When I finally caved for a second viewing of Zack Snyders Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I spotted only six or seven other people in the theater. Even following a dramatic 69% second weekend drop, I couldnt believe my eyes.
This is Batman v Superman, a blockbuster event meant to jump start an entire cinematic universe, yet in its 13th day of release, the superhero pic only mustered $2.8 million, a number that couldnt even match Marvels Ant-Man ($3 million), Snyders previous foray Man of Steel ($4 million) or even Tim Burtons 1989 introduction to Batman ($4.36 million). It was a heavily front-loaded release, to be sure: a $166 million opening was a rallying cry for proponents in the face of countless critical pans. But at this point, hitting the magic $1 billion figure in worldwide grosses seems to be out of reach.
If all the recent release date shuffling and rumored restructuring of the Warner Bros. status quo didnt make it clear, those numbers certainly should: Theyre close to hitting the panic button in Burbank this week.
Reports suggest an ongoing culture shift at the studio, with fewer original titles being greenlit as WB doubles down on franchise generators like DC Comics, Lego and Harry Potter. Certainly theres a fever, what with Disney printing money from the Star Wars and Marvel hit parade. But the hot seat is getting hotter, as this is the year Warner chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujiharas chickens come home to roost.
Tsujihara got the gig in January of 2013 and immediately, plans were set in motion to catch up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Snyder took the reins on a Man of Steel follow-up, announced at Comic-Con that year as an apparent take on the 1986 Frank Miller classic The Dark Knight Returns. On stage at the San Diego Convention Center, the director brought out Man of Steel star Harry Lennix to read a passage from the Miller story, the lights dimmed and the familiar Batman/Superman logo hit the screen, sending 6,000 screaming fans into ecstasy.
Affleck was cast in August that year, and soon enough, he brought on Oscar-winning Argo scribe Chris Terrio to help turn the project into a thoughtful exploration of the comic book ethos. That was going to be crucial, given that Snyder is obsessed with iconography, a visualist more than a storyteller. Inevitably, though, the film became more of a corporate vision. It was given an utterly ridiculous title that bent over backwards to cram in three keywords Batman, Superman and Justice (League) and mandates were put forth to lay the groundwork. But underneath the promotional noise, a real attempt was being made to dabble in DCs philosophical bedrock and deconstruct the tendencies of comic book cinema.
In the way that Deadpool took the piss out of the genre, and therefore was post-modern in the way it said, Look at the conventions of this, this was a minor key version of that, a source told me.
Nevertheless, were left with a movie in which a central character literally sits down to watch trailers for three other movies. Batman v Superman is bursting at the seams, desperate to make up the ground DC has lost to Marvel over the past seven years. You can almost picture the boardroom meeting: We need our Avengers now.
Ironically, the studios franchise potential was stalled by the very filmmaker who ignited interest in this new era of comic book movies over a decade ago: Christopher Nolan. Nolan was adamant for years that his Batman not exist in any shared universe with other characters from the DC canon. It was like, Thank you very much, well take it from here,' a source says. He would just do it, and deliver.
Indeed, Nolans Dark Knight franchise churned out roughly $2.5 billion in worldwide box office receipts. No one was complaining. But having a key character be hijacked for so long tied WBs hands when it came to the fast-approaching new paradigm. The Dark Knight hit theaters in 2008, the same year as Iron Man (which kicked off Marvels trajectory). It would be three more years before Nolan would finally conclude his trilogy.
In truth, the studio had a 40-year head start on Marvel. DC has been under the Warner banner ever since being folded into Warner Communications way back in 1969 (when it was still known as National Periodical Publications). Nobody quite saw this brave new world of grossly conglomerated media coming, but with a stronger vision, Warners could have been way out ahead of the game.
And thats what seems to be missing: overriding vision. Warner Bros. strives to be a filmmaker-friendly studio that would like to make an artist-centered model work, and at least conceptually, thats commendable. But when youre dealing with something as ungainly as an entire comic book universe, a certain amount of oversight artistically invested, not corporate feels only necessary. So the big problem, as far as I see it, remains this lack of a central node, someone akin to Marvels Kevin Feige who is intimately attuned to the source material, drawing the various strings together.
For a period, WB was keen on Geoff Johns for such a role. But thats a tall order for DCs Chief Creative Officer, who is already stretched very thin. While he is currently writing the upcoming stand-alone Batman film with Ben Affleck, he also wears a number of other hats. Geoff is really smart, but hes got like 10 different jobs, a source says. Hes writing comic books, controlling DC, writes on [TVs] The Flash I would imagine Feiges is a full-time job just managing this stuff. So I dont know how you ask Geoff, in the best of both worlds, to do that.
Snyder, therefore, has been making the bulk of the creative decisions. And he has provided the fans with a lot of the imagery they want to see, from a vibrant vision of Supermans home world borrowed from John Byrnes The World of Krypton to the iconic cover of Millers Dark Knight Returns No. 1 (blink and you miss it). The new film even manages to pack in moments from story arcs such as The Death of Superman and Funeral for a Friend. But as skilled as Snyder is at capturing a striking frame, he just isnt the guy to pull all of this narrative complexity together.
Im told production exec Jon Berg and and Time-Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes are taking more of a hands-on approach now, paying closer attention to overarching story concerns, but someone well-versed in both production and DCs minutiae is whats needed. Greg Silverman, head of film production at WB, may have too much on his plate, same with DC Entertainment boss Diane Nelson, who also oversees their core publishing business. Meanwhile, the competition has production company Marvel Studios with a creative driving force at the top and DC, surprisingly, doesnt have an analog.
As for Batman v Superman, those involved werent prepared for the critical knives the film received, but they always knew it was going to be a transitional film, bridging the gap between Man of Steel (which was produced with no plan in place to expand the universe) and anything approaching the Avengers/Super Friends mold. But Im told Justice League will be a crowdpleaser more suited to Snyders talents, and that the upcoming two-part event is extremely kinetic and visual. It will be far more straightforward than existential in its handling of superheroes.
So maybe the bounce-back will be considerable when it finally hits screens in November of next year. Either way, with production scheduled to start next week in London, the pressure is officially on.
