I'm Reading Your Stuff: General News and Discussion Thread

[Invader Joker]

Good news everybody!

The Batman wasn't plagiarised, US judge rules

Warner Bros Entertainment did not steal the plot for its 2022 blockbuster The Batman from a writer who created a story about the caped crusader three decades earlier, a federal judge has ruled.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer also said the writer Christopher Wozniak infringed copyrights belonging to DC Comics, which employed him as a freelance artist in 1990 when he wrote The Ultimate Riddle, later retitled The Blind Man’s Hat.


“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and are considering our next steps,” Wozniak’s lawyer, Terry Parker, said in an email.

Wozniak claimed he was “stunned” to learn that The Batman was a near copy of The Ultimate Riddle, with the Riddler terrorising a Gotham City beset by crime and controlled by a corrupt banking cartel.

But in a decision handed down on Wednesday, Engelmayer said Wozniak intentionally and without consent lifted material from DC Comics’ works to create his story, which “liberally exploits – indeed, is rife with” Batman characters and plot elements.

“The story’s use of the Batman character and the surrounding protected elements is an act of clear and blatant copyright infringement,” the New York judge wrote.

 

[Invader Joker]

I don’t have a strong read on Tomlin’s work yet, and I know you're mostly kidding, but comparing anyone to Goyer is brutal . Man was absolute dead weight whose sole talent was knowing the Nolan brothers. A huge part of why there's such a big jump in quality from Begins (which is still great, don't get me wrong) to TDK (and, imo, TDKR as well) is they are now being written by Jonathan Nolan: a talented person with an interesting voice. As opposed to Goyer, a genuine hack who has never shown any sign he's capable of writing more than the absolute bare minimum of functionality.

But he’s also sorta filling that ecological niche, so I also don't disagree.

I'd very very confidently say that Tomlin is a waaay bigger hack than Goyer ever was lmao. Say what you say about Goyer, but at least he didn't come in to write the third act of Batman Begins only to then immediately after write an uninspired comic with a cliche and boring plot that was essentially just ripping off Nolan's aesthetics and general ideas and philosophy for the world... which is exactly what Tomlin did with The Imposter.

The Imposter has aged worse and worse in my head the more I've thought about it lmao. Yet another "Batman in his early days" tale, yet another pocket continuity in the comics, and all for a story that was derivative as hell from other much better ones and that has its entire premise of a "realistic and moody and recluse Batman" completely stolen from The Batman but made significantly lamer in every single way adding stupid nonsense like "Batman has 100 motorcycles he bought and put in different places around the city" which is the sort of thing that sounds "realistic and practical" at first and that was undoubtedly written with that intention but immediately falls apart when you think on it (WHY does he need to put them all-throughout the city if by just having one he can go anywhere he wants whenever he wants?)

Also trying to differentiate itself by putting forward concepts that seem interesting but he ultimately does absolutely nothing with because Bruce still reads as any other version of him. (The Imposter's Alfred ditched Bruce, Bruce was diagnosed as on the spectrum, Gordon got fired for working with Batman.)

Having a completely uninteresting plot that leads to a really lame resolution. (The identity of The Imposter has to be one of the most boring reveals I've ever seen)


It'd be embarrassing if any other writer wrote it aping The Batman's aesthetics and general characteristics. It's flat out pathetic that a co-writer that came in to help with the third act and didn't get credit came up with that story. Not to mention how clunky and awkward all the dialogue is and how terribly written his "thesis" for the book (Batman getting therapy) is to the point it just reads like Twitter posts on top of Andrea Sorrentino's (who's now an AI hack so birds of a feather) art.

I am endlessly confused by people not understanding that this movie was fully on ice for like eight months lol

It was actually a little less than 5 months. And regardless, even accounting for the strikes Matt would've spent a year by now writing the movie, so the fact he doesn't have it figured out and presumably needs another 6 months I do think is worrisome. And I do think that him having a co-writer that's not particularly what could be called good is a problem as by this point I'd imagine the problem isn't that they don't have a script that has a beginning, middle and end but rather that the drafts they've done so far are not up to par.

