DC Films The DC Studios News and Discussion Thread

[SwordOfMorning]

Off the top of my head some names that easily came to mind after reading that silly stuff.

Jennifer Kent
Lynne Ramsay
Marielle Heller
Sarah Polley

I’d be really interested to see Sarah Polley try something pulpy and fun like this, actually.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Warners seem to struggle with the tone for other heroes for some reason. Batman's well established; dark, gritty, grim. They know that works, that audiences like it. But it feels like they think other characters must need updating for 'modern audiences' (I hate that phrase!). I thought the tone of Wonder Woman (2017) was spot on - but then there was such a shift to WW84. I believe that a Superman with a similar tone to the 1978 movie could work fine (Marvel managed to make Captain America's corniness and 'old world' values a huge part of his appeal, in-universe and out).

 

[Black Narcissus]

One of my WW choices , if there was any justice in this bald world.

 

[Kane52630]

My WW director picks:

Ana Lily Amirpour
Jennifer Kent
Chloe Okuno
Emma Tammi
Kathryn Bigelow
Coralie Fargeat
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Julia Ducournau
Bryce Dallas Howard

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Warners seem to struggle with the tone for other heroes for some reason. Batman's well established; dark, gritty, grim. They know that works, that audiences like it. But it feels like they think other characters must need updating for 'modern audiences' (I hate that phrase!). I thought the tone of Wonder Woman (2017) was spot on - but then there was such a shift to WW84. I believe that a Superman with a similar tone to the 1978 movie could work fine (Marvel managed to make Captain America's corniness and 'old world' values a huge part of his appeal, in-universe and out).

See, the thing about this is while that is historically true the DC movies have been either borderline or overt comedies for a very long time now. It’s been a minute since dark and gritty was remotely on the table.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

See, the thing about this is while that is historically true the DC movies have been either borderline or overt comedies for a very long time now. It’s been a minute since dark and gritty was remotely on the table.

Not so much that I think they're leaning too far towards 'dark' now (although they certainly went through a phase of that following TDKT), but that whichever tone they go for doesn't always land (for me). I could have done with more gravitas in Aquaman and in WW84. The Flash (which I liked) was wildly inconsistent in its tone. Tragic things happened in that movie, with stakes about as high as they could be - but there was humour bordering on slapstick. I admit I laughed out loud a few times, but it's not a movie where I wanted to laugh out loud, given the storyline and some of the events depicted.

 

[TheScarecrow]

Terrible look for Gunn.

Re: directors of Wonder Woman and Supergirl...if we can get some female directors doing the male heroes, then I don't see the issue with a male director doing the female heroes. But you cannot hire only men.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Terrible look for Gunn.

Re: directors of Wonder Woman and Supergirl...if we can get some female directors doing the male heroes, then I don't see the issue with a male director doing the female heroes. But you cannot hire only men.

I could be wrong, but I feel that one of the reasons they're keen on female directors for female heroes is to counter criticism of 'male gaze'.

 

[Kane52630]

Terrible look for Gunn.

Re: directors of Wonder Woman and Supergirl...if we can get some female directors doing the male heroes, then I don't see the issue with a male director doing the female heroes. But you cannot hire only men.

Speaking of terrible look...

They'll never hire a male director for a Wonder Woman movie of all characters.

 

[Invader Joker]

Massively overthinking it. There are plenty of great female directors out there. Plus, picking a lesser known director isn’t inherently getting a female Jon Watts.

Gina Prince-Bythewood is obviously the best choice though. She’d ****ing kill it.

There are great female directors out there, sure. But how many are there out there that are properly prepared to suddenly take on a 200 million dollar budget studio project with a bunch of VFX? There are genuinely not that many, mostly because the industry hasn't given them the opportunities to get to that.

Part of the problem that Marvel has been facing by taking these small scale directors and suddenly giving them projects this massive is that these directors more often than not end up not being prepared whatsoever for a lot of the more technical details of the productions. We've seen this time and time again. Even someone as skilled as Ryan Coogler struggled on the CGI for the first Black Panther.

The talent is out there, but you also kinda have to properly prepare them for films of this massive scale. VFX workers in particular have complained about how taking these directors that have never worked with VFX before has indeed become a big problem because more often than not they simply do not know what to do which often leads to a bunch of revisions and second-guessing and directors not being able to communicate their vision at all.

The idea of taking one of these small-scale female directors, someone that already has a great amount of talent, giving them all the preparation they need to handle this sort of stuff in a TV show, and then letting them do a big budget film is not a bad idea at all. In fact more stuff like this should happen in the industry, to be honest, instead of the current practice of just grabbing a random director of an acclaimed Sundance drama or something and giving them a superhero film out of nowhere.

They’re no harder to pull off than any other fantasy or action movie.

Well, there's the reason there aren't that many good/succesful fantasy or action films. Almost no one actually knows how to make them.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

The idea of taking one of these small-scale female directors, someone that already has a great amount of talent, giving them all the preparation they need to handle this sort of stuff in a TV show, and then letting them do a big budget film is not a bad idea at all. In fact more stuff like this should happen in the industry, to be honest, instead of the current practice of just grabbing a random director of an acclaimed Sundance drama or something and giving them a superhero film out of nowhere.

