It has been a tumultuous week for the DC Extended Universe to say the least, and the franchise seems utterly directionless at this point. It started with the announcement of a Joker origin story, one that would be directed by Todd Phillips and produced by filmmaking icon Martin Scorsese. The promise of a Joker project was also accompanied by the reveal that the film would be part of a new banner under DC films, one that would have no connection to the current state of the DCEU. Essentially, this allows Phillips and Scorsese to avoid any relationship with Jared Leto's portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime, and create their own distinct, supposedly Taxi Driver-inspired vision of one of American culture's greatest supervillains. I was intrigued by the idea, and I liked the push for a greater number of solo projects in the realm of comic book films. But then, things at DC quickly snowballed out of control.
The reveal of the Joker project caused fans to dig up an old interview with The Batman director Matt Reeves, who told radio station KCRW (via Joblo) that his film was "a standalone.....not part of the extended universe." While Reeves took to Twitter recently to clear up the issue, emphasizing that his Batman is indeed part of the DCEU, this raised further questions about the direction of DC's future output, a sense of doubt that was made worse by the reported announcement of another potential film project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this new movie from Crazy Stupid Love directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra will be centered around the Joker and Harley Quinn, and unlike the Phillips and Scorsese Joker movie, this one will star Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, who took on the roles in Suicide Squad. Confusing, I know. Throw in some more rumors that Ben Affleck will be done with the franchise after Justice League, and it's easy to start wondering- what exactly is going on at Warner Bros.?
Well. Nobody knows. I don't know, you don't know, I would even put money down on the idea that some people at the studio don't even know. 2017 represents a dangerous crossroad for the studio and their most valuable brand, as they try to overcome a year that saw their two highly important blockbusters take an absolute drubbing from critics and many fans. They bounced back hard with the spectacular Wonder Woman, but the word on Justice League just keeps getting worse and worse every single day. Will everyone forget about the rousing success of Patty Jenkins' film if the superhero team-up movie becomes a disaster? Maybe. And the trouble goes beyond this- it extends to their announced and rumored projects as well. I'm fully convinced that Warner Bros. is just trying to see what they can get off the ground, throwing out an insane number of options in the hope that something sticks. So far, only Aquaman has really gone anywhere.
So here's the multi-billion dollar question for DC- what does this franchise look like in five years? Many have positioned the idea that Justice League is the end of the DCEU as we currently know it, and frankly, that's probably a good thing. Ben Affleck was always wrong for this character, and playing the role has done irreparable damage to his career. And like it or not, Zack Snyder was the absolute wrong director for Superman- he lacks the idealism necessary to convincingly portray the character. Many have speculated that the entire timeline will be rebooted with Flashpoint, a great idea that relies on one problematic concept- the hope that a Flash movie actually gets made. We've seen a steady rotation of directors join and abandon the project, and there's no reason to believe that anything different will happen in the near future.
But I think that the success of Wonder Woman is sticking in the mind of the studio chiefs at Warner. This is the part where the article turns into a weird mix of speculation and personal opinion, but we cannot overlook the impact of this summer's sensation. While, yes, Wonder Woman has connective tissue to the larger DCEU, it is mainly a standalone vehicle that focuses on telling a smart, cohesive narrative that takes a group of characters on a journey and brings their story to a compelling conclusion. It was not attempting to set up a franchise or thousands of other DC Films. It was an origin story for Diana Prince, plain and simple. It may seem weird that I'm emphasizing this so much, but with the insane growth of interconnected universes in recent years, a shift towards standalone storytelling would be beyond refreshing.
The other essential aspect of Wonder Woman's success was Patty Jenkins, the director who fought for years to get her movie made. She clashed with Marvel over 2013's Thor: The Dark World, eventually making her way to Warner Bros. to direct the superhero flick that had been stuck in an unreasonable development hell for several years. In a landscape where there's a distinct lack of auteurs working in the realm of comic book movies, Jenkins stands as one of the best directors to tackle one of these films. She brought a brilliantly old-fashioned sense of craftsmanship to Wonder Woman, as well as a genuine sense of optimism and hope. If The Dark Knight represented the superhero genre's dive into nihilistic darkness, Wonder Woman is the dawn that Harvey Dent promised nearly a decade ago. And while the success of a film cannot be credited to one person alone, Jenkins' contributions were invaluable.