I read that interview he did where he talked about the fact the third act of the first movie took them 6 months to write and man...

I'm a third act defender but the fact it took them that long is kinda inexcusable lmao. It's by far the most trope-y and cliché of all the movie and by far the one that was the least smartly written. (Compared to all the stuff Matt and Peter Craig wrote it's definitely vastly inferior) He gives his explanations as to why but even those don't really tell you anything as to how the hell it took 6 months:



His excuse is "it's a detective story" but the bulk of the third act is the flood where the least detective stuff happens. Not to mention I checked and the third act amounts to 25 pages on the script. So again the only explanation that makes sense is they did tons and tons of draft and most of them sucked which again, is not surprising when you have such a blatantly unimaginative co-writer with really dumb instincts.

The one thing that the delay makes me hope for is that Matt has gotten himself a new co-writer. The fact Mattson is working on that GoT spin-off and it seemed in his interview like he was already done with his part on the movie (in it he said "I had been working on The Batman") makes me think as such. With them aiming for the October release date, and the idea DC Studios is going for that Elseworlds is for their "prestige" projects that can be competitive in awards season or whatever I do think they need a way way better co-writer, so I hope either Peter Craig comes back or Matt gets someone new that can take the film to the heights it needs. Hell Paul Dano would be amazing, his Riddler comic was expertly written. A friend of mine suggested Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed Spotlight but has worked on genre stuff as well. Those sort of names are the ones I think Matt should be looking for.

 

[Boom]

Good news everybody!

The Batman wasn't plagiarised, US judge rules

Warner Bros Entertainment did not steal the plot for its 2022 blockbuster The Batman from a writer who created a story about the caped crusader three decades earlier, a federal judge has ruled.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer also said the writer Christopher Wozniak infringed copyrights belonging to DC Comics, which employed him as a freelance artist in 1990 when he wrote The Ultimate Riddle, later retitled The Blind Man’s Hat.


“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and are considering our next steps,” Wozniak’s lawyer, Terry Parker, said in an email.

Wozniak claimed he was “stunned” to learn that The Batman was a near copy of The Ultimate Riddle, with the Riddler terrorising a Gotham City beset by crime and controlled by a corrupt banking cartel.

But in a decision handed down on Wednesday, Engelmayer said Wozniak intentionally and without consent lifted material from DC Comics’ works to create his story, which “liberally exploits – indeed, is rife with” Batman characters and plot elements.

“The story’s use of the Batman character and the surrounding protected elements is an act of clear and blatant copyright infringement,” the New York judge wrote.

 

[Eddie Dean]

I'd very very confidently say that Tomlin is a waaay bigger hack than Goyer ever was lmao. Say what you say about Goyer, but at least he didn't come in to write the third act of Batman Begins only to then immediately after write an uninspired comic with a cliche and boring plot that was essentially just ripping off Nolan's aesthetics and general ideas and philosophy for the world... which is exactly what Tomlin did with The Imposter.

The Imposter has aged worse and worse in my head the more I've thought about it lmao. Yet another "Batman in his early days" tale, yet another pocket continuity in the comics, and all for a story that was derivative as hell from other much better ones and that has its entire premise of a "realistic and moody and recluse Batman" completely stolen from The Batman but made significantly lamer in every single way adding stupid nonsense like "Batman has 100 motorcycles he bought and put in different places around the city" which is the sort of thing that sounds "realistic and practical" at first and that was undoubtedly written with that intention but immediately falls apart when you think on it (WHY does he need to put them all-throughout the city if by just having one he can go anywhere he wants whenever he wants?)

Also trying to differentiate itself by putting forward concepts that seem interesting but he ultimately does absolutely nothing with because Bruce still reads as any other version of him. (The Imposter's Alfred ditched Bruce, Bruce was diagnosed as on the spectrum, Gordon got fired for working with Batman.)