That does sound like a recipe for disaster!

 

[dhandler01]

Pretty crappy of him to do that.

I doubt he was. She was spinning whatever he told her to vaguely pretend WW3 was coming out. She knew exactly what he said and the fake She was playing.

 

[dhandler01]

I wonder if they'll throw Gadot under the bus again and say that she doesn't understand English.

Why do you take her at her word when literally no one is backing her up? She was pumping up her Netflix numbers nothing more.

 

[dhandler01]

They ain’t “shelving the character” y’all. Paradise Lost is 100% the prequel to set up a new Diana. Come on now. They’re just putting space between that version and Gal’s version.

Are you expecting the Hype to actually read the stories? Come on its all headlines all the time!!

 

[Invader Joker]

Off the top of my head some names that easily came to mind after reading that silly stuff.

Jennifer Kent
Lynne Ramsay
Marielle Heller
Sarah Polley

You might be onto something with Jennifer Kent, if only because the genre sensibilities of horror directors sometimes translate well to bigger budget films (not always though). As for the rest...

Lynne Ramsay said in an interview the only comic characters she's interested in are the really dark ones like the Joker and Batman so the chances that she'd be interested on Wonder Woman are pretty much zero.

Marielle Heller and Sarah Polley have done nothing but reaaally small, low-budget intimate dramas or comedies. Either of those would be pretty much an exact representation of the CODA director scene from Barry.

And Julia has genuinely zero chance of ever being interested on doing a Wonder Woman movie, let alone one in a cinematic universe. She'd probably be offended if offered lol

 

[emielaen]

Yeah they're for sure pushing Wondy to the side because there aren't woman directors.

Huh?

Julia Ducournau

Idk if she would be up for it though. Would be a ridiculous get but no way. I like the idea of DuVernay in her When They See Us bag. But there's an abundance of options if they wanna hire a woman to direct it: Bigelow, Zhao, Bythewood, Har'el, King, Glass, Kent, Ramsay, Decker, Rees, Hittman, Reichardt, etc etc etc. Couple of those would probably never happen though.

 

[emielaen]

Another note though, reading back through during this recent spout of news always shows how incredibly reactionary some of us can get lol

There's a prequel to WW that was announced months before this 2-day no-thing and it will undoubtedly setup Diana. Gunn also talked about a WW animated project, so she isn't getting shelved either. But the Gal situation will blow ever in a week like everything else while certain circles of the internet act upset about it. By the time casting rumors for the future WW come around, the anticipation will blot out old Gal sympathy. I see plenty of people glad WW3 isn't happening anyway. If they can live through the nothing-ass Cavill bull**** and come out smelling like roses with perfect casting, they'll be fine here.

 

[DCnightwing23]

Gunn can't seem to bring in any fresh and exciting writing or directing talent which concerns me. Andy Muschietti was already at WB and associated with The Flash when Gunn "chose" him for Batman and I think there is plenty of doubt that'll stick. He's sticking with Christina Hodson despite her terrible track record (I loathed Birds of Prey) for not really understanding or even caring to understand DC comic-book characters, she shouldn't have even been credited as the writer of The Flash but.. she was, honestly wouldn't surprise me if he chose her for WW or that Max prequel. Seems like he's surrounding himself with "yes men" that'll pander to him which is the same issue the previous suits at DC/WB did.

Re: Gadot/WW - Gunn has been known to stretch the truth since he joined DC so I don't understand the unquestionable loyalty to this guy when he's shown he can be full of it. He tweeted he met with Gal, and that he wasn't getting rid of her (not explicitly but he denied he was giving her "the boot"), he straight up lied and said Affleck was interested in directing something for his DCU (as some of you've claimed Gadot is doing for her new Netflix movie, by hyping up his new DCU) and Affleck shortly after straight up said he wanted nothing to do with what they are doing at DC (DCU, respectfully). Then there's the Ayer stuff, which to me doesn't make sense, why would Gunn wait till his DCU is over to release the Ayer Cut? You really buy that, Ayer? Come on.. There's a solid chance Gunn never makes it to the end of his DCU.

Still leaning towards optimism for the new age of DC on screen though, the casting of Superman & Lois is about as terrific as you can get and I know a lot of us here are excited about that which is always fun to see around these parts. Just need to see if come together a bit more because a lot of these projects Gunn has planned/announced don't really excite me overall. Casting, visuals, creatives behind it, etc. will be the turning point for me before I can really be all in, but I'm trying to stay optimistic!

 

[Invader Joker]

Gunn can't seem to bring in any fresh and exciting writing or directing talent which concerns me. Andy Muschietti was already at WB and associated with The Flash when Gunn "chose" him for Batman and I think there is plenty of doubt that'll stick. He's sticking with Christina Hodson despite her terrible track record (I loathed Birds of Prey) for not really understanding or even caring to understand DC comic-book characters, she shouldn't have even been credited as the writer of The Flash but.. she was, honestly wouldn't surprise me if he chose her for WW or that Max prequel. Seems like he's surrounding himself with "yes men" that'll pander to him which is the same issue the previous suits at DC/WB did.

