The fact that Affleck has to tell viewers this is indicative of perhaps the greatest problem the DCEU has (yet) to overcome: namely a loss of support from their core audience, which are the people who grew up reading the comics these characters first appeared in.
Which is such a weird place to be because it’s a problem of their own making in that all they needed to do was to make their superheroes more faithful (I understand that no character translates wholly intact from the printed page to the movie screen but it’s almost as if Warner Bros wasn’t even trying) to how the characters appeared in the comics, then literally sit back and rake in the cash.
But if Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad have shown us anything, it’s seemingly not quite that easy.
Or does it? Maybe the greatest problem with the three aforementioned movies has less to do with their their fidelity to the source material (though that’s certainly there) than an attempt to be visually and esthetically different from Marvel Studios.
And on some level that’s understandable. What isn’t is creating such an esthetically and morally unappealing interpretation of Batman and Superman (though what’s worse is that there’s nothing wrong with such portrayals per se. It’s more a question of starting with a more traditional interpretation then have events turn the character dystopic–which was said, but never shown in reference to Batman).
That’s an important journey viewers would have not enjoyed embarking on, and would have shown the seminal events that resulted in a murderous Batman (something the character studiously avoided during for the bulk of time he has existed).
Wonder Woman–for the DCEU–is literally a game changer in that it not appears more faithful to the comics than the aforementioned movies, yet managed to appeal to both critics and the bulk of the moviegoing audience.
It may not have quite restored faith in the fledgling cinematic universe that is the DCEU
It seems that finally Zach Snyder has fallen out of favor at Warner Bros, though my question is why it took so long to happen. Keep in mind while he’s overseen produced no flops while the creative force behind the DCEU (DC Extended Universe) though what he has done was produce three movies–Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad–that were extremely devisive as far as the perceptions of critics and movie goers.
You’llnotice that I didn’t include Wonder Woman, the best received DCEU movie (and on track to being the most profitable) yet? That’s no accident. Snyder’s star has been in it’s descendecy for quite awhile, and Wonder Woman was the first movie produced with a new management team in place.
And the worse thing is that I don’t necessarily blame Snyder. Warner Bros management (at the time) should have taken his ideas for a murderous Batman and an apathetic Superman and thrown them onto the Island of Really Ill-Conceived Ideas where they belonged, as opposed to entertaining them as as they did.
When I caught Doctor Strange last weekend one of trailers before the movie was XXX: The Return Of Xander Cage, which fascinated me because prior to that moment I had rarelyseen so much stupid squeezed into a trailer that lasted no more than two or three minutes.
Though in the instance of Marvel Studios there’s a point to all the FX, because until people can fly, turn into green rage monsters or make costumes our of nonexistent metals (with miraculous, unearthly properties), CGI and green screen are the only way to bridge the distance between what’s possible and what isn’t.
Now, compare that to movies like this one, where the main character isn’t Superman or Wonder Woman, but a guy really into extreme sports.
CGI may make those stunts look more extreme, but it also cheapens things in exactly the way Statham was talking about, which is by removing the human element.
Alexandre Aja is one of the most consistently interesting horror directors working today. His Maniac remake–which he wrote with his writing partner, Grégory Levasseur–was excellent, and the work he did direct, such as High Tension (a fascinating movie that irritates the Hell out of me–in an Usual Suspects kind of way. It’s a long story), The Hills Have Eyes reboot, Mirrors, for the most part are sublime.
Which has a lot to do with his last film, Horns, is so disappointing.
I haven’t read the novel by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), but I would hope that his writing isn’t as erratic, as schizophrenic as this movie was.
My biggest gripe is that I had no idea why things were happening. For instance, the movie opens during a murder investigation, and everyone–including his parents and brother–believes Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) is guilty.
The problem with this is that he (Spoiler Alert!) didn’t do it, but despite this fact he finds himself growing horns (?), which have two wildly inconsistent abilities.
So let’s for a moment forget that Ig is innocent, which means that there’s no justification for devil’s horns to suddenly start growing out of his head.
This post is entirely speculation, though it is based upon logic as well as current news.
Notice that in the title of this article I sad “could” as opposed to “would” because the last I heard was that Del Toro was busy working on Legendary Pictures’ upcoming fright-feature “Crimson Peak,” as well as executive producing the FX series based upon the trilogy he wrote with Chuck Hogan, “The Strain,” “The Fall” and “The Night Eternal.”