Having a completely uninteresting plot that leads to a really lame resolution. (The identity of The Imposter has to be one of the most boring reveals I've ever seen)


It'd be embarrassing if any other writer wrote it aping The Batman's aesthetics and general characteristics. It's flat out pathetic that a co-writer that came in to help with the third act and didn't get credit came up with that story. Not to mention how clunky and awkward all the dialogue is and how terribly written his "thesis" for the book (Batman getting therapy) is to the point it just reads like Twitter posts on top of Andrea Sorrentino's (who's now an AI hack so birds of a feather) art.

It was actually a little less than 5 months. And regardless, even accounting for the strikes Matt would've spent a year by now writing the movie, so the fact he doesn't have it figured out and presumably needs another 6 months I do think is worrisome. And I do think that him having a co-writer that's not particularly what could be called good is a problem as by this point I'd imagine the problem isn't that they don't have a script that has a beginning, middle and end but rather that the drafts they've done so far are not up to par.

I read that interview he did where he talked about the fact the third act of the first movie took them 6 months to write and man...

I'm a third act defender but the fact it took them that long is kinda inexcusable lmao. It's by far the most trope-y and cliché of all the movie and by far the one that was the least smartly written. (Compared to all the stuff Matt and Peter Craig wrote it's definitely vastly inferior) He gives his explanations as to why but even those don't really tell you anything as to how the hell it took 6 months:

View attachment 85209

His excuse is "it's a detective story" but the bulk of the third act is the flood where the least detective stuff happens. Not to mention I checked and the third act amounts to 25 pages on the script. So again the only explanation that makes sense is they did tons and tons of draft and most of them sucked which again, is not surprising when you have such a blatantly unimaginative co-writer with really dumb instincts.

The one thing that the delay makes me hope for is that Matt has gotten himself a new co-writer. The fact Mattson is working on that GoT spin-off and it seemed in his interview like he was already done with his part on the movie (in it he said "I had been working on The Batman") makes me think as such. With them aiming for the October release date, and the idea DC Studios is going for that Elseworlds is for their "prestige" projects that can be competitive in awards season or whatever I do think they need a way way better co-writer, so I hope either Peter Craig comes back or Matt gets someone new that can take the film to the heights it needs. Hell Paul Dano would be amazing, his Riddler comic was expertly written. A friend of mine suggested Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed Spotlight but has worked on genre stuff as well. Those sort of names are the ones I think Matt should be looking for.

Why would Reeves bring him back for the sequel if they had to rewrite the first one multiple times because Tomlin’s stuff stunk?

Also writing a screenplay is not linear. You are working on it as a whole the entire time. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint what belongs to who in which parts. This is why credits from the WGA are so strange. Even if he was brought in to help with the third act, I guarantee he was not confined to that section, same with Craig’s contributions.

 

[Eddie Dean]

I would like to make another point, WHERE was former Vermont senator Patrick Leahy in The Batman? If he doesn’t have a cameo in The Batman 2 I will boycott all Batman media moving forward.

 

[Invader Joker]

Why would Reeves bring him back for the sequel if they had to rewrite the first one multiple times because Tomlin’s stuff stunk?

Also writing a screenplay is not linear. You are working on it as a whole the entire time. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint what belongs to who in which parts. This is why credits from the WGA are so strange. Even if he was brought in to help with the third act, I guarantee he was not confined to that section, same with Craig’s contributions.

Because he personally likes Mattson, likes working with him and sees himself as his mentor. That's pretty much it. It's perfectly understandable why he'd want him if that's the case even tho he's most definitely not the best possible writer he could get for it under any circumstances. And he most certainly isn't seeing how the third act was by far and away the most criticized part of the film and yeah, it's the most poorly written. Reeves has enough weight he could probably get any screenwriter he wants and some that are objectively a lot better than Mattson so his affinity is more likely due to the fact he can throw his weight around him and Mattson adapts to his strange writing process, making him more pleasant to work with on a day-to-day basis (but speaks absolutely nothing to the fact of whether he is or not a good screenwriter. I don't believe he is and to the extent he is there are a lot better out there)

Also, weird how "it's nearly impossible to pinpoint what belongs to who" and that "he wasn't confined to that section" when it was Reeves who made it explicitly clear that Mattson was for the third act.


