The Good Citizens of Metropolis: The Casting Thread

[Invader Joker]

They can “restructure” all they want. They’ll never be an independent studio with the level of autonomy Marvel Studios was assured when they were acquired. That would require several people at the top to voluntarily give up their power and say in what the studio does, and people and corporations just don’t work like that.

Also that Gunn quote reiterated him not having a desire to make it, so I don’t see that being “coy” at all.

Except they have given DC Studios that level of autonomy. The only person above Gunn and Safran is Zaslav himself, no one else. The trades have made that explicitly clear. They are an independent studio right now.

“We have done a reset,” he said during a recent earnings call. “We’ve restructured the business where we’re going to focus, where there will be a team with a ten-year plan focusing just on DC. It’s very similar to the structure that Alan Horn and Bob Iger put together very effectively with Kevin Feige at Disney.”
From the Q2 earnings call report in 2022.
WB Discovery CEO Wants a DCEU Kevin Feige, But Big Hurdles Remain


"DC, I think, is a hugely undervalued asset. I've been saying that for a long time. Disney did a wonderful job, building Marvel. But if you had looked at Marvel and DC 10 years ago, 12 years ago, you would have said that DC is as good or better. But the amount of value creation for Disney with Marvel, because it's a connected universe, with The Bible, and they have an overall strategy. And so, I spent a lot of time in the year before we closed this deal talking to Iger, to Chapek, to Bob Daley, to Sherry Lansing, how have different companies organized.
(...) And Warner had one person running all of their motion picture business. And on the DC side, one person running everything. And then DC was in all different places in the company. The strategy that Iger put together was all of Marvel is in one place.(...)
And so, I went on a journey a few months ago, how do I put all of DC in one place?"
"So, we have basically the Pixar model. We have probably the best creative out there. And we got him to come and work with us exclusively, together with one of the best producers. And we gave them all of DC. I've spent a ton of time with them. They built The Bible, which they're coming close to the end of (...)"
From a recent conference WBD was a part of.

"They will report directly to Zaslav and work closely with Warners film bosses De Luca and Pamela Abdy."
From the THR article that broke the story.
Yes, Gunn and Safran are gonna be working with De Luca and Abdy, but they won't be reporting to them, they're not subservient to them. The only person above them is Zaslav himself, which is a huge difference from how it was 6 months ago where DC Films had to report to Toby Emmerich who then had to report to Ann Sarnoff who then had to report to Jason Kilar who then had to report to AT&T, with Zaslav explicitly stating he wants to replicate both Marvel and Pixar in terms of how those studios are run.
Heck, right now Gunn and Safran arguably have more autonomy than Feige, since Chapek had put several layers of management between himself and Feige, and even before that Feige had to report to Alan Horn if I'm not mistaken (which ironically was how James Gunn got fired in the first place).

 

[flickchick85]

Except they have given DC Studios that level of autonomy. The only person above Gunn and Safran is Zaslav himself, no one else. The trades have made that explicitly clear. They are an independent studio right now.

“We have done a reset,” he said during a recent earnings call. “We’ve restructured the business where we’re going to focus, where there will be a team with a ten-year plan focusing just on DC. It’s very similar to the structure that Alan Horn and Bob Iger put together very effectively with Kevin Feige at Disney.”
From the Q2 earnings call report in 2022.
WB Discovery CEO Wants a DCEU Kevin Feige, But Big Hurdles Remain


"DC, I think, is a hugely undervalued asset. I've been saying that for a long time. Disney did a wonderful job, building Marvel. But if you had looked at Marvel and DC 10 years ago, 12 years ago, you would have said that DC is as good or better. But the amount of value creation for Disney with Marvel, because it's a connected universe, with The Bible, and they have an overall strategy. And so, I spent a lot of time in the year before we closed this deal talking to Iger, to Chapek, to Bob Daley, to Sherry Lansing, how have different companies organized.
(...) And Warner had one person running all of their motion picture business. And on the DC side, one person running everything. And then DC was in all different places in the company. The strategy that Iger put together was all of Marvel is in one place.(...)
And so, I went on a journey a few months ago, how do I put all of DC in one place?"
"So, we have basically the Pixar model. We have probably the best creative out there. And we got him to come and work with us exclusively, together with one of the best producers. And we gave them all of DC. I've spent a ton of time with them. They built The Bible, which they're coming close to the end of (...)"
From a recent conference WBD was a part of.