So, assuming that Warner Bros. takes the right lessons from this movie, what are the two most important things about Wonder Woman's financial and critical triumph? It was a standalone vehicle, and it was directed by a true visionary who cared about the project. It's that simple. The runaway success of Wonder Woman refutes the thinking that drove both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. The former was tasked with setting up a billion other movies, and it unfortunately did so without the slightest hint of style or grace. Remember the scene where Diana watches a bunch of trailers on a laptop during the middle of the film? Yeah. Ouch. I'll never deny that Zack Snyder has vision, but Warner Bros. simply tied his hands with that one. As for Suicide Squad, WB practically took that film out of the hands of David Ayer, electing to take a committee approach that gave the supervillain mash-up more humor and pizzazz. The result was essentially a non-movie, something that barely resembled what we know as narrative film.
Wonder Woman did neither of those things, and it turned out spectacularly. In theory, this was a massive wake-up call for Warner Bros. executives and DC creative chief Geoff Johns. It may have been the movie that changed the entire franchise for them, and the whole enterprise may be better off if they realize one simple truth- they will never be Marvel. No Hollywood series ever will. What Kevin Feige and the talented people at Marvel have done over the last 9 years has been nothing shy of groundbreaking, and no matter how hard everyone tries, the odds of replicating that success are slim to none. Pulling off a connected universe like this takes an immense degree of skill, planning, and precision, and WB doesn't have that. They are, frankly speaking, an absolute mess.
But they have a chance to do something great here. They really do. People love these characters, even when they're in bad movies. It's time to start fresh. Give each of these characters, like Wonder Woman, the proper film that they deserve. Bring on talented filmmakers- Matt Reeves, James Wan, Jenkins- and let them have free reign to make the movies that they want to make. Connect everything loosely in a quietly referential way, but don't even think about going out of your way to force all of the pieces to fit together. We may never get a superhero team-up film from DC that is on par with what Marvel did with The Avengers. And that's okay. DC is quickly developing an opportunity to stamp out their own space in the realm of modern blockbuster filmmaking with artistically challenging solo movies, and if they don't take this chance, I can guarantee that they'll regret it.
Things might seem to be a mess right now. After all, we just had two Joker movies announced within the span of a week. The Flash is still no further along, Cyborg is displaying no signs of life, Gotham City Sirens is probably dead, and we still don't have a Green Lantern. But if Warner Bros. and DC are changing course, switching to a more standalone, auteur-based model, then the superhero realm could be vastly improved. A Scorsese-esque Joker movie might not be the film you exactly want to see, but if it gives us a good film centered around another one of the famous characters in the DC canon, this could be a major development. The end result of the madness may be a return to the landscape of yesteryear, where individual characters were able to have their own stories and franchises without being beholden to a larger universe. And in my mind, this would be great news.
This may seem like an overly optimistic response to the chaos of this week, but I'm willing to give this whole thing one last try.
Source: Joblo, THR
Images: IMDB/WB
Well. Nobody knows. I don't know, you don't know, I would even put money down on the idea that some people at the studio don't even know. 2017 represents a dangerous crossroad for the studio and their most valuable brand, as they try to overcome a year that saw their two highly important blockbusters take an absolute drubbing from critics and many fans. They bounced back hard with the spectacular Wonder Woman, but the word on Justice League just keeps getting worse and worse every single day. Will everyone forget about the rousing success of Patty Jenkins' film if the superhero team-up movie becomes a disaster? Maybe. And the trouble goes beyond this- it extends to their announced and rumored projects as well. I'm fully convinced that Warner Bros. is just trying to see what they can get off the ground, throwing out an insane number of options in the hope that something sticks. So far, only Aquaman has really gone anywhere.
So here's the multi-billion dollar question for DC- what does this franchise look like in five years? Many have positioned the idea that Justice League is the end of the DCEU as we currently know it, and frankly, that's probably a good thing. Ben Affleck was always wrong for this character, and playing the role has done irreparable damage to his career. And like it or not, Zack Snyder was the absolute wrong director for Superman- he lacks the idealism necessary to convincingly portray the character. Many have speculated that the entire timeline will be rebooted with Flashpoint, a great idea that relies on one problematic concept- the hope that a Flash movie actually gets made. We've seen a steady rotation of directors join and abandon the project, and there's no reason to believe that anything different will happen in the near future.