I think it was a hard process for him because I think he just didn't normally work that way. So by the end of that process, as much as I liked Peter, we didn't really - the process worked well in that we were able to work out that very elaborate plot. But I would say that it would probably have driven both of us crazy to continue because I would be going way too slow for him, and he, I think, would just not be able to work the way that I wanted to work going forward. So we finished that draft, and then after that, I ended up reworking that draft, getting it down, rewriting stuff, getting it to this place, and then the only thing that had left to be done was really to work out the third act, which Peter and I had a really broad-strokes version of that. And so at that point, I thought, you know, this has now taken so long I think it's a good idea for me to work with another writer still, even though I had rewritten and had the whole script up to the third at that point. And I had been working with a young writer-director named Matson Tomlin because I was producing a movie that he wrote called "Mother Android," and I really liked him. He had written, for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, "Mother Android," a very personal film to him. It actually relates very, very specifically to his familial life and to parents he never met, and he found the way to turn it into this sci-fi fantasy. But I knew how personal it was to him, and I really connected. That's why I wanted to help him to get that movie made and why I wanted to produce it because his aims in being in the genre world were exactly my aims in what I've been trying to do in the genre space, which was to do very personal stories under the guise of these kind of fantasies. And so I really liked him during that, and I said to him, I said, "Hey, would you do me a favor? I said I've got the script, and I'm just trying to get the third act together," and I gave him the script. But I did not know at the moment that I was giving him the script is that he's one of the most insane Batman fans in history; he's like loves Batman. So I sort of said to him, I said, "Look, I just want to talk to you and um get your response. I'm trying to work on this third act," thinking also that I would want to work with him but didn't tell him that right away. And then when he was done, he gave his thoughts, whatever, and I said, "Okay, well here's the thing. How would you like to rewrite this third act with me?" And so we worked together for a couple of months, and we wrote the third act. And I have to say that Matson actually, I can't - I don't know that he had ever written with anybody the way I write, but he actually enjoyed working with me the way that I like to work, and we had a really fun time. And so that was the last phase of it.

If he made some significant contribution to the other acts you'd have expected Reeves to mention it. He does not. Also, them doing bad drafts is pretty much the only explanation for them taking as long as they did. Third act is 25 pages long, so even if you wanna excuse them by saying they're slow and were writing 1 page pay day, that still doesn't answer how they could take that long. Half a page? Still doesn't answer it. Hell, even if I am to grant your theory of "Well maybe they rewrote the entire thing together!" (They explicitly didn't) the script is 130 pages long, so that still doesn't quite make sense.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Lots of writers are slow perfectionists Invader lmao. A draft not being satisfactory is not it being garbage, it’s being unsatisfied with it and tinkering with it and trying new ideas.

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

I'd very very confidently say that Tomlin is a waaay bigger hack than Goyer ever was lmao. Say what you say about Goyer, but at least he didn't come in to write the third act of Batman Begins only to then immediately after write an uninspired comic with a cliche and boring plot that was essentially just ripping off Nolan's aesthetics and general ideas and philosophy for the world... which is exactly what Tomlin did with The Imposter.

The Imposter has aged worse and worse in my head the more I've thought about it lmao. Yet another "Batman in his early days" tale, yet another pocket continuity in the comics, and all for a story that was derivative as hell from other much better ones and that has its entire premise of a "realistic and moody and recluse Batman" completely stolen from The Batman but made significantly lamer in every single way adding stupid nonsense like "Batman has 100 motorcycles he bought and put in different places around the city" which is the sort of thing that sounds "realistic and practical" at first and that was undoubtedly written with that intention but immediately falls apart when you think on it (WHY does he need to put them all-throughout the city if by just having one he can go anywhere he wants whenever he wants?)

Also trying to differentiate itself by putting forward concepts that seem interesting but he ultimately does absolutely nothing with because Bruce still reads as any other version of him. (The Imposter's Alfred ditched Bruce, Bruce was diagnosed as on the spectrum, Gordon got fired for working with Batman.)

