This is kind of short but I’m kind of frustrated right now. Emerald Dawn was promoted by the press and DCU as coming to the service ahead of time along with Batman: Hush. After a bizarre turn of events, Emerald Dawn was removed from the service after 1 day up. Denying the 2 weeks discussion that has been ongoing and promised by the service.
Step forward
Lots more comics with focus on full arcs. This has changed fans perspective on DCU for the better and brought the press to discuss DCU
Step Back
The removal of Emerald Dawn was a promise DCU broke to its fans. Applejack has said the removal is not reflective of the service but it still stings. Promises are promises and without more info and/ or closure DC fans are going to question if DCU truly means what they’ve said. They’ve claimed nothing is getting removed in April for movies at least. We shall see if that stays true.
Step Forward
DCU has given fans the ability to go see Shazam ahead of time (for free) much to fans excitement. This increased effort to reward fans outside of the service is incredibly exciting and gives a lot of hopes for what the service can be.
Step Back
DCU also overbooked dramatically and turned many people over not having space. Reserving seats instead for the press. Some people who drove over 3 hours to see the film got turned down. Those 3 hours alone cost gas which way have even payed for a year subscription to DCU. In Houston, America’s 3rd largest city, they booked the smallest IMAX theatre in the entire city and over booked. That is a bunch of B.S. and after hearing about this expect people driving from Houston and Dallas to wait up to 3 hours to get in guarenteed. Also I myself got turned down despite being told I could to an unrelated early showing of Shazam! because DC changed plans last minute after moving my schedule around to make sure I could go. That’s mostly why I’ve written this article.
The Lesson
DC needs to stick to there promises. If they are over booking, let fans know that getting there an hour early likely means you won’t get in. Also if you are DC compensate the fans who feel left out right now. Give them something as an apology. You gave yourselves a big headache; fix it!!
Emerald Dawn was heavily promoted across, not just DC Universe, but also traditional media outlets. The fact that they made us the promise of giving us two weeks notice and then broke that so quickly has me feeling negatively about these “promises” because we can’t really trust them now. One day to read a story arc with no notice of its removal is ridiculous.
Whoa! Just googled Gerard Jones. He’s disgusting and I’m glad his book is not on the service. What I don’t understand is how DC even let it get this far where they promoted it all over and even had the issues up for one day when Gerard Jones was sentenced in 2018. How did it get this far in the process before they thought, “Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t?”
We don’t know why DCU pulled the title, because they haven’t told us. I hope everyone’s assumption of censorship is wrong. Gerard Jones wrote the dialogue. He didn’t write the plot or do anything else on the book.
I don’t condone Gerard Jones. But some people have big problems with the personal life of William Marston. I seriously hope DCU doesn’t start pulling Wonder Woman.
DC still has a long way to go to truly understand customer service, but they are doing better.
Unilateral decision making almost always comes off as arrogant and uncaring, even if that is not really the case. DC promotes this place as a community so one good way to have handled this might have been to have informed this community of the issue and explained why this happened instead of just doing it without any community feedback. Communication with this community has been an issue since the start. They just don’t.
Imagine the reaction had the explained the issue and given the community a chance to discuss. Might have been received very differently.
Early movie screenings to the public are always overbooked to guarantee a full house. As someone who worked in the theatrical exhibition industry at a high level for years this has been the standard practice for decades. Warner Brothers Pictures is simply following that established practice.
To anyone who went a long way out of their way to see Shazam and was turned away, I am very sympathetic to you. It does stink to drive to something hours away only to be denied access to that which you drove so far for.
Did the theaters that turned those of you away at least offer free passes that can be used on another movie at any time? That was a practice at the various movie theaters I worked at when we had to turn guests away. At least they still got something, even if it wasn’t the exact movie they wanted to see. Something is always better than nothing.
What @Vroom said! This isn’t exclusive to Warner Bros at all. It’s really hard for film bookers to reconcile early events like this with shows currently playing. A lot of people think that the theater team can just open up another auditorium but films need to be played at certain times. With only a few being able to to be moved/replaced. Sorry a little inside baseball. Hopefully the theaters compensated with a pass for those turned away.
I want to say in regards to them saying no movies will be removed in April. They have said Superman the movie will be removed but it will be the only one (and it will be back in May). Not trying to nitpick just want to point that out so when come April it goes down no one will say they broke their claim. They said that one would be down next month.
As for the Marston comparison. I have been one of the ones to be critical of Marston’s personal life. But what he did and what Jones did are to very VERY different things. I am trying not to draw actual conparisons just to not open up the conversation to the specifics of what Gerard Jones did, but I would never even remotely compare what he did to Marston’s unconventional personal life. And to do that would be insanely unfair to those involved in Jones incident IMHO.