someone who’s familiar with Feige’s playbook because he worked under it, 2.) seems to have a genuine love for comic books and isn’t above delving into the weirder corners of it to mine for material and 3.) seems to be fiercely loyal to WB, at this juncture, for having gone ahead and taken a chance on him when Disney hung him out to dry, he seems like a great choice.

To my mind, the biggest reason WB’s had an endless stream of failures is that the money people aren’t willing to dissociate and trust in the creative process and they haven’t been for decades. Ultimately, I think it goes back to 2 things: relations to the IP and intent. The reason The Mouse has had so much luck with Marvel is because they saw a viable plan that was already in action at different studios, but that was in need of financing, and trusted in its architects to deliver if they brought them in and gave them the resources they needed. Look at where it got them: A thriving, decades’ long, multibillion dollar enterprise.

But if it was at WB? They would’ve scrapped the whole thing after Iron Man 2 didn’t deliver the way they wanted it to critically and commercially. Talks would’ve fallen apart and there never would’ve been an Endgame. Because their money people don’t look at the creative process and the potential for growth: they just look at the bottom line and lump everything in under the same umbrella. They look at a new Batman movie and they don’t see “well, here’s where we could go from here,” they just see “it’s part of our 2021-2022 film slate along with 15 other theatrical releases including an Anna Kendrick romantic comedy, Sex and the City 3D, our Oscar-bait Richard Simmons biopic, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Act I, Part I” and they look at the overall budget of those projects and the potential revenue they’ll bring in for the year and that’s where their tunnel vision ends.

Because ultimately? It’s about roots. Right now, Disney’s core identity is still a creative one; however big they may be, they’re still a legacy animation studio whose primary focus has been on entertaining people. WB/Discovery, however? Their identity is the same thing that led AT&T to buy Cingular and spread all over America and the world: maximizing profitability and growth and shuttering any division that can’t be in the black by the 1st quarter, and, unfortunately, that includes The House Jack Warner Built.
Sex in the City 3D :rotfl
 
I say this objectively: if they kill off Keaton’s Batman, I wash my hands of them. I hate that crap. Every friggin’ movie these days parades the old fogeys out to get that last bit of nostalgia money before offing them unceremoniously…and I’d rather they just leave it the hell alone than be like “hey, that universe you wanted to see explored? All those emotions you felt after all these years? That’s all you get. And we’re going to close the door behind us so nobody else can do anything with it.”

Honestly? There’s a part of me that thinks it’d be easier to shut the whole thing down and who wishes Affleck wasn’t Batman anymore. Dude gets his life back together and the studio wants to push him back into the role that made him pick up a bottle again in the first place. And I adored Snyder’s casting choices. Cavill is as charismatic and wonderful as they come in real life, but he was utterly wasted in that role. Every decision belying those films was questionable. “We’re gonna get Mr. Red Blooded American, himself, Kevin Costner, to play Pa Kent…but he’s not going to fill his son with the idealistic values Superman should have. Oh, no. He’s going to be a real, down to earth, gritty Pa Kent: one who adopted an alien despite being weary of outsiders.

We’re going to have him fill our beacon of hope with doubt and fear and the good old fashioned American isolationism that led us to turn boats full of Jewish refugees in New York Harbor back around to the camps in the 1930s and told us ‘you know what the most American thing to do for that Mexican woman who crossed a desert and climbed a mountain to get here with her infant child is? Send her right back.’”

Maybe that’s too pointed and maybe it gets this post deleted, but it’s real. Make no mistake about that. You want a gritty, real Superman? I’m sure this is as close as you’re going to get, but lemme tell you, when I think of Superman and Pa Kent’s wisdom: “maybe it’s God’s will that you let a bus full of pre-teens drown in the bottom of a river” doesn’t even REGISTER as a good idea. Patty Jenkins did infinitely more to define Wonder Woman than Snyder did…and promptly squandered her good will with whatever Wonder Woman 84 was.