Having a completely uninteresting plot that leads to a really lame resolution. (The identity of The Imposter has to be one of the most boring reveals I've ever seen)


It'd be embarrassing if any other writer wrote it aping The Batman's aesthetics and general characteristics. It's flat out pathetic that a co-writer that came in to help with the third act and didn't get credit came up with that story. Not to mention how clunky and awkward all the dialogue is and how terribly written his "thesis" for the book (Batman getting therapy) is to the point it just reads like Twitter posts on top of Andrea Sorrentino's (who's now an AI hack so birds of a feather) art.

It was actually a little less than 5 months. And regardless, even accounting for the strikes Matt would've spent a year by now writing the movie, so the fact he doesn't have it figured out and presumably needs another 6 months I do think is worrisome. And I do think that him having a co-writer that's not particularly what could be called good is a problem as by this point I'd imagine the problem isn't that they don't have a script that has a beginning, middle and end but rather that the drafts they've done so far are not up to par.

I read that interview he did where he talked about the fact the third act of the first movie took them 6 months to write and man...

I'm a third act defender but the fact it took them that long is kinda inexcusable lmao. It's by far the most trope-y and cliché of all the movie and by far the one that was the least smartly written. (Compared to all the stuff Matt and Peter Craig wrote it's definitely vastly inferior) He gives his explanations as to why but even those don't really tell you anything as to how the hell it took 6 months:

View attachment 85209

His excuse is "it's a detective story" but the bulk of the third act is the flood where the least detective stuff happens. Not to mention I checked and the third act amounts to 25 pages on the script. So again the only explanation that makes sense is they did tons and tons of draft and most of them sucked which again, is not surprising when you have such a blatantly unimaginative co-writer with really dumb instincts.

The one thing that the delay makes me hope for is that Matt has gotten himself a new co-writer. The fact Mattson is working on that GoT spin-off and it seemed in his interview like he was already done with his part on the movie (in it he said "I had been working on The Batman") makes me think as such. With them aiming for the October release date, and the idea DC Studios is going for that Elseworlds is for their "prestige" projects that can be competitive in awards season or whatever I do think they need a way way better co-writer, so I hope either Peter Craig comes back or Matt gets someone new that can take the film to the heights it needs. Hell Paul Dano would be amazing, his Riddler comic was expertly written. A friend of mine suggested Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed Spotlight but has worked on genre stuff as well. Those sort of names are the ones I think Matt should be looking for.

Because he personally likes Mattson, likes working with him and sees himself as his mentor. That's pretty much it. It's perfectly understandable why he'd want him if that's the case even tho he's most definitely not the best possible writer he could get for it under any circumstances. And he most certainly isn't seeing how the third act was by far and away the most criticized part of the film and yeah, it's the most poorly written. Reeves has enough weight he could probably get any screenwriter he wants and some that are objectively a lot better than Mattson so his affinity is more likely due to the fact he can throw his weight around him and Mattson adapts to his strange writing process, making him more pleasant to work with on a day-to-day basis (but speaks absolutely nothing to the fact of whether he is or not a good screenwriter. I don't believe he is and to the extent he is there are a lot better out there)

Also, weird how "it's nearly impossible to pinpoint what belongs to who" and that "he wasn't confined to that section" when it was Reeves who made it explicitly clear that Mattson was for the third act.


