10 years after Zod’s snapped neck, Martha, “some kinda Suicide Squad”, CGI moustache, rennouncing your wish, the hiearchy of power changing, and Speed Force PS1 graphics, the DC Extended Universe finally comes to a close. And it ends the same way it started - with a Rotten score.
Looking back at all this wasted potential, what would you have done differently with the DCEU, and what are your hopes for James Gunn’s DC Universe?
I’m just confused at what the continuity is now. So with Aquaman 2, that’s the last of the old stuff and now it’s being rebooted with Gunn as DC’s Kevin Feige-esque person in charge? I feel like he’s been in that roll for over a year now, yet everything that’s been released is all part of the old continuity and was going to get phased out, so what was the point of all that then? Releasing stuff for a universe that’s getting scrapped (though will likely show up in 5-10 years in some crisis on infinity earths story or something).
Movie making and planning takes a lot of time and money. It’s done in advance. You can’t just stop everything that’s been in production from releasing.
The movies don't all have to be connected by a single overreaching narrative, give us some standalones. Give us a feel good Justice Society movie and a utopian sci-fi Legion of Superheroes. It would also be nice to move away from the core Justice League team and world or universe level threats. Let Nightwing stop the Zodiac Master's plan to rob a series of banks.
That showed us that the Animated Series was so good because the network restrictions forced him and his team to be creative. When given full control, we get… Well, this and the Killing Joke
If the trailer is any indication (and I know it isn’t always), it’s bad and the cast is really phoning it in. Jason Momoa has never been a great actor but every word he says sounds like he’s reading it from notes he wrote on his hand. Nicole Kidman is like, “things are bad” with the same tone of voice I say, “we’re out of milk.” Just really terrible.
Hopes? None. Warner Bros. has no fucking clue how to use DC characters and ideas in theaters. They may get lucky with specific movies being decent, but the best movies are not even as good as the worst of the animated movies and series. They keep throwing money and names at live action, instead of focusing on telling good stories that stay true to the essence of the characters.
I don’t see Gunn doing any better tbh. For one, he’s going to be hamstrung by whatever Warner decides is the goal. For another, he’s going to end up limited by whatever flawed view executives have of the servers characters. And then he still may not have a grasp of what either comics fans or non comic fans need from a movie featuring DC characters.
I think that another risk you run by putting Gunn in this role after he found the only success in modern DC movies and series is pressure to become too Gunn-y. The same way that Marvel was so taken with Taika Waititi’s Ragnarok that they had him go even more Waititi on Love and Thunder, which clearly made it worse, and then tried to incorporate similar humor in other projects that fell flat. Sometimes playing to hard into a unique success just proves that it was either largely novelty-driven or that you just can’t recapture it.
Amen. Though, tbh, I did shed a few tears during love and thunder, so it wasn’t a total failboat.
I like Gunn’s style, but any time you just hand the reins to a single director, the risk of them cackling like a mad scientist and creating an abomination is high.
Love and thunder is, in part, a story of the pain, loss, and grief of watching a cherished loved one wither away with cancer before they or you are ready. It was always going to pull tears no matter what else happened in the movie
This is the case for when franchises get milked forever. They CAN’T die on a good note. Good notes is what promotes sequels. Only when they get a low note they start discontinueing.
It’s why most franchise stories seem to end on dissatisfactory cliffhangers
Sometimes it’s not even “forever”. Wonder Woman '84 was only the 2nd film and it shit the bed so hard it not only killed any future WW movie, but it tanked the Star Wars movie the director was supposed to do next.
This is why I support the MCU going out on a limb with their new stuff. They’re already on a dang limb, so own it. This will happen to them someday, too, and they know it! So when an opportunity comes up to risk everything to go out gloriously and respectably, you take it. If/When they’re lucky, they’ll find something new and squeeze a few more years out of it.
DC never did that without backsliding on it.
It’s decreasing returns. I mean I know we’ve had disney princesses around for nearly a century, but you gotta take basic economics into account in this stuff.
The thing I would have done? Don’t hire Zack Snyder to start a cinematic universe. And also tell him to take his daughter to a mental health professional.
My hope for the future is that they actually do a Justice League movie based on “The New Frontier”.
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