They’ve been able to use the characters effectively in projects like the series of animated adaptations from Batman: The Animated Series to Justice League, but their current run of movie projects has been hit-and-miss (with more misses than hits). Partly, I blame the follow-the-leader imitation of Batman grimdarkness in contexts where it doesn’t really work.
I think they should use the 1978 Superman movie as a template. That was a fun movie.
But not with Zach Snyder associated with them in any way. He tainted them all to an almost unholy degree.
They probably thought they were doing the same thing (give the franchise to a Donner, or a Burton, or a Nolan) when they gave things over to Snyder, only to realize their terrible, terrible mistake soon after.
A lot of their injuries are self-inflicted. This latest news seems in keeping with that trend.
This old tweet is still as relevant today as it was a few years ago.
Considering that it would be another six years after that tweet before Marvel had a woman as a lead in one of their movies, I don’t think it’s aged all that great. Wonder Woman beat Captain Marvel to theaters by two years, and was the superior film.
It is a little weird. Back in the 80s and 90s, DC was clearly the winner with movies like Batman and their various animated shows on television. In contrast, Marvel movies were mostly straight to video if they made it to video at all. I haven’t watched most of the DC movies beacuse I didn’t care for Superman all that much.
As Zach Snyder said, “Everyone clings to the Christopher Reeve version of Superman.” Yeah, when I walk out of a Superman movie I want to be filled with hope not despair. Batman can be somewhat grim, that’s fine, but Superman shouldn’t be grim even when he’s facing dire threats. In Man of Steel, when Clark asks if he should have let the bus full of kids drown, Papa Kent should have said, “Of course not. You did the right thing and I’m proud of you, but I’m worried about what might happen when people find out about your abilities.” Something other than, “Maybe.”
And? Granted, Wonder Woman was one of the few DCEU movies I’ve seen and enjoyed, but so what if they were the first to headline a woman as the main protagonist in a super hero movie? It doesn’t really say anything about the quality of the movie.
I’ve been looking around about the “condition” of the Batgirl movie. It’s so early in post that presumably a chunk of that $90M budget hasn’t been spent yet. So, the actual loss at this point is somewhat less.
That changes my perspective some but I still think they can recover some money out of this while still getting some tax-write offs.
I believe it may be the opposite. I thought I had read that the real amount spent had gone over $100 million and they were looking at a large advertising campaign and realizing it won’t make it.
I still think it should stream or go on Youtube with ads or something.
Netflix has over 200 million subscribers globally. I’m sure some of them are paying less than the US rate, but my first google result said they make about $10 in monthly revenue per user. So that’s 10 $200 million movies per month. I mean, not really, since they have lots of other costs like bandwidth and employees and storage and the many many lower-budget shows. But it shouldn’t be surprising that Netflix can afford a $200 million movie. People pay Netflix a lot of money.
Not really about quality, just that bragging about being able to do a movie with a tree and a raccoon, when they’d take more than half a decade to figure out “woman” or “Black guy,” didn’t age super great.
I feel sympathy for the people who worked on Batgirl (and Scoob, which had a pretty stacked cast and would have made decent money at least) and just saw their work thrown in the trash.
On a slightly conspiratorial bent, I wonder if they’re hoping for an online movement like the “Release the Snyder Cut” thing, so they can “graciously” accede to demands and release it on streaming after they’ve gotten a few months of free publicity?
That’s not going be as effective any more now that it has been revealed that Snyder astroturfed that “movement.”
That could be. Studio exec weasels looking at a $90 million price tag maybe just focused on a survey question asking if seemed like a big-screen movie or a made-for-streaming movie. The talking head I heard from was delivering the HBOMax point of view. Sounded like cutting costs was their primary motivation.
I honestly don’t see how those two brags are related. The tree and raccoon brag seems more about the producers not being embarrased by their source material or afraid the audience wouldn’t be able to connect with the story. Whereas I finished watching Man of Steel thinking Zack Snyder really hates Superman and didn’t care for the source material at all.
Okay.
Yes, and no. That end fight in WW was abysmal enough to bring the whole rest of it down.
But “lead woman” is a poor metric, anyway. The MCU had scads of women superheroes before WW was released (including multiple PoC actresses), even if they weren’t leads. DC had … WW in an ensemble piece (I don’t count Harley Quinn as a superhero) . And we all knew CM was coming. It’s a bit unbelievable to be trumpeting DC as the diversity champion, here.
I wouldn’t call 3 “Scads”, and Black Widow isn’t very super or a hero. Wanda is the biggest thing they had to an actual female superhero before Wonder Woman’s release. I know Gamora counts but again she’s a part of a firmly connected ensemble.
Ironically, The Batman is more hope-inspiring than any Superman movie of the last 15 years.