I think it was a hard process for him because I think he just didn't normally work that way. So by the end of that process, as much as I liked Peter, we didn't really - the process worked well in that we were able to work out that very elaborate plot. But I would say that it would probably have driven both of us crazy to continue because I would be going way too slow for him, and he, I think, would just not be able to work the way that I wanted to work going forward. So we finished that draft, and then after that, I ended up reworking that draft, getting it down, rewriting stuff, getting it to this place, and then the only thing that had left to be done was really to work out the third act, which Peter and I had a really broad-strokes version of that. And so at that point, I thought, you know, this has now taken so long I think it's a good idea for me to work with another writer still, even though I had rewritten and had the whole script up to the third at that point. And I had been working with a young writer-director named Matson Tomlin because I was producing a movie that he wrote called "Mother Android," and I really liked him. He had written, for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, "Mother Android," a very personal film to him. It actually relates very, very specifically to his familial life and to parents he never met, and he found the way to turn it into this sci-fi fantasy. But I knew how personal it was to him, and I really connected. That's why I wanted to help him to get that movie made and why I wanted to produce it because his aims in being in the genre world were exactly my aims in what I've been trying to do in the genre space, which was to do very personal stories under the guise of these kind of fantasies. And so I really liked him during that, and I said to him, I said, "Hey, would you do me a favor? I said I've got the script, and I'm just trying to get the third act together," and I gave him the script. But I did not know at the moment that I was giving him the script is that he's one of the most insane Batman fans in history; he's like loves Batman. So I sort of said to him, I said, "Look, I just want to talk to you and um get your response. I'm trying to work on this third act," thinking also that I would want to work with him but didn't tell him that right away. And then when he was done, he gave his thoughts, whatever, and I said, "Okay, well here's the thing. How would you like to rewrite this third act with me?" And so we worked together for a couple of months, and we wrote the third act. And I have to say that Matson actually, I can't - I don't know that he had ever written with anybody the way I write, but he actually enjoyed working with me the way that I like to work, and we had a really fun time. And so that was the last phase of it.

If he made some significant contribution to the other acts you'd have expected Reeves to mention it. He does not. Also, them doing bad drafts is pretty much the only explanation for them taking as long as they did. Third act is 25 pages long, so even if you wanna excuse them by saying they're slow and were writing 1 page pay day, that still doesn't answer how they could take that long. Half a page? Still doesn't answer it. Hell, even if I am to grant your theory of "Well maybe they rewrote the entire thing together!" (They explicitly didn't) the script is 130 pages long, so that still doesn't quite make sense.

 

[Invader Joker]

Lots of writers are slow perfectionists Invader lmao. A draft not being satisfactory is not it being garbage, it’s being unsatisfied with it and tinkering with it and trying new ideas.

Yeah and Reeves would probably get closer to perfection if he got himself a screenwriter that could actually write it!

Also, something interesting from the Wozniak thing:


He confirms they began writing the third act in March 2019... why is this relevant? That's only 3 months before pre-production started. So they were still writing in the middle of pre-production. It kinda calls to my attention because to me this showcases maybe Gunn DID have an effect on the movie being delayed this long, but not in the way people think.

He's been very explicit over and over that they won't begin pre-production on anything until they have a completed script. And since the same policies apply to The Batman 2 (perhaps even moreso because he's said that elseworlds projects have a higher bar) I'm wondering if maybe the only way to meet the original release date was through Reeves still working on the script through pre-production like he did last time but since that is not DC Studios policy and Gunn explicitly doesn't like to operate that way they decided not to and delayed a year instead.

It'd also mean that it took Reeves closer to an entire 2 years to write the first film... Jesus lmao

 

[Invader Joker]

View attachment 85234

Don't worry I'll give you the cliffnotes: Mattson Tomlin is a hack and Matt Reeves needs a better co-writer.

 

[TheSmoothKnight]

Snyder Bros were jumping up and down in celebrating when this first came out last year lol so sad.

 

[Eddie Dean]

He is making his movie worse on purpose just because he likes the guy and is a perfectionist but isn't enough of a perfectionist to not hire the guy who is bad at writing?

 

[Invader Joker]

He is making his movie worse on purpose just because he likes the guy and is a perfectionist but isn't enough of a perfectionist to not hire the guy who is bad at writing?

Nobody's perfect and human beings can be very strange!

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Yeah and Reeves would probably get closer to perfection if he got himself a screenwriter that could actually write it!

Also, something interesting from the Wozniak thing:

View attachment 85233
He confirms they began writing the third act in March 2019... why is this relevant? That's only 3 months before pre-production started. So they were still writing in the middle of pre-production. It kinda calls to my attention because to me this showcases maybe Gunn DID have an effect on the movie being delayed this long, but not in the way people think.

He's been very explicit over and over that they won't begin pre-production on anything until they have a completed script. And since the same policies apply to The Batman 2 (perhaps even moreso because he's said that elseworlds projects have a higher bar) I'm wondering if maybe the only way to meet the original release date was through Reeves still working on the script through pre-production like he did last time but since that is not DC Studios policy and Gunn explicitly doesn't like to operate that way they decided not to and delayed a year instead.

