Justice League A Defense of Warners

[Greens]

Kevin Tsujihara not delaying JL because he wanted his bonus is all I needed to read.

 

[Mani-Man]

WB have made a lot of mistakes along the way so far in their DCEU.

I think fundamentally, these boil down to one thing : greed.

They've seen the box office Marvel has been making, but were too hesitant for too long in building their own universe. Thus when they eventually got round to it - via MOS in 2013 (with Marvel already ahead by 5yrs and 7 films) they fast-tracked the whole thing to Batman and Superman facing off, Superman's death and the formation of the Justice League. These should have been major milestones in the DC universe, but instead it feels like they're only starting out and have already peaked (if you can call it peaking!).

Marvel's approach has been shown to be the right one. Build the characters individually, let the films shine on their own, then assemble them - no pun intended. By that stage, we know the characters, we care about the characters, and we're invested in the characters.

By the time Avengers : Infinity War comes out, Marvel will have surpassed 18 films. We know there are going to be deaths in that film, and those deaths will matter and resonate because we have followed these characters along their long journey to this point.

WB tried to reach this point much sooner, to cash in on the superhero movie genre before it implodes, and that lack of patience has directly affected the quality of their output and their characterisation of DC's greatest heroes.

Signed.

WB was so arrogant that they thought we wouldnt need a good build up for this universe.
They wanted to make money fast and expected the movies to just click with the people.

 

[Patchwork Man]

The point at which WB became to blame for this farce was allowing Snyder to make BvS unchecked, with no oversight, even after he delivered them the divisive and average Man Of Steel.

They further compounded this by not removing Snyder from Justice League after BvS came out, and received the poor reception it did.

What happened with JL is largely secondary to all of this.

How is a polarizing film deemed "average"? If anything, it's one of the films that least qualifies as "average." You may not like the darker take delivered by Goyer/Nolan/Snyder, but the $277 million more it made than Returns signifies a greater appreciation than many would care to admit. The cinematography and action are also better than Avengers.

 

[FunkMiller]

How is a polarizing film deemed "average"? If anything, it's one of the films that least qualifies as "average." You may not like the darker take delivered by Goyer/Nolan/Snyder, but the $277 million more it made than Returns signifies a greater appreciation than many would care to admit. The cinematography and action are also better than Avengers.

Average RT review score 6.2/10. Average audience rating 3.9/5. RT score 55%. Metacritic 55. IMDB 7.1.

...all sounds pretty average to me. YMMV.

 

[AdamJensen]

Dose of reality for all the fanboys. https://youtu.be/tmktPcD5nog

 

[Arachnerd]

While I don't agree with some of the points he's making so far, video's still solid.

 

[Patchwork Man]

Average RT review score 6.2/10. Average audience rating 3.9/5. RT score 55%. Metacritic 55. IMDB 7.1.

...all sounds pretty average to me. YMMV.

Thanks for the stats, I've seen them, but I meant your take. How does a film that merits so much discussion, even 4+ years later, rate as "average"? Do you talk about the average hamburger you ate at a diner every Christmas, or do you forget about it and enthuse about the much better hamburger you enjoyed at a steakhouse? You honestly think MoS is merely "average"? To me, it's clearly not.

 

[Ozbridge]

Okay but still should my clients sue WB for failing their duty of care for investors?

 

[FunkMiller]

Thanks for the stats, I've seen them, but I meant your take. How does a film that merits so much discussion, even 4+ years later, rate as "average"? Do you talk about the average hamburger you ate at a diner every Christmas, or do you forget about it and enthuse about the much better hamburger you enjoyed at a steakhouse? You honestly think MoS is merely "average"? To me, it's clearly not.

Yes, it was average to me. Some parts were bad, others good.

The non-stop cg third act destruction porn bored me to tears. The heavy handed religious allegory dropped with a wet thud. The very obvious attempt to ape Nolan’s style of storytelling made my eyes roll.

Also... great soundtrack and wonderful theme, good acting from everyone, some nice updates to the Superman mythos, and a chance to finally see Superman’s powers and abilities unleashed on screen.

Bad and good.

I neither love it nor hate it. It neither bored me nor inspired me.

Average.

 

[Mani-Man]

Dose of reality for all the fanboys. https://youtu.be/tmktPcD5nog

Some good points there.