More than that, though, I don’t like how okay Snyder has been with the social media campaigns and the way they’ve gaslit everybody into thinking there’s no toxicity by pointing to his dead daughter as some sort of totem of how decent his fan base is. “LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY THEY RAISED FOR MY CHARITY, YOU GUYS!” And how much would they have raised if they weren’t first spamming the furthest reaches of the internet to get their beloved Snyder Cut? If they didn’t think they could weaponize charitable giving as a way to legitimize their campaign? And what about all the decidedly unproductive ways they went about pitching their fit?

I say this as somebody who really, really, really liked the Snyder Cut, too. I think there was a lot that should’ve still been left on the cutting room floor, but I did enjoy it and I felt like seeing what he’d do with Part Two and Darkseid would be great, but I don’t think it’s worth it. I actually agree with WB Discovery’s assessment of that. I don’t think it’s worth playing to the Ayer Cut people and the Snyderverse people. I’d sooner see it buried if I was in Zaslav’s position and I don’t say that lightly.

I get not wanting to start from scratch, though, and I did think making Keaton the DCEU’s de facto Batman was a weird choice, but I still don’t think you should kill him when, in all earnestness, the Multiverse is rife with potential for exploration. Personally? If they need a Feige, I feel like they should pursue James Gunn for the job: Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad were both phenomenal and those, along with Harley and the Birds of Prey, Shazam, and Wonder Woman showed that the DCEU isn’t necessarily beyond saving. But there’s just so much baggage and so far, Gunn’s seemed the most adept at owning it and parlaying it into something awesome. TSS was a masterclass in how to do that.

Factor in that, 1.) we’re talking about someone who’s familiar with Feige’s playbook because he worked under it, 2.) seems to have a genuine love for comic books and isn’t above delving into the weirder corners of it to mine for material and 3.) seems to be fiercely loyal to WB, at this juncture, for having gone ahead and taken a chance on him when Disney hung him out to dry, he seems like a great choice.

To my mind, the biggest reason WB’s had an endless stream of failures is that the money people aren’t willing to dissociate and trust in the creative process and they haven’t been for decades. Ultimately, I think it goes back to 2 things: relations to the IP and intent. The reason The Mouse has had so much luck with Marvel is because they saw a viable plan that was already in action at different studios, but that was in need of financing, and trusted in its architects to deliver if they brought them in and gave them the resources they needed. Look at where it got them: A thriving, decades’ long, multibillion dollar enterprise.

But if it was at WB? They would’ve scrapped the whole thing after Iron Man 2 didn’t deliver the way they wanted it to critically and commercially. Talks would’ve fallen apart and there never would’ve been an Endgame. Because their money people don’t look at the creative process and the potential for growth: they just look at the bottom line and lump everything in under the same umbrella. They look at a new Batman movie and they don’t see “well, here’s where we could go from here,” they just see “it’s part of our 2021-2022 film slate along with 15 other theatrical releases including an Anna Kendrick romantic comedy, Sex and the City 3D, our Oscar-bait Richard Simmons biopic, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Act I, Part I” and they look at the overall budget of those projects and the potential revenue they’ll bring in for the year and that’s where their tunnel vision ends.

Because ultimately? It’s about roots. Right now, Disney’s core identity is still a creative one; however big they may be, they’re still a legacy animation studio whose primary focus has been on entertaining people. WB/Discovery, however? Their identity is the same thing that led AT&T to buy Cingular and spread all over America and the world: maximizing profitability and growth and shuttering any division that can’t be in the black by the 1st quarter, and, unfortunately, that includes The House Jack Warner Built.

MoS and BvS are both deconstructions. Deconstruction has the core project of asking us to consider: what would it look like if superheroes actually existed in our real world? Would that truly be a good thing? Is it something that we would really want?

You can hate that they’re deconstructions, and that’s your taste, that’s fine. But it’s a complete misread to say that Snyder doesn’t understand the characters because this is what he’s doing with the material. By examining what superheroes might look like if they could really exist, deconstruction sets out to shake the reader or viewer up. By so doing it nudges us to reflect about what superheroes mean to us individually and also generally, psychologically and culturally speaking. To ask basic questions even if the answers are ultimately always experienced personally and subjectively inside each of us.

