The DCEU Is Dead So Isn't It Time For A New Direction?

[thecolorsblend]

For better or for worse, the DCEU is a train wreck. We can assign blame for that however we want but the fact remains. Worse, and for reasons which I sincerely don't believe are entirely WB's fault, Marvel has a virtual monopoly on continuity-laden, shared universe type stuff.

The damage is done. So at this point, I say that WB should go their own way now. Specifically, why bother having interconnected movies at all? Why not let all the DC characters go in their own direction(s)? Why not allow each movie (or franchise) be its own thing?

What if WB made a live action adaptation of The Laughing Fish? Do it up right as a period piece set in the 70's in the style of New Hollywood/American New Wave. Put that comic book on film (or digital video, anyway), more or less. Reimagine is as more of a stand alone piece where Batman finds out the Joker is on the loose, poisoning fish, etc. It's been a long time since wide audiences have seen Bruce choose between his calling as Batman and a normal life with the woman he loves. Silver represents a completely valid choice Bruce can make while the Joker represents the life path which will eventually be Bruce's undoing. Explore why somebody would choose something as insane as being Batman when a viable alternative (ie, Silver St. Cloud) is on the table.

Do a Superman movie set in the 1930's. You can use that It's Superman novel as inspiration if you want. Sort of a Tom-DeHaven-meets-Max-Fleischer-in-live-action type of thing. Part period piece/Capra film, part screwball comedy, part vintage early or mid-1930's sci-fi piece. This could be interesting. The Kents are dead so Clark heads out for the big city to make a difference in the only ways he knows how. But how can even his amazing abilities overcome mankind's darkest tendencies?

A John Stewart Green Lantern movie set in the 80's could be amazing. Set it up that Stewart is still recovering from his traumatic experiences in Vietnam when he's selected to be a Green Lantern. But all is not as it seems and before he knows it, John finds himself in a Watergate-in-outer-space type of thing with the Guardians, who are being subverted from within by persons unknown and it becomes Stewart's job to get to the bottom of it. But is he stable enough for the job?

How about Martian Manhunter in the 1950's as a throwback film noir thing? Venetian blinds, deep shadows, voice-over narration, a femme fatale, the whole program. J'onn is every bit as much an outsider to that world as us and he serves sort of as our guide to Hell as he investigates a murder mystery in this strange new world he finds himself in. J'onn has more or less survived the apocalypse on his own planet and he's absolutely befuddled by the concept of murder. Explore that. How does someone who's lucky to even be alive cope with having to live with people who have no idea how good they have it?

A Barry Allen Flash movie set in the 60's could be tons of fun. It might be kind of neat for The Flash to gain his powers and get pulled in to some sort of hare-brained government scheme to use his speed to spy on the Soviets or something. Barry always struck me as a joiner. If pressed, he would work with the government. But when he zooms over to Smolensk or Moscow or wherever he's going, maybe he discovers the mission he accepted is not exactly what he signed up for? Before too long, he finds himself torn between duty to his country vs. what he KNOWS is the right thing to do. Idk, something like that.

And hey, imagine Pre-Crisis Power Girl and The Huntress on Earth-2 in a kinda sorta Buddy Cop movie. This might a good entry point for wide audiences for those two characters. And none of this Helena Bertinelli stuff either. We're talking about good old Helena Wayne, daughter of Bruce Wayne here. Go for an over-the-top science-fantasy, EARTH-2 type of tone for the movie.

Ages ago, Vertigo published Sandman Mystery Theatre starring Wesley Dodds in gritty, neo-noir types of stories. Why not do a Sandman movie along those lines? Set it in the modern day as doddering old Wesley operates as a sort of PI type of superhero. Gas mask, the gas gun, the long coat, the whole thing. He's too old for this type of work even though he can't give it up. He's an old man playing a young man's game. What is the price paid for trying to live up to ideals his body is simply too frail to uphold anymore?

Most of these movies could probably be done on a sub-$150 million budget, they won't compete directly with Marvel and they can existing independently of each other. And who knows, they could burnish a few DC properties in dire need of re-invigoration.

But even all of the above fail, so what? At least they're original.

[The Laughing Fish]

It should come to no surprise that I'd definitely be in favour of that Laughing Fish adaptation idea. More so than that pointless movie Joaquin Phoenix is doing. But it's a pipe dream.