"They will report directly to Zaslav and work closely with Warners film bosses De Luca and Pamela Abdy."
From the THR article that broke the story.
Yes, Gunn and Safran are gonna be working with De Luca and Abdy, but they won't be reporting to them, they're not subservient to them. The only person above them is Zaslav himself, which is a huge difference from how it was 6 months ago where DC Films had to report to Toby Emmerich who then had to report to Ann Sarnoff who then had to report to Jason Kilar who then had to report to AT&T, with Zaslav explicitly stating he wants to replicate both Marvel and Pixar in terms of how those studios are run.
Heck, right now Gunn and Safran arguably have more autonomy than Feige, since Chapek had put several layers of management between himself and Feige, and even before that Feige had to report to Alan Horn if I'm not mistaken (which ironically was how James Gunn got fired in the first place).

As long as De Luca and Abdy - or someone in their position - are involved, that’s all just spin to me, sorry. They want to say they’re like Marvel because Marvel has done what they want to do successfully. But you’re welcome to believe what you’d like. We’ll just have to see how it all pans out.

I’m not gonna speculate on a scenario I don’t believe exists, though.

 

[Sawyer]

Rashida's just too low-energy for Lois, from what I've seen of her.

Et tu, flickchick?

Desperately need everyone's opinion on this.
If Gunn recasts Superman, who do you think he'd choose?

Gunn ain't casting anybody. That's not his role.

I feel like the benefit of having someone who’s been through this whole deal as a director now in the position of power is that Gunn probably won’t be too overzealous about imposing his will on the filmmakers, or micromanaging every detail. He’s not going to come into a situation where a director says “Robert Pattinson is the guy,” and say “No, it has to be Nicholas Hoult.”

So, it’s probably less about Gunn picking a Superman and more about Gunn picking the director who picks Superman.

 

[Invader Joker]

As long as De Luca and Abdy - or someone in their position - are involved, that’s all just spin to me, sorry. They want to say they’re like Marvel because Marvel has done what they want to do successfully. But you’re welcome to believe what you’d like. We’ll just have to see how it all pans out.

The fact they're involved doesn't signal much since Horn was also very involved with Feige running Marvel, even moreso since Horn was directly above Feige, here they're just collaborators. But yeah, I guess time will tell, I just think they've been very explicit on the way they've been talking about it.

 

[flickchick85]

Et tu, flickchick?

Sorry, that’s one bit of fancasting I could never get behind, as it’s been a thing for years. I want a Lois who’s a force of nature. I’ve never seen that in Rashida. At all.

 

[flickchick85]

The fact they're involved doesn't signal much since Horn was also very involved with Feige running Marvel, even moreso since Horn was directly above Feige, here they're just collaborators. But yeah, I guess time will tell, I just think they've been very explicit on the way they've been talking about it.

They’ve been explicitly spin-y, sure. I also get the impression Safran’s the one making all the big decisions, while Gunn is mainly just a mouthpiece. That’s why they hired a “celebrity” creative. He’s a hype man. That’s all he’d have time for if he’s still planning to make movies.

 

[Invader Joker]

They’ve been explicitly spin-y, sure. I also get the impression Safran’s the one making all the big decisions, while Gunn is mainly just a mouthpiece. That’s why they hired a “celebrity” creative. He’s a hype man. That’s all he’d have time for if he’s still planning to make movies.

I mean, they said it since they got hired, Safran is the one in charge of all the business stuff and Gunn is in charge of all the creative stuff. So Gunn doesn't have to be dealing with the mountains of paperwork or financial negotiations that'd make it absolutely impossible for him to still be able to direct movies, but I'm pretty sure he'd still be the one giving notes on scripts or edits or meeting with directors and hearing their pitches and things of that nature. All of that is time consuming, sure, but it's probably not as time consuming as the business stuff is and probably leaves him more than enough time to be able to still direct things, especially since the things that he's gonna direct presumably are gonna tie into the 10 year plan he has in mind anyway so they're related to the role he has as the creative head of DC.

That's why I think he's either gonna direct Superman or he's going to direct Justice League. If he's passionate enough to be mapping out this ten year plan story and be overseeing it, you have to imagine he'd be passionate enough to make the big key movies that'd tell that story and connect it.

It's the Pixar model combined with the Marvel model, like how John Lasseter was able to still direct movies while being head of the company (the shady stuff he did aside) so it's not unprecedented.

 

[flickchick85]

I mean, they said it since they got hired, Safran is the one in charge of all the business stuff and Gunn is in charge of all the creative stuff. So Gunn doesn't have to be dealing with the mountains of paperwork or financial negotiations that'd make it absolutely impossible for him to still be able to direct movies, but I'm pretty sure he'd still be the one giving notes on scripts or edits or meeting with directors and hearing their pitches and things of that nature. All of that is time consuming, sure, but it's probably not as time consuming as the business stuff is and probably leaves him more than enough time to be able to still direct things, especially since the things that he's gonna direct presumably are gonna tie into the 10 year plan he has in mind anyway so they're related to the role he has as the creative head of DC.