In your case, you’ve arrived at your own conclusions based on what you’ve watched, and that’s great! In a sense, mission accomplished. But it’s not intended to give you a comfortable, secure space, actually.

If this interests anyone, some recommended reading on the subject:

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/za...oyride-through-decades-of-comic-book-history/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/fr...superman-ii-is-key-to-understanding-the-dceu/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/ma...superheroes-justice-league-reconstructs-them/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-4-years-later-movie-debate/
https://snyderversetrilogy.wordpress.com/bvs-is-a-watchmen-like-deconstruction/
https://thesnyderverse.com/bvs-the-clash-of-postmodernism-and-modernism/
https://snyderversetrilogy.wordpress.com/batmans-story-in-bvs-as-monomyth/
https://thesnyderverse.com/zsjl-a-mesmerizing-unification-of-reconstruction-and-elegy/
Actually while I’m at it I would also highly recommend the following for analysis of Watchmen which is the seminal deconstruction in the comic book genre:

Aaron Langerman’s thought provoking analysis of the meaning of the Watchmen run, what’s going on in it:



Cartoonist Kayfabe’s outstanding analysis of the comic book craft of the run:



And if you really want to dote on it, there are these as well:

Cartoonist Kayfabe’s piece on the book “Watching the Watchmen”:



The motion comic of the Watchmen run:

 
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MoS and BvS are both deconstructions. Deconstruction has the core project of asking us to consider: what would it look like if superheroes actually existed in our real world? Would that truly be a good thing? Is it something that we would really want?

You can hate that they’re deconstructions, and that’s your taste, that’s fine. But it’s a complete misread to say that Snyder doesn’t understand the characters because this is what he’s doing with the material. By examining what superheroes might look like if they could really exist, deconstruction sets out to shake the reader or viewer up. By so doing it nudges us to reflect about what superheroes mean to us individually and also generally, psychologically and culturally speaking. To ask basic questions even if the answers are ultimately always experienced personally and subjectively inside each of us.
I love deconstructions. However, I think Snyder and the DCEU forgot one important thing: they forgot to CONSTRUCT them first. A truly good deconstruction needs a strong foundation to establish itself, analyze, and then reappraise.

The DCEU is the first time countless heroes and villains have appeared on the big screen. It’s crazy to think the first movie Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman to be exposed to general audiences are deconstructed subversions of their more iconic comic counterparts.

Every comic movie is technically an elseworld story, but for a definitive Justice League connected Marvel-style universe, it’s an untenable approach to world-building. This universe began with Superman killing someone on his first day on the job, followed by Batman deciding to kill Superman in the opening of the very next movie. Interesting? I guess. But that’s the issue with deconstructing heroes at the start of a story, and not later.

And, personally speaking, I had my fill of deconstructed or edgier, more “realistic” Superman archetypes over the years. From Supreme to Prime to Homelander to Sentry to Apollo to Omni-Man, I just find it passé now.

I think it’s telling the DCEU projects I enjoy most don’t ascribe to that. Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, Aquaman, Shazam… all focus on constructing their heroes to more clearly define them, and I believe hold up better.
 
I love deconstructions. However, I think Snyder and the DCEU forgot one important thing: they forgot to CONSTRUCT them first. A truly good deconstruction needs a strong foundation to establish itself, analyze, and then reappraise.

The DCEU is the first time countless heroes and villains have appeared on the big screen. It’s crazy to think the first movie Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman to be exposed to general audiences are deconstructed subversions of their more iconic comic counterparts.

Every comic movie is technically an elseworld story, but for a definitive Justice League connected Marvel-style universe, it’s an untenable approach to world-building. This universe began with Superman killing someone on his first day on the job, followed by Batman deciding to kill Superman in the opening of the very next movie. Interesting? I guess. But that’s the issue with deconstructing heroes at the start of a story, and not later.

And, personally speaking, I had my fill of deconstructed or edgier, more “realistic” Superman archetypes over the years. From Supreme to Prime to Homelander to Sentry to Apollo to Omni-Man, I just find it passé now.

I think it’s telling the DCEU projects I enjoy most don’t ascribe to that. Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, Aquaman, Shazam… all focus on constructing their heroes to more clearly define them, and I believe hold up better.