 

[TheFuture]

I would love to know how much money WB would have eaten if they had just delayed Justice League after the fallout of BvS, and compare it to the additional costs they ended up spending on the rewrites, reshoots, and additional photography/special effects work.

TheWrap article mentioned that they didn't want to delay the film because it would've cost a fortune to do so, but I have a hard time believing that what they ended up doing proved to be less expensive in the long run.

That Wrap article was awful, nothing of note or new to say. A summary of what's already known littered with their own speculation based on "sources". I can admire the guys on Reddit more than these hacks; at least the former can be entertaining in their tall tales.

Anyway, I get what you're saying Matt which is basically justified damage control. We'll never know for certain. What we do know is that WB seem to lurch from calamity to calamity when it comes to their decisions about films in this verse, the worst being not sticking to their guns and comprising the vision they had envisioned in the first place in regards to a tonally dark DCEU. That wasn't Snyder, that was THEM.

In short, for me, they will be getting no credit or sympathy from me.

 

[jmc]

The problems stretch further back than JL.

 

[FunkMiller]

The problems stretch further back than JL.

Summer 2013. That’s when it started to go pear shaped. Right around the time they realised MoS was underperforming.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Uh oh, here comes a flock of people telling you how wildly successful MOS is.

 

[Iceman]

The main cost is throwing away the future of such a huge potential franchise. Imagine if Marvel could have saved the entire budget of Iron Man but at the cost of it being a 6/10 film. That could mean the difference between making 5-10 films and a 100.

I would love to know how much money WB would have eaten if they had just delayed Justice League after the fallout of BvS, and compare it to the additional costs they ended up spending on the rewrites, reshoots, and additional photography/special effects work.

TheWrap article mentioned that they didn't want to delay the film because it would've cost a fortune to do so, but I have a hard time believing that what they ended up doing proved to be less expensive in the long run.

 

[Patchwork Man]

Uh oh, here comes a flock of people telling you how wildly successful MOS is.

I give you a perfectly suitable image to serve as an avi and you have yet to resize & upload it?

 

[TheVileOne]

The point at which WB became to blame for this farce was allowing Snyder to make BvS unchecked, with no oversight, even after he delivered them the divisive and average Man Of Steel.

They further compounded this by not removing Snyder from Justice League after BvS came out, and received the poor reception it did.

What happened with JL is largely secondary to all of this.

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/bat...ffleck-to-star-in-3-stand-alone-batman-movies

This suggests he wasn't unchecked at all. It suggests they saw what he was doing and loved it!

 

[Frodo]

Interesting topic.

If you wanna understand how we got here , read Superman verus Hollywood and Holy Franchise Batman!.

The reality is, the mess with DCEU is more of the norm at WB than an aberration. Alot of fanboys think its new because they've come of age during the Nolan and MCU eras.

The reality is, WB has always tended to struggle a bit with their properties with the exceptions of aberrations like Batman 89, Batman Forever, Superman 1 and 2, TDK trilogy, and WW.

WB greatest flaw has always been to act out of fear more than it is to act out of greed. They're reactionary. If something is a big hit , they'll tend to run it into the ground so much that it turns audiences off.

They put all their chips on one property or idea, and when it goes bust, everything else is put in jeopardy and tends to get cancelled or pushed back. Then they're wary of moving forward due to the risk of failure.

That's the reason it took 20 years between Superman 4 and Superman returns , then 7 years between Superman returns and MOS. Its also the reason there were 7 years between Batman and Robin and Batman Begins.

The difference now, is that they have serious competition in Marvel/Disney. Between 1978 and 2000 they pretty much ruled the roost between Superman and Batman films. Marvel was a joke in terms of films and film aspirations.

The idea of Marvel getting their act together to get one good film made let alone a universe was considered laughable in the 90s. WB could afford to kick the can down the road and they did numerous times.

And you have to keep in mind , Superhero properties were not viewed in through the same prism that they are today in terms of their respectability , marketability, and box office benefits. Superman 1 and 2 and Batman 89 were considered aberrations not the norm.

After TDK trilogy, WB emerged in a world in which Marvel was killing it and exploiting as many characters in their library as possible. WB found itself , after spending decades letting their characters collect dust, having to play catch up.

Marvel is the new upstart on the block while WB is the old warhorse trying to remain relevant.