He's only had his DC slate out there for 6 months, 3 of which the writer's strike has been happening which has obviously paused any search for creatives on these projects. It's extremely premature to say he hasn't been able to attract people when he's barely had any time to do so.

The whole Christina Hodson situation seems like it ended up amounting to nothing though, seeing how she immediately signed on to do Fast and Furious. Wouldn't be surprised if the extent of her involvement was just to quickly help out with assembling the slate and that's about it; especially since she was weirdly qualified for it seeing how she had previously been involved with a similar writer's room for Transformers. Also Muschietti is definitely getting axed so we'll just have to wait and see who the real director for Brave and the Bold ends up being.

 

[Invader Joker]

Idk if she would be up for it though. Would be a ridiculous get but no way. I like the idea of DuVernay in her When They See Us bag.

Eh. DuVernay has the Twinkle in Time stink or when it comes to doing comic book projects (Naomi) so no thank you. Maybe her political projects are good but she clearly has a different engine running when it comes to fantasy.

But there's an abundance of options if they wanna hire a woman to direct it: Bigelow, Zhao, Bythewood, Har'el, King, Glass, Kent, Ramsay, Decker, Rees, Hittman, Reichardt, etc etc etc. Couple of those would probably never happen though.

I mean, that's the problem. A lot of those would never want to do it (Cameron said that Bigelow would be insulted if they offered her to direct a female superhero movie, appareantly she'd be more interested on a male one), some (Zhao) would be straight up god-awful and most would be a ridiculous shift from their current projects. You can literally count with one hand the amount that'd:
-Actually be interested in the prospect of doing a Wonder Woman movie situated in the DCU.
-Properly prepared to take on a 200 million action VFX heavy movie.
-Actually be, you know, good. 'Cause you could make the argument that Zhao, Duvernay and Elizabeth Banks check the first two boxes but I've got no faith whatsoever they'd make a well-received Wonder Woman movie lmao.

 

[Isub_Zero]

Adria Arjona is ready.

No, thank you.

 

[Mani-Man]

This is why Gunn cant win on this stuff.
If he goes forward to debunk or confirm this stuff, its either doom and gloom.

Not even 24 hours ago it was "Oh Gal Gadot ist back as WW, the DCU is doomed".
Now its "Oh they have no plans for WW in the DCU, the DCU is doomed".

People blowing up stuff for no reason.
Reminds me off the Affleck thing where they talked about projects, it simply didnt work out...done deal.
But Comic book fans saw in that drama and stuff.
Blowing up the smallest and most normal things so hard...and i dont get why.

 

[Frodo]

WB / DC has been one drama or another going back to the 90s.

It's just that fans are more aware of the sausage making now, than they were in the infancy of the internet.

Also, the DC film fanbase is divided, and that's not gonna go away anytime soon.

What the studio has to do, is produce good films which connect with fans, GA , and critics , and then you'll see less of the monthly outrages from fandom.

Gunn is not gonna please everyone, of course, but ultimately , winning and success, will put alot of the jitters and DC fan anxieties at ease.

But that ain't gonna happen this year .

 

[kguillou]

He's only had his DC slate out there for 6 months, 3 of which the writer's strike has been happening which has obviously paused any search for creatives on these projects. It's extremely premature to say he hasn't been able to attract people when he's barely had any time to do so.

The whole Christina Hodson situation seems like it ended up amounting to nothing though, seeing how she immediately signed on to do Fast and Furious. Wouldn't be surprised if the extent of her involvement was just to quickly help out with assembling the slate and that's about it; especially since she was weirdly qualified for it seeing how she had previously been involved with a similar writer's room for Transformers. Also Muschietti is definitely getting axed so we'll just have to wait and see who the real director for Brave and the Bold ends up being.

Why has Christina Hodson seemingly become the defacto screenwriter for DC? Has she had any big successes thus far?

 

[J.Drangal]

Why has Christina Hodson seemingly become the defacto screenwriter for DC? Has she had any big successes thus far?

I honestly think they don't have anyone else...
Granted, Gunn has only been in place for 6 months at head of DC Studios and it takes time to build teams, etc. And it also takes time to "evacuate the residues" of the old regime. But I still can't shake the feeling that there's not much going on behind the curtain. Or at least, not as much as there should be.

In fact, I was always a bit skeptical by the fact that Gunn, while in charge of mapping a cinematic universe, with all that entails logistics, is at the same time preparing a film. And that brings me to this conclusion that his Superman does have a dual purpose. Of course, the film must appeal to the public. But I think it must also awaken the interest of the profession for this kind of film.
There have been quite a few signals that the CBM genre, with the exception of a few well-established franchises, is loosing goodwill fast, from both sides of the screen. I don't think anyone's rushing to the door to make these kinds of films like they were maybe 6 or 7 years ago. So, I believe Gunn is going all-in on Superman Legacy because really, he can't do much more for now...

Of course, I'm not saying I'm right and there are certainly things that escape me, but that's the reading I have of the whole thing right now.