That's why I think he's either gonna direct Superman or he's going to direct Justice League. If he's passionate enough to be mapping out this ten year plan story and be overseeing it, you have to imagine he'd be passionate enough to make the big key movies that'd tell that story and connect it.

This regime ain’t even lasting 5 years so I don’t really care what he maps out, it won’t come to fruition lol.

 

[emielaen]

Lol Gunn certainly seems to be directly in the middle of things. Don't really get this "celebrity creative/mouthpiece" idea.

I forget this side of this site isn't always very fun or optimistic lol

 

[Invader Joker]

This regime ain’t even lasting 5 years so I don’t really care what he maps out, it won’t come to fruition lol.

If it makes money and it makes hits, why wouldn't it last 5 years? Gunn has a proven track record when it comes to that too. He took the Guardians of the Galaxy and made them earn more than Superman, he took Peacemaker and he made it a smash hit for streaming. TSS got undercut by the day and date streaming strategy. Safran smartly produced Shazam in such a way where it earned a lot of profit without having to reach super high numbers and he produced Aquaman which made a billion.
I don't really see a reason to be so overtly pessimistic about things right now. Sure it may fail but if they have a path in mind and if they pump out profitable and good movies for the next 4 years like how Safran and Gunn have been doing it in the past I don't see how it'd be immediate doom. It's extremely different from the leaderships that DC has had in the past, with Zack Snyder being a controversial filmmaker, Geoff Johns being almost completely unproven when it came to films and Walter Hamada being completely new to the arena of comic book movies when he came in. They're vastly more qualified to guide this ship than any of their predecessors.

 

[flickchick85]

If it makes money and it makes hits, why wouldn't it last 5 years? Gunn has a proven track record when it comes to that too. He took the Guardians of the Galaxy and made them earn more than Superman, he took Peacemaker and he made it a smash hit for streaming. TSS got undercut by the day and date streaming strategy. Safran smartly produced Shazam in such a way where it earned a lot of profit without having to reach super high numbers and he produced Aquaman which made a billion.
I don't really see a reason to be so overtly pessimistic about things right now. Sure it may fail but if they have a path in mind and if they pump out profitable and good movies for the next 4 years like how Safran and Gunn have been doing it in the past I don't see how it'd be immediate doom. It's extremely different from the leaderships that DC has had in the past, with Zack Snyder being a controversial filmmaker, Geoff Johns being almost completely unproven when it came to films and Walter Hamada being completely new to the arena of comic book movies when he came in. They're vastly more qualified to guide this ship than any of their predecessors.

I’m glad you think so, I’ll just respectfully disagree on pretty much every front lol. They’re already making bad decisions that will not pay off for them financially imo, and when the great Zaslav purge started, the trades reported they had multiple sources who believed Zaslav was basically preparing it for another sale in 2024. And whoever gets it next (most likely Comcast) will inevitably come in with their own ideas for how to handle their most high profile IP’s. Gunn and Safran are probably just there to get a few projects in the fire to make it look appealing for the next buyers.

 

[Invader Joker]

I’m glad you think so, I’ll just respectfully disagree on pretty much every front lol. They’re already making bad decisions that will not pay off for them financially imo, and when the great Zaslav purge started, the trades reported they had multiple sources who believed Zaslav was basically preparing it for another sale in 2024. And whoever gets it next (most likely Comcast) will inevitably come in with their own ideas for how to handle their most high profile IP’s. Gunn and Safran are probably just there to get a few projects in the fire to make it look appealing for the next buyers.

And their ideas would probably be the same as Zaslav: Try to compete with the company that has several of the highest grossing movies in entertainment with a shared universe, which is exactly the path that Gunn and Safran are putting forward.

 

[flickchick85]

And their ideas would probably be the same as Zaslav: Try to compete with the company that has several of the highest grossing movies in entertainment with a shared universe, which is exactly the path that Gunn and Safran are putting forward.

Funny how everyone’s had that idea, yet each of the last 3 regimes have gone about it differently.

 

[Invader Joker]

Funny how everyone’s had that idea, yet each of the last 3 regimes have gone about it differently.

Except they haven't. Snyder had an idea for a 5 movie story arc that dealt with controversial versions of the characters, Geoff Johns came in to just have the idea to radically alter that story arc in tonally bizarre ways which resulted in Josstice League, and it's obvious Hamada didn't have any real plan at all, he just greenlit a bunch of random projects hoping some of them might stick and then randomnly was trying to lead up to a Crisis movie barely having any sort of foundation.
All of that is extremely different than what Gunn and Safran are doing right now which is having a 10 year plan like Marvel's, in which they'll presumably have films that all lead up and connect in more concrete ways while also not rushing it.

