When the train is derailing, all the conductor can do is blow the whistle. Perhaps I’m being hyperbolic, but nothing I’ve seen about Justice League so far makes me want to see it, and Joss Whedon coming in for some eleventh hour touchup isn’t going to make it less of a squealing pig.
I’m hoping that Whedon gets back to doing more personal projects someday. I’d really love to see him do Hamlet as a musical dark comedy, or some kind of Jane Austen adaptation with robots and Felicia Day.
Stranger
…I’m not sure why you are so confused. Wheldon was already part of the production, and he’s stepped in so that Snyder can be with his family. Isn’t that something that you would do? Sometimes it isn’t about your “creative vision.” Its about getting the job done.
My sympathies to the Snyder family. It can’t be easy to lose a child.
I’m guessing Whedon may not even get Director credit for the film. At the very least it would be shared credit with Snyder who has done most of the heavy lifting for Justice League.
I’ve never understood this argument. Just because Marvel did it that way doesn’t mean that’s now the only way to do it.
Not after years of Oceans 11s and Magnificent 7s and Dirty Dozens, where a team of strangers gathers for a mission and a satisfying cinema experience.
This. My colleagues and me ain’t no Joss Whedon, but most of us love putting our personal touch into our designs yet are perfectly happy to “junior” for someone else who is having a too-high load or a bad personal situation when we’re not as overloaded. It’s just being decent. I’ve never heard anything to indicate that Joss Whedon isn’t a decent man.
No “Might not” about it. I’m not sure exactly what the rules are under the Director’s guild, but even if offered I think Joss would decline a credit as anything other than a “Thank you” at the end. Snyder did all the work - it’s his vision, for good or ill. Joss is just making sure it gets completed. Win-win for him.
Unless I’m reading a different story about this than ya’ll, but isn’t the headline a bit misleading? 95% of the film is already done. The only thing Joss is doing is shooting some additional scenes that he’s written (with Zack’s permission/blessing) and probably helping with the editing process.
It’s not like anyone is going to tell who did what, and the film’s pretty much done anyway. This is in the same vein as Spielberg helping out Lucas in the third Star Wars prequel. Yeah, he came in and pinch hit for a spell or two, but it’s not like anyone could tell.
You say that now – but if Bruce Wayne gripes that none of this makes any sense; the city is flying, we’re fighting gods, and I have a boomerang that’s shaped like a bat…
There is a difference, however; films like The Dirty Dozen, Ocean’s Eleven, or to reference another DC property, Suicide Squad, aren’t intended to be an integral part of a larger narrative universe or spawn sequel movies for the individual characters, and most of the “main” characters have only one or two distinguishing traits and so don’t need much backstory. With Justice League each of the heroes are getting their own standalone films and the clear intention of making a string of interconnected DC flims. Having a cast of only half-developed characters and others who have just appeared either means you have to spend mood-killing time filling in some amount of backstory and characterization for the others, or they basically come off as mooks. Either way, it detracts from the purpose of an ensemble film, which is to provide a setting for interesting group dynamics.
Introducing one or two single characters is workable, especially if their story and character motivations are well-integrated into the plot (e.g. Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War) but making half the cast appear without prior introduction is messy and narratively difficult. If the first introduction to the would-be Avengers was a three-way fight between Stark, Rogers, and Thor, you’d pretty much not care, but because each of the characters has a developed backstory and motivations, the scene has gravitas; you care that these characters are fighting each other instead of cooperating as they need to. It also serves as the groundwork for Loki’s plan to pit the Avengers against one another; as they blast away at each other, he sits on an overlook and grins knowingly at their collective weakness.
The DC cinematic universe does not appear to be narratively well-constructed in some pretty fundamental ways, not the least of which is having killed off the single presumably unkillable hero in the second film, only to bring him back here. That they are in such a rush to put out an ensemble film without suffiicent groundwork or narrative necessity would seem to indicate that they’re trying to ape the success of Marvel Studios without understanding how it was done, which is unfortunate because they have a pantheon of great characters both major and minor which have been pretty much wasted to date. And I doubt Whedon taking over the franchise tent pole sixths months before release is going to do much to correct the major structural problems. At best, maybe he’ll excise some of the worst of the dialogue in the editing room and add in needed character development where possible.
There is no rule that a director has to claim credit, and in fact a number of movies have been credited to one director while another (agreeably) helmed the film. It only becomes contentious if the change was made by the studio without aggreement, or in the case of awards (which this film is not going to win.)
That would probably be the best thing he could do. That, and have Ben Affleck subtly reference Robert Downey Jr. by claiming that he’s not the richest billionaire industrialist, but he’s the tallest.
Stranger
Strange on a Train:
Precisely correct.
Entirely. *Sucker Punch *was quite simply one of the most horrible, gratuitously misogynistic films I have ever seen. *Justice League’s *trailer looked like a video game, not a motion picture.
Expecting some re-shoots, to be honest.
I really doubt that Whedon will get a credit, unless both Whedon and Warner Bros. decide that this is necessary. Reason being, the DGA is pretty strict when it comes to credits for more than one director. As I understand, a waiver has to be submitted to the WDA branch of the DGA in order for two directors to have credit on a movie. They have exceptions for “established duos,” whatever that means. Or how a duo can even be “established” since the rules initially forbid it…it’s all really convoluted.
Regardless, this is really Zack Snyder’s movie, and I think Whedon will recognize that. From what I understand, Whedon is basically handling the writing and directing of re-shoots. So he’s basically taking the film from third base to home plate. It’s a kind gesture and hopefully Snyder and his family can recover from this tragedy.