But I have been reading the tea leaves and checking the entrails regularly, and here’s what I have seen:
1. Despite Rumors To The Contrary, Guillermo Del Toro Will Not Be Doing “Justice League Dark” Anytime Soon
Why? Because NBC is working on “Constantine,” a series not based on the Francis Lawrence movie of the same name, but the DC (formerly under their Vertigo imprint) series, also of the same name. While it’s possible that the character could appear in both places at the same time (this is, of course assuming that the television series has a long life), it’s probably not going to happen. The character of John Constantine is the lynchpin that the team revolves around, and without him the concept is pretty much dead in the water, besides being somewhat esoteric.
Matt Ryan as John Constantine
And that’s even considering how much Warner Bros would have to invest from the budget end of things, which would probably be huge (though they could do it with a partner, as long as it’s not Legendary Pictures, since they and Warner Bros. somewhat acrimoniously parted ways. That being said, they still work with Village Roadshow Pictures).
2. DC/Warner Bros. Doesn’t Seem To Have Much Of A Plan Toward Developing Their Characters
Whether or not someone likes what Marvel is doing with their characters, you have to admit that they not only have a plan, but they are executing it really, really well. This is primarily because the head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, has apparently developed a plan to develop their characters, and is following it. Marvel’s roadmap is divided into Phases: Phase One consisted of “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Iron Man 2,” ” Captain America: The First Avenger,” and “Thor” and culminated in “The Avengers.”
Notice the pattern: First there’s an introduction of the characters–which may or may not have more than one film in the future–and a film that brings them all together.
Phase Two consists of “Iron Man 3,” “Thor: The Dark World, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “The Guardians Of The Galaxy,” and “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
Phase Three will consist of “Ant-Man,” “Captain America 3,” “Thor 3” and “The Avengers 3.”
As I said, you don’t necessarily have to like what Marvel is doing, but what you can’t deny is that there is a plan at work.
Warner Bros/DC? Not so much. What seems to be driving them is profit above all, which I understand, but that’s not a plan. Though it didn’t exactly start that way because for awhile it appeared that DC was building toward a Justice League feature–and probably still are–which began with “Green Lantern.”
Oh, but wait! Green Lantern? Don’t I mean Batman? No, I don’t because Christopher Nolan’s Batman films aren’t necessarily part of DC’s greater cinematic plans because Nolan quite deliberately kept them separate from the rest of the DC Universe, which was probably not a great decision in retrospect.
Though that’s why “Green Lantern” was so important: It was the beginning of DC/Warner Bros. establishing a larger canvas on which to display their properties. If Green Lantern had worked they could have brought Ryan Reynolds back as the character in other DC films, such as the Justice League, or even the upcoming “Batman Vs. Superman” feature.
But it was not to be because Green Lantern was unable to recharge either his lantern or the box office, where it earned almost $220 million on a $200 million dollar budget; not enough to make a profit.
So DC rebooted Superman, in “Man of Steel,” without a doubt the most violent Superman film ever made.
Which could perhaps explain why that film made “only” $668 million dollars. It’s a lot of money, but for a character as iconic and as firmly established in the public consciousness as Superman, it actually wasn’t that great a performance.
For the sequel, “Superman Vs. Batman,” DC will not only feature Superman and Batman, but Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor as the villain. It seems apparent that they are trying to follow a strategy similar to Marvel, except more compressed.
The history of women superheroes in comics is a proud one. Female characters are common in Marvel and DC Comics, as well as competing comics companies.
So, if women play such a pivotal role in comics, why is it that movies that feature them fail at the box office?
One reason is because, when filmmakers target women, they don’t take into account that they are oftentimes the persons that care for family and home, as well as work and/or attend school.
So, they don’t often have the free time that their partners, husbands or boyfriends may have.
As a result, they are often more discriminating with their time, and less willing to spend it in a manner that they consider frivolous (then there’s the cost of theater tickets, which makes a night at the movies an expensive proposition).
There a story on Superherohype where Ben Affleck says that the portrayal of Batman in Warner Bros/DC Films upcoming Justice League would be a more ‘traditional’ portrayal of the character.