One way of looking at this is that from the genre perspective the construction is all the traditional superhero films that have ever been done, no?

For example, Watchmen—the comic run/graphic novel—doesn’t give us a traditional comic book world first. The deconstructed world that Watchmen creates is itself a commentary on the classical comic book psychology.
 
MoS and BvS are both deconstructions. Deconstruction has the core project of asking us to consider: what would it look like if superheroes actually existed in our real world? Would that truly be a good thing? Is it something that we would really want?

You can hate that they’re deconstructions, and that’s your taste, that’s fine. But it’s a complete misread to say that Snyder doesn’t understand the characters because this is what he’s doing with the material. By examining what superheroes might look like if they could really exist, deconstruction sets out to shake the reader or viewer up. By so doing it nudges us to reflect about what superheroes mean to us individually and also generally, psychologically and culturally speaking. To ask basic questions even if the answers are ultimately always experienced personally and subjectively inside each of us.

In your case, you’ve arrived at your own conclusions based on what you’ve watched, and that’s great! In a sense, mission accomplished. But it’s not intended to give you a comfortable, secure space, actually.

If this interests anyone, some recommended reading on the subject:

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/za...oyride-through-decades-of-comic-book-history/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/fr...superman-ii-is-key-to-understanding-the-dceu/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/ma...superheroes-justice-league-reconstructs-them/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-4-years-later-movie-debate/
https://snyderversetrilogy.wordpress.com/bvs-is-a-watchmen-like-deconstruction/
https://thesnyderverse.com/bvs-the-clash-of-postmodernism-and-modernism/
https://snyderversetrilogy.wordpress.com/batmans-story-in-bvs-as-monomyth/
https://thesnyderverse.com/zsjl-a-mesmerizing-unification-of-reconstruction-and-elegy/
Actually while I’m at it I would also highly recommend the following for analysis of Watchmen which is the seminal deconstruction in the comic book genre:

Aaron Langerman’s thought provoking analysis of the meaning of the Watchmen run, what’s going on in it:



Cartoonist Kayfabe’s outstanding analysis of the comic book craft of the run:



And if you really want to dote on it, there are these as well:

Cartoonist Kayfabe’s piece on the book “Watching the Watchmen”:



The motion comic of the Watchmen run:


I’m very much aware of Snyder’s intent and there was a time I even appreciated it, but the further removed I got from things, I came to two conclusions: 1.) Snyder’s simply not smart enough to pull off his own ambitions and 2.) in the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, “they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could do something, they never stopped to think if they should.”

Superheroes, and DC Superheroes, in particular, are rife for revision. Ask anybody what their favorite Batman is and you’re going to get a litany of answers. Not just in movies, either. Some will prefer Miller, some people will say O’Neill and Adams; others might say they liked the classic Kane and Finger iteration or the Happy-Go-Luck Sprang version that was evocative of what they liked about the Adam West show as kids. There are no wrong answers, it’s all subjective, and I’ll confess to being partial to all of them in many ways.

However, I think one needs to consider a variety of environmental factors in relation to Snyder’s interpretation as to whether it was a good idea or not. First off, history. Superman hadn’t had a genuinely good movie since Superman II’s release in 1980. That’s 33 years of nothing but Smallville, Lois & Clark, and dud after dud after dud after dud (despite my belief that Superman III is some primo comedy from Pryor and that the robot lady at the end was nightmare inducing for little batfan).

Batman had a better run of things, but where was he left? With another deconstruction. Nolan envisioned the identity of Batman as a radical form of shock therapy for Bruce Wayne to address his own trauma, movies like The Dark Knight evoked the post-9/11 political landscape by using its plot to ask central questions about the nature of freedom vs. security and how far was too far to do what you deemed right. Hell, the last movie ends in an unprecedented move: a physically broken, aging Bruce Wayne neglecting his duties as Batman in order to live a full life and get his happy ending after 75 years of emotional stagnation.