I do not understand why people are searching for massive BTS conspiracies we have no possible way of knowing when we already know that Reeves probably didn't touch the project during either of the strikes as he was clearly taking them enormously seriously (unlike Gunn who more or less ignored them then talked about them like they were just a big inconvenience to his Superman movie and nothing more) on top of the fairly well sourced, believable rumours that stages to shoot on became an issue. We have literally no possible way of knowing any of this, we are basically creating characters in our brains named James Gunn and Matt Reeves based upon their twitters and interviews then crafting dramatic scenarios to explain something potentially highly mundane.

 

[Invader Joker]

I do not understand why people are searching for massive BTS conspiracies we have no possible way of knowing when we already know that Reeves probably didn't touch the project during either of the strikes as he was clearly taking them enormously seriously (unlike Gunn who more or less ignored them then talked about them like they were just a big inconvenience to his Superman movie and nothing more) on top of the fairly well sourced, believable rumours that stages to shoot on became an issue. We have literally no possible way of knowing any of this, we are basically creating characters in our brains named James Gunn and Matt Reeves based upon their twitters and interviews then crafting dramatic scenarios to explain something potentially highly mundane.

It's not a conspiracy theory to say "DC Studios has a different policy in regards to scripts than the old WB, so more than likely that also influenced the movie being delayed" dude lmao Especially when Gunn has pretty much beaten people over the head over and over and over with reminding they have that policy. And it's nothing malicious either.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

It's not a conspiracy theory to say "DC Studios has a different policy in regards to scripts than the old WB, so more than likely that also influenced the movie being delayed" dude lmao Especially when Gunn has pretty much beaten people over the head over and over and over with reminding they have that policy. And it's nothing malicious either.

We have no reason to think they were close to finishing up the script the way they were during pre-production on The Batman, lmao.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Matt Reeves: Michael Uslan?

Uslan really milks his association with this franchise.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Also, I have no strong opinion on Mattson Tomlin because I have not seen or read anything else he's written however the third act of The Batman is wildly stronger than people give it credit for. I don't think the movie works terribly well with a different ending, it obviously has its flaws but basically everything thematically meaningful or interesting in the movie happens or comes together with the twist regarding Riddler's motivations and parasocial relationship with Batman. It's the goofiest and most comic booky part for sure but it's also the part of the story with the point of the story, as well as absolutely brilliant stuff like Riddler's demented Reddit goons.

 

[Invader Joker]

We have no reason to think they were close to finishing up the script the way they were during pre-production on The Batman, lmao.

What do you mean? Pre-production began around June of 2019. So that was only 3 months into them doing the third act, so the script wasn't done yet. You put 2 and 2 together that DC Studios now has the policy they won't begin pre-production until a script is done and it's kinda obvious to see how it might've played into The Batman Part ll's gigantic delay. It's not a conspiracy theory, in fact it's just kinda obvious and just an interesting example of how different policies affect the filmmaking process. (The current ones are way more filmmaking-friendly which no **** since that's what you get with a filmmaker in charge)

 

[Invader Joker]

Also, I have no strong opinion on Mattson Tomlin because I have not seen or read anything else he's written however the third act of The Batman is wildly stronger than people give it credit for. I don't think the movie works terribly well with a different ending, it obviously has its flaws but basically everything thematically meaningful or interesting in the movie happens or comes together with the twist regarding Riddler's motivations and parasocial relationship with Batman. It's the goofiest and most comic booky part for sure but it's also the part of the story with the point of the story, as well as absolutely brilliant stuff like Riddler's demented Reddit goons.