The only adaptations I'm interested in are the Marvel Netflix shows, and even then, the track record hasn't been that great lately. But Jessica Jones S2 is making me happy so far, only six episodes in.

Movie wise? I've lost interest at the moment, for both Marvel and DC.

Joker: looks like ass.
Captain Marvel: not interested.
Avengers 4: after being hugely disappointed by the overrated mess that was Infinity War, forget it.
Wonder Woman 1984: not really interested anymore.
Shazam: not for me.
Aquaman: Out of curiosity, I'd consider watching it only when it hits home video. I don't have the urge to pay for it at the cinema, not after learning more details over how WB screwed Snyder's real vision of Justice League.

At this stage, even if Affleck were to come back, or somebody like Jon Hamm were to be suitable replacement, the next Batman movie will likely be screwed over by hypocritical biases, rather than being judged by objective merit.

I don't know if my mood will change some time in the future, but right now, I just don't care.

[The Laughing Fish]

Judging by the announcement of the castings of Black Canary and Huntress in Birds of Prey with Margot Robbie expected to return as Harley Quinn, it doesn't appear that the DCEU is dead yet. But one thing is for sure, Snyder's original five movie plan is definitely gone.

[thecolorsblend]

My attachment to the DCEU is dead. Cavill as Superman and Affleck as Batman is what I wanted. If we're not getting that (and it's 50/50 at this point, I'd say) then the enterprise is dead for me. The movies they make might be interesting in their own ways or whatever. But what I want is those two in those roles. Anything else just won't do it for me.

[The Dark Knight]

My attachment to the DCEU is dead. Cavill as Superman and Affleck as Batman is what I wanted. If we're not getting that (and it's 50/50 at this point, I'd say) then the enterprise is dead for me. The movies they make might be interesting in their own ways or whatever. But what I want is those two in those roles. Anything else just won't do it for me.

Ditto.

[The Laughing Fish]

Ugh. James Gunn is apparently writing Suicide Squad 2.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-to-write-new-suicide-squad-20181010-p508qb.html

f*** you Wb. 

[The Laughing Fish]

for reasons which I sincerely don't believe are entirely WB's fault, Marvel has a virtual monopoly on continuity-laden, shared universe type stuff.

Following the news over Daredevil's cancellation, I can't help but feel Marvel/Disney has had a negative influence in Hollywood's current copycat mentality. The results have been disastrous:

• Cancelling The Amazing-Spider-Man series with Andrew Garfield in favour of the MCU's teeny-bopper nonsense starring Tom Holland.
• Inspiring Warner Butchers to meddle in Suicide Squad AND Justice League's productions with reshoots that had drastically changed the original vision of each film with attempts to make them lighter, even replacing Snyder with Whedon, which resulted in diminishing returns. Not to mention scrapping what Snyder originally envisioned for the future of the DCEU.
• The destruction of the Marvel Netflix brand, thanks to politics behind the scenes, as I've read.
• Dumbing down the MCU films with cheap comedy and characters either becoming a copy of Tony Stark or a just complete parody. Only a couple of films stood above from the much in Phase Three, in my opinion. Sadly, it seems every time people think of a Marvel movie nowadays, they don't think of films like the never-compromising bravery or coming of age like in the Phase One films. Instead, it's only about how quippy and "funny" everything is. Because apparently that's how you make a shared universe.

It's so frustrating.

EDIT: I'm not an X-Men fan, but special mention should out go to the Fox X-Men fans agitated about the Disney takeover.

[thecolorsblend]

for reasons which I sincerely don't believe are entirely WB's fault, Marvel has a virtual monopoly on continuity-laden, shared universe type stuff.