But I think that the success of Wonder Woman is sticking in the mind of the studio chiefs at Warner. This is the part where the article turns into a weird mix of speculation and personal opinion, but we cannot overlook the impact of this summer's sensation. While, yes, Wonder Woman has connective tissue to the larger DCEU, it is mainly a standalone vehicle that focuses on telling a smart, cohesive narrative that takes a group of characters on a journey and brings their story to a compelling conclusion. It was not attempting to set up a franchise or thousands of other DC Films. It was an origin story for Diana Prince, plain and simple. It may seem weird that I'm emphasizing this so much, but with the insane growth of interconnected universes in recent years, a shift towards standalone storytelling would be beyond refreshing.
The other essential aspect of Wonder Woman's success was Patty Jenkins, the director who fought for years to get her movie made. She clashed with Marvel over 2013's Thor: The Dark World, eventually making her way to Warner Bros. to direct the superhero flick that had been stuck in an unreasonable development hell for several years. In a landscape where there's a distinct lack of auteurs working in the realm of comic book movies, Jenkins stands as one of the best directors to tackle one of these films. She brought a brilliantly old-fashioned sense of craftsmanship to Wonder Woman, as well as a genuine sense of optimism and hope. If The Dark Knight represented the superhero genre's dive into nihilistic darkness, Wonder Woman is the dawn that Harvey Dent promised nearly a decade ago. And while the success of a film cannot be credited to one person alone, Jenkins' contributions were invaluable.
So, assuming that Warner Bros. takes the right lessons from this movie, what are the two most important things about Wonder Woman's financial and critical triumph? It was a standalone vehicle, and it was directed by a true visionary who cared about the project. It's that simple. The runaway success of Wonder Woman refutes the thinking that drove both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. The former was tasked with setting up a billion other movies, and it unfortunately did so without the slightest hint of style or grace. Remember the scene where Diana watches a bunch of trailers on a laptop during the middle of the film? Yeah. Ouch. I'll never deny that Zack Snyder has vision, but Warner Bros. simply tied his hands with that one. As for Suicide Squad, WB practically took that film out of the hands of David Ayer, electing to take a committee approach that gave the supervillain mash-up more humor and pizzazz. The result was essentially a non-movie, something that barely resembled what we know as narrative film.
Wonder Woman did neither of those things, and it turned out spectacularly. In theory, this was a massive wake-up call for Warner Bros. executives and DC creative chief Geoff Johns. It may have been the movie that changed the entire franchise for them, and the whole enterprise may be better off if they realize one simple truth- they will never be Marvel. No Hollywood series ever will. What Kevin Feige and the talented people at Marvel have done over the last 9 years has been nothing shy of groundbreaking, and no matter how hard everyone tries, the odds of replicating that success are slim to none. Pulling off a connected universe like this takes an immense degree of skill, planning, and precision, and WB doesn't have that. They are, frankly speaking, an absolute mess.
But they have a chance to do something great here. They really do. People love these characters, even when they're in bad movies. It's time to start fresh. Give each of these characters, like Wonder Woman, the proper film that they deserve. Bring on talented filmmakers- Matt Reeves, James Wan, Jenkins- and let them have free reign to make the movies that they want to make. Connect everything loosely in a quietly referential way, but don't even think about going out of your way to force all of the pieces to fit together. We may never get a superhero team-up film from DC that is on par with what Marvel did with The Avengers. And that's okay. DC is quickly developing an opportunity to stamp out their own space in the realm of modern blockbuster filmmaking with artistically challenging solo movies, and if they don't take this chance, I can guarantee that they'll regret it.
Things might seem to be a mess right now. After all, we just had two Joker movies announced within the span of a week. The Flash is still no further along, Cyborg is displaying no signs of life, Gotham City Sirens is probably dead, and we still don't have a Green Lantern. But if Warner Bros. and DC are changing course, switching to a more standalone, auteur-based model, then the superhero realm could be vastly improved. A Scorsese-esque Joker movie might not be the film you exactly want to see, but if it gives us a good film centered around another one of the famous characters in the DC canon, this could be a major development. The end result of the madness may be a return to the landscape of yesteryear, where individual characters were able to have their own stories and franchises without being beholden to a larger universe. And in my mind, this would be great news.
This may seem like an overly optimistic response to the chaos of this week, but I'm willing to give this whole thing one last try.
Source: Joblo, THR
Images: IMDB/WB
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