Yeah like I said I'm a third act defender as well and I enjoy it on the screen, but at the same time it's also undeniable it's also incredibly flawed in a way I don't believe the rest of the movie is, and the flaws are far to notable so that it really raises my eyebrows to see... 6 months? lmao Especially when the "cool stuff" is the stuff that'd have appeared on an outline or pitch or whatever, the problems with the third act are more structural and have more to do with the tiny details that make up the whole that supposedly were the reason it took 6 months to write. I don't really think it speaks well that they spent so much time in that 25 page part and it still was the most criticized act of the movie and yeah the one with the most flaws.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

What do you mean? Pre-production began around June of 2019. So that was only 3 months into them doing the third act, so the script wasn't done yet. You put 2 and 2 together that DC Studios now has the policy they won't begin pre-production until a script is done and it's kinda obvious to see how it might've played into The Batman Part ll's gigantic delay. It's not a conspiracy theory, in fact it's just kinda obvious and just an interesting example of how different policies affect the filmmaking process. (The current ones are way more filmmaking-friendly which no **** since that's what you get with a filmmaker in charge)

We have no idea how filmmaker friendly the DCU is now. Given they're set assigned gigs with pre-existing scripts being shopped to directors it all sounds pretty standard work for hire to me.

 

[Eddie Dean]

 

[Invader Joker]

We have no idea how filmmaker friendly the DCU is now. Given they're set assigned gigs with pre-existing scripts being shopped to directors it all sounds pretty standard work for hire to me.

Well I'm not talking about the DCU here, I'm talking about DC Studios as a whole and their explicit policy they won't begin work on anything until a script is done, which would apply to Elseworlds projects as well (again, perhaps even moreso since they want them to have a ridiculously high level of quality -probably Oscar level is the ambition if we're honest-)

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Well I'm not talking about the DCU here, I'm talking about DC Studios as a whole and their explicit policy they won't begin work on anything until a script is done, which would apply to Elseworlds projects as well (again, perhaps even moreso since they want them to have a ridiculously high level of quality -probably Oscar level is the ambition if we're honest-)

I don't think the Elseworlds brand is going to exist for the most part after Reeves and Phillips, tbh. This isn't me saying Gunn is trying to maliciously cancel their projects or doesn't like them but I do think that banner is still more or less a smokescreen for the fact those two have their own fiefdoms that are too successful/profitable (and, again, I don't think Gunn would want to axe them anyway probably - I just don't think they'd exist under his regime to begin with now) to axe in favour of the inevitably more homogeneous DCU. Which makes sense, I love Gunn but Reeves and Phillips are objectively wildly more successful at WB than he is in terms of things that have actually, concretely occurred.

 

[Invader Joker]

I don't think the Elseworlds brand is going to exist for the most part after Reeves and Phillips, tbh. This isn't me saying Gunn is trying to maliciously cancel their projects or doesn't like them but I do think that banner is still more or less a smokescreen for the fact those two have their own fiefdoms that are too successful/profitable (and, again, I don't think Gunn would want to axe them anyway probably) to axe in favour of the inevitably more homogeneous DCU. Which makes sense, I love Gunn but Reeves and Phillips are objectively wildly more successful at WB than he is in terms of things that have actually, concretely occurred.

I actually think different. It was bizarre to me that Gunn said 2 months ago that the Coates Superman film was still in development since he didn't have to say that, everyone was assuming already it was dead and he could've left it as that. It kinda makes me think maybe there is a chance that does get made (maybe because there's gonna be a gap between his Superman movie and the sequel to it because he's gonna be busy doing something else in-between but that's just a theory...)

Also the points you raised up don't really matter regardless when it comes to this? It's still policy they won't begin work on anything till the script is done and they're being very strict about that and yeah that'd apply to Matt Reeves as well, which is not the policy WB had 5 years ago. And giving filmmakers time to finish their scripts before any sort of pre-production is indeed filmmaker friendly.

I do find all the crackpot conspiracy theories that Gunn is sabotaging Reeves funny because the thing "big bad evil execs" do is RUSH their filmmakers to meet their release dates, not giving them an entire extra year. Also if Gunn was trying to push aside Reeves in favor of his own Batman it'd be faaar more to his benefit for The Batman 2 to come out as early as possible, not delay it an entire year which also in a way delays BaTB as well. I know you don't buy these theories but I've seen them around and it's funny how nonsensical and poorly thought out they are.