Following the news over Daredevil's cancellation, I can't help but feel Marvel/Disney has had a negative influence in Hollywood's current copycat mentality. The results have been disastrous:

• Cancelling The Amazing-Spider-Man series with Andrew Garfield in favour of the MCU's teeny-bopper nonsense starring Tom Holland.
• Inspiring Warner Butchers to meddle in Suicide Squad AND Justice League's productions with reshoots that had drastically changed the original vision of each film with attempts to make them lighter, even replacing Snyder with Whedon, which resulted in diminishing returns. Not to mention scrapping what Snyder originally envisioned for the future of the DCEU.
• The destruction of the Marvel Netflix brand, thanks to politics behind the scenes, as I've read.
• Dumbing down the MCU films with cheap comedy and characters either becoming a copy of Tony Stark or a just complete parody. Only a couple of films stood above from the much in Phase Three, in my opinion. Sadly, it seems every time people think of a Marvel movie nowadays, they don't think of films like the never-compromising bravery or coming of age like in the Phase One films. Instead, it's only about how quippy and "funny" everything is. Because apparently that's how you make a shared universe.

It's so frustrating.

EDIT: I'm not an X-Men fan, but special mention should out go to the Fox X-Men fans agitated about the Disney takeover.

I've wanted an adaptation of Daredevil worthy of my respect for quite some time now. Netflix finally gave it to me.

I've also wanted Marvel as a multimedia property to suffer some type of setback. I might have preferred that the setback affect something that isn't Daredevil. But Marvel is finally experiencing a setback now.

The death of the Netflixverse (which is what we're basically looking at here) may have had BTS causes but it's still a public setback for Marvel. A lot of fans and even a bunch of normies are ticked off about these cancellations. It's a bit of a black eye for Marvel as a brand.

As to X-Men, I enjoy some of the movies and some of the comics. Does that make me an X-Men fan? I don't know. What I do know is that I resent the Disney buyout precisely because of how it will affect the X-Men. I liked things just fine the way they were. X-Men was the only comic book movie series that I had any real investment in anymore. And now it looks like it'll become just another MCU shlockfest property. No thanks.

[The Laughing Fish]

The more news I read about Snyder's cut of Justice League, the more disgust I feel for what Warner Butchers have done.

If the current circumstances were similar to Burton and Keaton leaving the Batman franchise back in the 90s, okay, I might've tolerated things better. While it was still a shame we didn't get a third Batman movie with those two, at least they can peacefully say they left because of creative differences. Say what you will about Warner Butchers back then, but at least they were upfront with the new direction they wanted to take the franchise, for better or worse. Nobody was deceived, it is what it is.

Twenty years later, however, their PR expertise has gone to sh*t. It's bad enough that fans were lied to regarding the circumstances surrounding JL when it was coming out, but the new revelations over the last couple of months have made the situation even MORE unbearable.

Making actors sign NDAs to keep quiet over their roles in the movie getting cut, as it was revealed Ray Porter was cast as Darkseid? The director himself confirming that his real cut of the movie is complete? And is still not released despite the fact he obeyed the studio's request to compromise his two-part saga - and five movie story arc overall - following the overreaction over BvS? That's what boggles my mind - he was allowed to make the movie and complete it, but then they STILL decided to reshoot it - with his name on it!

No. None of that is acceptable. What's next? Actors not getting paid for their work in the movie? Judging by this pathetic excuse for a corporation's conduct recently, I wouldn't put it past them. If they really didn't want Snyder directing JL, they should've just delayed production and remove him. Normally sacking somebody would be a humiliating experience, but under the circumstances, it would've been a lot more dignifying than this whole ordeal everybody has been put through.

Some of you will say we need to move on and look forward to other movies the studio is putting out, but frankly, I think it's a terrible idea. It shows that what they did is okay, it tells them undermining creative integrity is justified as long as they think they can make more money. And you know what? They'll do it again. The next movie coming out that doesn't make the money they want and get the reviews they want will result in mismanagement of the sequel, with more meddling and more reshoots just to satisfy a fickle audience that will still criticise it, and wreck the director's actual vision. And once again, we'll be left with an inferior product than what was promised.

Yes, I know I'm repeating myself for what feels like the hundredth time already, but because of this corporation's attitude, I don't ever want to see a new DC movie - or ANY new movie - that studio produces ever again. Once again, it's going to take enormous goodwill to repair this PR damage for me to ever trust them again. Maybe releasing the Snyder cut is a good place to start. Maybe. But until then, that corporation can go to hell.

[Paul (ral)]

WB still has no plan in place. Despite recent reshuffles over the past couple of years I see no clear vision. The only plan seems to be lets throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks - which is all fine and well, but we could end up staring at a wall with incoherent mess all over it.