Is Warner Bros. Out of Touch With What DC Fans Want?

General Discussion Movies & TV
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Unfortunately, Snyder’s films tend to cover too much material at once. Should the origin story for Superman also feature him saving the entire world from annihilation? Probably not. Should the movie about Lex Luthor’s machinations to pit Superman and Batman against each other also feature the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday? Probably not. Four films might have been more satisfying at exploring both the plot and the themes than two films were. And that’s not because of some magic MCU formula, but rather because it’s jarring for the stakes to jump from very personal to apocalyptic in the final act of a movie.

It’s like ending Citizen Kane with War of the Worlds.

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Actually Universal started it with their horror movies in the black and white era.

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Yep! And I can think of at least two other movie universes: Full Moon Entertainment and Kevin Smith’s View Askew-niverse.

Hell, Full Moon did the whole post-credits scene to set up a future crossover movie with Dollman showing up at the end of Bad Channels, setting up Dollman vs Demonic Toys.

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I just want someone in the business to figure it out and make me more movies. I would like a collection of 20+ DC movies to watch ALL THE TIME! At the very least, we’ve got lots of shows to binge until eternity!

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Sounds like Nolan’s TDK trilogy

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Superhero or “franchise” films are not and will never be made for “the fans”.

They’re made to cater to the widest audience possible, often at the cost of the story, and often merely to make the most profit.

In the post-Nolan Trilogy era, DC and WarnerMedia have thus far made films that are designed to be ultra-accessible but don’t sacrifice the story in the process.

There have been some miscalculations and overreactions related to their movies not making bucketloads of money, but said miscalculations are being offset by the fact that they’ve now found a middle ground where they can explore multiple story avenues on film simultaneously instead of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” when something isn’t received how they wanted it to be.

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There’s an incredible documentary about the Nolan Trilogy that some of you might have seen at Fandome, or if you own the special editions, it’s on there. The reason I mention this documentary is because it talks about how the Nolan Trilogy could never exist in today’s industry. They allowed Nolan, against the desires of many in corporate, to make the films he wanted to make, the way he wanted to make them. Yet, his movies still reached the most generic audiences in addition to the hardcore fans.

Apparently, he told them “what are the basic things that YOU REQUIRE me to have, and we’ll see how I can fit it in”. One of those things was the Batmobile. They wanted him to have a car. Nolan took that and adapted their requirement to fit the world he envisioned. Thus, the Tumbler.
Nolan was working without limited oversight (by today’s standards) of a beloved, money making property and he made something so incredible, it was Oscar worthy. Game changing.

In the docu, Nolan himself says that his trilogy would never be greenlit today. They’re too concerned with formula, but they hire these visionaries, and then try to curb that vision. They can’t commit because they’re afraid to actually do what it takes to make money: take risks.

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Wow that’s really interesting and yeah I could see the case of a Nolan’s movies not being made as Comic Book movies started having a surge in popularity up to now.

I vaguely remember watching his Batman movies on T.V. so don’t remember much but do you think something like The Joker (2019) is just as different for its interpretation of that character and story like Nolan’s were for Batman?

I liked how with Fox’s properties they were expanding a bit more with their superhero stuff (R Rated Deadpool, Western-esque Logan, Horror-ish New Mutants) and since Walter Hamada’s announcement of DC being open for new approaches during Fandome’s Multiverse Panel it seems like there’s more potential to get new types of takes now as oppose to before with less constraints besides some basic ones.

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I do think they might be starting to key into the idea here that the whole reason people like DC is because they’re different from Marvel? Maybe?

Joker was definitely a huge hit and fills this unrelated film blank space for sure. It’s a step in the right direction, and I feel secure enough in The Batman to say that the same is true of that. The Big Wigs wanted another MCU without realizing that they don’t need it to be successful. Too much cookie cutter gets you nowhere.

Nolan’s stories are adaptive, but they’re grounded in the real world as much as is possible for a ‘superhero’ flick to be. I think that’s what set them apart. Joker does something similar, though to a much different degree of effect.

I’m really looking the The Batman to set the tone, not for a shared universe, but for a way to move forward for DC comics in the live action film industry. Joker was the toe in the water. I’m thinking The Batman will be the splash. Now, we can only hope they don’t hitch their wagon to just the one pony, you dig?

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Of the DC films slated for release in the next few years, we have one ‘Multiverse’ property (Matt Reeves’ The Batman) and four properties tied to the DCEU that started with Man of Steel (The Suicide Squad, The Flash, Aquaman 2, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods), so the current strategy is to build new properties while simultaneously continuing the shared continuity universe that they’ve already established.

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Whether or not that continuity will include the Snyder Cut is really the unknown value.

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Officially, it won’t be.

That’s already been confirmed.

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In some ways I feel like Nolan used some comics as Toilet paper like Snyder did with MoS

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Like Snyder did with the DCEU, thank you @Sean-Malloy, I’ve been tempted to write this, but didn’t want to rant. You summed it up perfectly. Cheers!