Then comes Snyder. I find it funny that you bring up Watchmen because I find Watchmen to be a litmus test for how I perceive people, to be honest.:lol For one thing, if someone waxes on like comic book guy from The Simpsons about how Watchmen is the greatest comic book ever made or how it’s on the “Time Top 100 List of Greatest Novels of All Time” or if they call it “a Graphic Novel” instead of “a comic book,” it feels a lot like the plot of Carrie if Carrie, now covered in pig’s blood and seeing her entire class laughing at her, opted not to burn down that gym, but rather, to be completely oblivious and laugh with them without getting that she’s the butt of their joke.

Watchmen should not be considered the greatest comic book of all time because Watchmen is a gigantic piss take on why comic books are dumb, mindless drivel for children and emotionally stunted adults that fill their heads with pseudo-fascist ideals of how “might makes right” and every problem facing the world can be solved with extreme violence and psychopathic tendencies. It’s not a celebration of the medium, it’s an indictment. It’s no accident that the book ends with a pastiche of Starro the Conqueror (the villain that introduced the world to the Justice League in 1960), a giant squid, killing everybody.

What makes it brilliant, though, is that it’s also darkly comic and extremely biting satire that uses its medium and its intent to say something about what our enduring love of superheroes says about us as a nation. He doesn’t just deconstruct the idea of an emotionally stunted orphan who deals in moral absolutes and obsesses to the point of being homeless and unhygienic. He deconstructs the Reagan Era, the Cold War, Vietnam, and Watergate. I truly love Watchmen and it’s a seminal piece of work from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, but I don’t love it as a comic book fan.

And that’s my problem with the Snyderverse. Because one can’t look at his DCEU and what his intent was without looking at what he learned from making Watchmen and, in my honest opinion, what he learned from Watchmen? Was absolutely nothing. I’ve grown increasingly weary of that film since I first watched it as an out of touch 14-year old to the point where, today? I loathe it because it’s utterly tone deaf. People will say “but it’s literally a shot for shot adaptation in so many ways,” and I’ll say “but it’s not even smart enough to be an adaptation, it’s a lift from another medium that’s utterly tone deaf.” And it is. “It’s like if somebody made a Country Music Cover of ‘Straight Outta Compton’” is how I’ve always described my thoughts on Snyder’s Watchmen to people. “The lyrics are there, but the intent’s all wrong.”

He gave Dan Dreiberg a rousing boner set to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” That was a triumphant moment for him and that’s all that needs to be said. Neglecting all the slow motion, gratuitous action scenes and the creative choice to use elaborate Hollywood costumes instead of clearly homemade super suits draped awkwardly over shlubby, middle aged bodies. Hell, even the fact that he took Moore and Gibbons’ take on Rorschach as a subject of ridicule. I mean, this is a character that’s clearly a pointed jab at the absurdity of Ditko’s obsession with Randian objectivism in his conception of Mr. A and The Question and Snyder managed to turn it into a manifestation of how badass he thought the concept was (this is a dude who’s wanted to adapt The Fountainhead for like two decades, so, that says it all).

But setting all that aside, his Watchmen is defined by “Hallelujah.” He took a moment that was meant to highlight Dan’s emotional and physical impotence; a moment clearly meant to be ridiculous: “this middle aged fat guy can’t get it up unless he’s dressed up like an owl and getting into fist fights,” and he played it absolutely straight in the basest, Tim Allen-grunting-on-an-episode-of-Home-Improvement way possible. As though to say, “HELL YEAH! LOOK AT THAT! THAT’S A REAL MAN! BEATING PEOPLE UP AND GIVING IT TO HER GOOD! OH YEAH! NITE-OWL! HE’S A SUPERHERO! HE’S ROCK HARD!”

That’s the mind deconstructing Batman and Superman for mass audiences and he handled them with an equally deft touch. Superman as a wandering, questioning, constantly doubting Jesus in a molded body suit, Batman as the jilted cuckold who sees the obsession he’s devoted his life to reduced to little more than a foot note in the wake of seeing a God that can do everything he did in 30 years in the course of a day (the movie should’ve just been called Mid-Life Crisis on Infinite Earths). I’ll touch back around on this a little later because, honestly, I’ve tired myself out with everything I wrote before about it, but the gist is there are different creative constraints for different mediums.