 

[flickchick85]

Except they haven't. Snyder had an idea for a 5 movie story arc that dealt with controversial versions of the characters, Geoff Johns came in to just have the idea to radically alter that story arc in tonally bizarre ways which resulted in Josstice League, and it's obvious Hamada didn't have any real plan at all, he just greenlit a bunch of random projects hoping some of them might stick and then randomnly was trying to lead up to a Crisis movie barely having any sort of foundation.
All of that is extremely different than what Gunn and Safran are doing right now which is having a 10 year plan like Marvel's, in which they'll presumably have films that all lead up and connect in more concrete ways while also not rushing it.

That all doesn't change the fact that they were 100% chasing Marvel and trying to repeat their success.

 

[Invader Joker]

That all doesn't change the fact that they were 100% chasing Marvel and trying to repeat their success.

Maybe in theory they were but they weren't even trying to properly replicate them in any meaningful way. At any chace he got, Hamada stressed out how the goal for DC was to have different versions at the same time and how they wouldn't worry about how it all connected and pretty much anything could happen at anytime, Snyder was... Snyder, and Geoff Johns did things in such a bizarre way at such a bizarre time it's hard to tell what he was even doing at that point.
At no point did any of those try to build out a 10 year plan like Marvel. Snyder is the one that came closest to that but he's Snyder and even the way he was going about it was really different to having a DC Bible like what Gunn is building right now.

 

[flickchick85]

Maybe in theory they were but they weren't even trying to properly replicate them in any meaningful way. At any chace he got, Hamada stressed out how the goal for DC was to have different versions at the same time and how they wouldn't worry about how it all connected and pretty much anything could happen at anytime, Snyder was... Snyder, and Geoff Johns did things in such a bizarre way at such a bizarre time it's hard to tell what he was even doing at that point.
At no point did any of those try to build out a 10 year plan like Marvel. Snyder is the one that came closest to that but he's Snyder and even the way he was going about it was really different to having a DC Bible like what Gunn is building right now.

Look, we're just going in circles. I don't think ANY of this is gonna happen the way you think it will, just based on this company's history and where they're clearly (to me) headed, but hey, if you wanna believe, you go right ahead. Like I said before, we'll just have to wait and see. But I sure as hell ain't buying in to James Gunn of all people - who can't even make his own movies work without a giant corporate hand as a guide - making a whole ~connected universe~ work as one coherent journey over 10 years. And I don't think anyone who put him where he is currently expects him to, either. They're playing the short game here, by selling the dream of the long one. And nobody will convince me otherwise until I see it with my own eyes. Which I won't.

 

[Detective Conan]

My optimistic & idealist side hopes @Invader Joker is right, but the realist & pessimistic side in me expects @flickchick85 to be right.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Desperately need everyone's opinion on this.
If Gunn recasts Superman, who do you think he'd choose?

Here’s a hypothetical Superman cast based on actors Gunn has previously worked with in films he directed, wrote or produced. I excluded ones from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker since they would (probably) be in the same universe. I doubt any of these would happen even if he does direct a Superman film, but hey. You never know.


Superman/Clark Kent: Dustin Milligan

Lois Lane: Laura Haddock

Lex Luthor: Lee Pace

Jimmy Olsen: Elliot Page

Perry White: John C. McGinley

Cat Grant: Judy Greer

Pa Kent: Kurt Russell

Ma Kent: Glenn Close

Lana Lang: Lindy Booth

Maxima: Karen Gillan

John Corben/Metallo: Will Poulter

Parasite: Dave Bautista

Brainiac (Milton Fine version): Rainn Wilson

Bizarro: Owain Yeoman

Bibbo: Nathan Fillion

 

[Eddie Dean]

Desperately need everyone's opinion on this.
If Gunn recasts Superman, who do you think he'd choose?

 

[Sawyer]

Lois Lane - Annie Murphy

 

[Sawyer]

Also Justice Smith as Jimmy Olsen.

 

[Lily Adler]

Also Justice Smith as Jimmy Olsen.

Why do you hate Jimmy?

 

[Sawyer]

Why do you hate Jimmy?

What? He’d be good.

As long as he doesn’t do that weird “butch up your act” acting that he did in the last Jurassic World, I mean. It’s Jimmy Olsen, let him be queer as hell.

 

[Lily Adler]

What? He’d be good.

As long as he doesn’t do that weird “butch up your act” acting that he did in the last Jurassic World, I mean. It’s Jimmy Olsen, let him be queer as hell.

I've played The Quarry and I don't think this is true.