 

[Patchwork Man]

The suits at WB didn't want anything except Superman and Batman movies for 30 years. A movie like Swamp Thing was an outlier that cost them little out of pocket. It wasn't till Green Lantern when they finally invested in another character on a major level.

 

[Legendver2]

WB have made a lot of mistakes along the way so far in their DCEU.

I think fundamentally, these boil down to one thing : greed.

They've seen the box office Marvel has been making, but were too hesitant for too long in building their own universe. Thus when they eventually got round to it - via MOS in 2013 (with Marvel already ahead by 5yrs and 7 films) they fast-tracked the whole thing to Batman and Superman facing off, Superman's death and the formation of the Justice League. These should have been major milestones in the DC universe, but instead it feels like they're only starting out and have already peaked (if you can call it peaking!).

Well a couple things. All this is after the fact. WB originally wanted to do JL Mortal, but the writer's strike happened and that project died. By the time IM came out and the concept of a shared uni was at hand, they're already knee deep with TDK, and Nolan specifically he did not want his Batman to become a part of a shared universe with metahumans. So their hands were pretty much tied for the moment. If they just had a Bat solo and MoS2 before BvS,
the entire narrative of this would be different. It really was based on just a few boneheaded decisions after MoS. You really can't fault WB for making MoS the way they did, especially with Nolan's blessing, but everything afterwards is a big cluster****.

Marvel's approach has been shown to be the right one. Build the characters individually, let the films shine on their own, then assemble them - no pun intended. By that stage, we know the characters, we care about the characters, and we're invested in the characters.

Again, that is after the fact. In a parallel universe where JL Mortal actually got made, that might've been the "right approach", and the entire landscape of Hollywood CBMs would've been different.

 

[Frodo]

The suits at WB didn't want anything except Superman and Batman movies for 30 years. A movie like Swamp Thing was an outlier that cost them little out of pocket. It wasn't till Green Lantern when they finally invested in another character on a major level.

Totally. Even then , it came out as a response to Marvel's increasing clout . That film was originally going to kick off the DCEU with Reynolds being viewed as the Downey of DC films.

 

[StormC]

Totally. Even then , it came out as a response to Marvel's increasing clout . That film was originally going to kick off the DCEU with Reynolds being viewed as the Downey of DC films.

We should count our lucky stars we got Reynolds as the superhero he was meant to be instead.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I can't get on board with defending Warner Brothers.

They greenlit a Justice League movie on the back of Batman V. Superman, before it even came out. They kept Snyder on even after Batman V. Superman dropped off huge and failed to make a billion dollars (deservedly so), and didn't delay the movie (like they should have) because they cared more about getting their end of the year bonuses than doing what is right for the characters and the brand.

A DC universe on film should be a no brainer to get right. Only short sighted, ignorant, greedy corporate executives like Kevin Tsujihara and Greg Silverman could screw it up (which they clearly have). So no. Warner Brothers gets no sympathy from me.

 

[Verick808]

Comicbook movies in general missed more often than they hit until X-men. Even then half of the films in that franchise are kind of meh. X-3, Wolverine, and Apocalypse were all misses.Spider-man really blew up superhero films but in the end the only Spider-man movies that really received a lot of love were 1 and 2. I'd say Homecoming was met with mostly positive reviews but nothing compared to the first two, even with Marvel involved. Marvel is the only one that consistently releases well received superhero films but a lot of them just feel the same. With exceptions like Winter Soldier and GoTG which really stood out. The truth is that well received Superhero films aren't exactly easy to make and I feel like we should stop pretending they are.

That said I only really enjoyed two of the DCEU films. MoS and Wonder Woman and I find the later almost as over-rated as the earlier is under-rated. Tsujihara has not done an impressive job. Especially since MoS was before him.

Edit: I did enjoy a lot of JL but the flaws were just too glaring and constantly pulled me out of the film. I haven't even managed to rate it yet. The best part of the film was probably the last 10-15 minutes.

 

[random_havoc]

The point at which WB became to blame for this farce was allowing Snyder to make BvS unchecked, with no oversight, even after he delivered them the divisive and average Man Of Steel.

They further compounded this by not removing Snyder from Justice League after BvS came out, and received the poor reception it did.

What happened with JL is largely secondary to all of this.

Absolutely this.
Them hiring Snyder for BvS alone makes it entirely their fault. Them then allowing him to continue on with JL after seeing even the rough cut for BvS should result in them all being immediately fired for gross incompetence.