Don’t get me started on “Dark Knight Rises.” I hate Bruce Wayne as Howard Hughes, ect… and when I heard Warners and Snyder crowing about being the “Darker Universe,” I rolled my eyes. As I see it, DC is bright, two of the Trinity represent hope. Another important player, will power, these are empowering characters -even the misanthrope represents over coming adversity.

I dislike that all the Superheroes in the Snyderverse hate being heros and super. They’re too mopey. The lighter tone, fun, that is WW, AM and Shazam, make them work better than MoS and BvS. Snyder cares more about iconoclasm, than building. He seems to view things as a historical whole, saying, it’s been 80 yrs of this character lets deconstruct him and mess with him, rather than seeing the DCEU as a new beginning. We’re being reintroduced, ushered into a whole new era of these characters interacting on the big screen. You want to deconstruct the “Demi-Gods,” do it in a comic.

He/Warners blew it.

PS: For full disclosure, I am going to watch the SC:JL next week. I’m too curious to see what it is, and like that he got to finish his film. Wheadon’s JL was garbage. I can’t imagine Snyder’s will be worse.

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I didn’t mind Wheadon’s JL all that much

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I think saying they are out of touch with “the fans” is a bit of an over generalization. As others have pointed out they clearly want to be another MCU (even though literally no one has been able to duplicate that shared universe formula but in theory DC would have the best shot). But it wasn’t comic fans who made them what they are today, it was mainstream fans. MCU appealed to a wide range and most of which had little to no interest in the comics themselves. MCU actually varies quite a bit from the source material, even if they do draw from it. But they found a formula that worked and made consistently popular movies so they made it work.

But to me saying DC Movies have been a series of failures is really selling them short in a lot of ways. They managed to bring back Batman with the Christopher Nolan films and make them a hit even before the MCU. The DCEU movies have not been consistently well reviewd. But in terms of making money, which is what Warner and later ATT wanted them to do they have mostly succeeded.

Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad all made a ton of money at the box office, part of why they never course corrected despite the less than stellar reviews those DCEU movies got. Wonder Woman was a big success both comercially and with critics and fan reviews. Their first real failure was Justice League. And that definitely was and while it is easy to blame Joss Wheedon now and criticize them for not sticking with Snyder given what has gone on the last few years especially. A lot of the people I knew who didn’t see that movie didn’t because they didn’t like the last ones and thought WOnder Woman was a fluke, so they got tired of being dissapointed. On paper bringing in a guy who did the MCU team movie success was not a bad idea even if it didn’t work out. The decision has not aged well but I think most forgot that up until that point many if not most wanted Snyder off the DCEU. Again no denying it didn’t work out, and bringing in Joss clearly didn’t save it. But on paper it was not a bad idea at the time, the decision has just not aged well.

But after that they went on to have success with Aquaman who did MCU level numbers, then Joker also both got huge numbers with on a relatively small budget and was nominated for Academy Awards. They also did well with Shazam! which was no billion dollar movie, but made a profit and got a sequel green lit. So clearlt Warner/ATT were happy with it.

Birds of Prey was a failute although it did just before leaving theaters make a small profit. Small was not good enough for what they needed, and while some blame Covid and obviously if it has stayed in theaters longer it would have made more pretty save bet would not have been a huge money maker even then since Covid hit near the end of it’s run.

Wonder Woman 84 is harder to guage. It did underperform in the box office but Warner was pretty quick to announce a sequel, so clearly they were happy with what it did for MAX.

And of course the animated direct to DVD films have been mostly successful, way better than Marvel had done with their attempts to replicate that idea. And while Disney+ will likely give them real competition now that those series are up and running, The Arrowverse and the DC Universe originals that are now HBO MAX originals have been consistently good and gotten mostly positive reviews.

So I don’t know they are out of thouch. They have had a lot more hit’s than missed and the only true failure across the board was Justice Leage and you definitely messed up when you can’t even break even on a movie starring some of the most recognisable characters in the world. But even so one movie with critical and commercial failure, and one movie that barely broke even and got mixed reviews is not a bad track record.

And you could argue that it was listening to the fans at least in part that has them potentially about to correct the mistake they made with Justice League.

It only looks bad next to the MCU which yeah maybe not good THEY are the ones showing DC up from that standpoint. But I would argue MCU has set the bar so high few will meet it any time soon. They paitently launchd a long term plan that likely even they didn’t realize would become what it was.

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Birds of Prey wasn’t a critical failure or a failure with the audiences that bothered to see it. It simply didn’t make money because people didn’t see it in the numbers that were needed in order for it to make a profit based on its budget.

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Lest we forget, it premiered at the beginning of the pandemic. Also, I think it should always have been called “Harley Quinn and the BOP.” Cause who outside our geek grouping knows what the cumbersome, “Birds of prey: or the fabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn,” even means!? Yeesh, I’m exhausted just typing that terrible name out!

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Plus, going for a hard R was a mistake. I thought it was laughable that the film makers kept talking about how girls will love this empowering movie. Uh, guess what? When you make it hard R for no reason, teenage girls probably can’t get their parents to let them see it, thus, you’re missing your audience. It should have be hard PG-13.

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It’s a good movie, otherwise, and hopefully in time, it will be recognized as such.