You can explore different aspects of characters and different deconstructions in comics because…if you make an Elseworlds about Batman having a mid-life crisis? People can pick that up off the shelf and still have, like, 5 other traditional Batman titles in their pull to sate the traditionalist in them. Movies come around once every 5 years, if you’re lucky, and you’re the only game in town and maybe it’s a different story for a very vocal, very jilted, male corner of Twitter, but for the most part, when people go to see a Justice League movie? They don’t want to see an emotional support group full of broken personalities in capes. They want hope and optimism and adventure in the face of an increasingly hopeless, cynical, and mundane world and as the custodians of these characters and their collective legacies, it’s your job to give that to them. Not to try to mold that into your pet project. Because these movies were never meant to be deconstructions at a studio level, so, at some point, you have to ask yourself, what’s the point?

An actual deconstruction wouldn’t end with a giant CGI, studio mandated monster battle to bring the team together, but yours did. So, if your deconstruction only exists within the confines of what the studio allows, what’s the preference? To deliver a rousing crowd pleaser that gives fans of these characters across a spectrum of different demographics a vision of what they’ve always dreamt of? Or to still be slave to your own obsessions to the point where you deliver a tepid and toothless husk of your own ambitions that leaves everybody, save for a particular subreddit, scratching their heads and saying “what the hell was that?”
 
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I mean, our taste is obviously radically different... But I hope we’re both on the same page that everyone is free to like or dislike something for their own personal reasons.
 
One way of looking at this is that from the genre perspective the construction is all the traditional superhero films that have ever been done, no?

For example, Watchmen—the comic run/graphic novel—doesn’t give us a traditional comic book world first. The deconstructed world that Watchmen creates is itself a commentary on the classical comic book psychology.
Watchmen is bit different as it was created in its entirety as a deconstruction (and largely because DC wouldn’t let them use actual established DC characters to deconstruct). But the comic actually does start in many ways as a traditional “hero” comic and plays with those expectations, particularly when it flashes back to the “glory days” of the original heroes. It’s quite a different endeavor to deconstruct an archetype in a wholly unique one-off world compared to deconstructing them in a franchise trying to build up to a connected universe to compete with Marvel (or DC’s own print and animated offerings).
 
Watchmen is bit different as it was created in its entirety as a deconstruction (and largely because DC wouldn’t let them use actual established DC characters to deconstruct). But the comic actually does start in many ways as a traditional “hero” comic and plays with those expectations, particularly when it flashes back to the “glory days” of the original heroes. It’s quite a different endeavor to deconstruct an archetype in a wholly unique one-off world compared to deconstructing them in a franchise trying to build up to a connected universe to compete with Marvel (or DC’s own print and animated offerings).
This. There’s a reason DC didn’t let Moore and Gibbons use the Charlton stable of characters they had just acquired for Watchmen as they’d originally desired.
 
I mean, our taste is obviously radically different... But I hope we’re both on the same page that everyone is free to like or dislike something for their own personal reasons.
Absolutely. And like I said, there are elements of Snyder’s films that I genuinely love. I just think, for the purposes of world building for a general audience, his was a series rife with creative missteps. Best way I could describe it is you get a shot at being an Olympian. You’ve trained your butt off to qualify, all the bookies lay you as the favorite for Gold in the 100 meter sprint, you’re at the starting line and you have a thought: “I want to be remembered.”

And then you have a second thought: “How many Gold Medalists in the 100 meter sprint do people actually remember?” So, as the starting pistol fires, you don’t run. You strip off all your clothes and start doing an interpretive dance, much to the shock and dismay of the vast majority of viewers, but you’ve done it. People will be talking about this for decades to come. You’ve arguably made more of an impact on the sport than anybody who played by the rules, but you did so and you’re remembered for doing something really, really, really weird. You’ll have your adherents who say it was the most brilliant piece of performance art in the last 50 years, but, inevitably, you’ll get people who respond to that conversation with “who? The naked guy in Geneva?” And that’s largely how I feel about Snyder’s take on the DC Universe.:lol
 
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