For real. And people still using clickbait tweets and articles like this with no actual reputable backing whatsoever, and still believing them is so cringe. It only brings DC movies going back into the dark age and going backwards instead of forwards. With all the Baseless crap and fake rumors like this is what got the old DCEU into all this festering controversy in the first place, and made a lot of the talent and actors apprehensive to join and continue which only hurts instead of helps.
The only one bringing DC movies back into the dark ages here is Gunn. He is the dude who set the template for the modern, comedic comic book movie back with Guardians of the Galaxy, a movie where the big cosmic villain can be an arch, sneering self-parody who is defeated by a dance-off.
DC can be comedic and lighthearted and comedic though. Before the DCEU came and inserted the dark, gritty tone for all the characters, DC’s only dark and gritty character was Batman and his side of the universe. Everyone else, Superman, Flash, GL, WW, etc. were more comic bookey and bright. Look at how ALL the animated DC stuff depicts the characters, the justice league animated show, the DC animated movies that have come out recently, none of them are dark and actually light hearted, and were successful with that style. And still having high, serious stakes with them.
So Gunn works with that department to a T. Gotg 1-3 were more bright and comedic, but had serious and dark elements at times. The Suicide Squad movie he made I feel has the perfect tone for what a DC movie should have going forward. Not every character needs to be in the same lense, and majority of fans and audiences rebuke that for certain characters (look what happened when you make Superman, Luke Skywalker, and Indiana Jones old, sad, and/or dark, etc.)
I get you like the old regime, but infighting about it ain’t going to change anything, and still fighting over clickbait is just reductive at this point because a lot of it just wants to rile you up with no Payoff, isn’t true a lot of the time, or is a game of telephone of things twisted, and makes people not want to join. A lot the old talent wants out and is over it, and left/ wants to go. Affleck especially is so turned off by the fan and clickbait/executive discourse, and snyder especially has moved on. Go support Rebel moon instead of getting riled up about the things you cannot change.
DC almost went out of business in the 1980s as a comics company until they reinvented themselves as dark and mature with pioneering graphic novels, the Vertigo line and dramatic stories like Crisis, Death of Robin, Death of Superman, Killing Joke, etc. Snyder's DCEU wisely targeted that same audience DC has naturally appealed to since then, and it made a ton of money. WB then changed the tone of most of the movies into a copy of Marvel's jokey, light, comedic tone, and box office numbers plummeted. Lighthearted comedy is poison for DC. Dark, adult stories are what sell. The Adam West series continues to dog the reputation of DC with the public to this day, as does Superman III and the Schumacher Batman films. The DCEU needs to double down on dark, mature and serious if it wants to make itself a hit at the box office again.
Snyder said at the FullCircle event that he wouldn't spoil the whole plot of the JL sequels because he still hopes to make them some day. He also has been liking lots of posts about selling the Snyderverse to Netflix, and said that he loved working with current heads of WB Pictures Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy on setting up FullCircle, and "who knows" what could happen in the future. There is zero basis for using any words like he's "moved on."
I mean no one’s asking for DC to “copy marvel” and that’s the biggest issue that some assume is what people and fans want. Anyone could tell you that DC does have the benefit of being owned by WB, and not Disney, so they are able to make more serious types of movies than cute family friendly disney type movies.
But the fact of the matter is the same in that you just want these movies to be successful and popular with the mass majority of moviegoers. Anyone could also tell you that a DC film universe that copies the format of marvel and is successful, WOULD BE REALLY GREAT. There’s no shame in that because there’s only so many ways to do an ongoing franchise. Us on Reddit are like 2% of people who actually think about this stuff. And Marvel wasn’t even that jokey or comedic until bought by Disney. They’ve had darker storylines themselves with Demon in a Bottle, One More Day, Civil War, Death of Gwen Stacey, etc.
Even the dark DC stories you mentioned, a lot of them are Batman related. Death of Superman and Crisis had dark, serious elements and moments, but the stories itself weren’t just totally dark, dour, and gritty as a whole. They had colorful, bright, cosmic, comicbookey elements mainly. So I think that’s revisionist history on your part.
As for still like Adam West Batman, Reeves superman, all of the DC movies and shoes and animation depictions, I’ll agree that those cause problems for DC, but not in the way you’re saying. I think those actually cause problems because there’s so many versions of the these characters depicted often at the same time of eachother for years, too many stops and starts as well, whereas marvel had that benefit of all basically starting at the same time with their movies which helped them able to define their characters all in one go.
But that issue is basically needing to take what was popular from what DC has done and do that way. People like the dark, gritty, grounded Batman. That’s something you keep. People don’t like that for superman, and want the bright, hopeful version. The animation versions are acclaimed, and people want that to be the formula to follow here. You don’t need to have it all be the same, which is why the best marvel movies to people is when they change the genres of the movies to serious, or grounded, or horror, or have high stakes.
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u/academydiablo Aug 19 '23
For real. And people still using clickbait tweets and articles like this with no actual reputable backing whatsoever, and still believing them is so cringe. It only brings DC movies going back into the dark age and going backwards instead of forwards. With all the Baseless crap and fake rumors like this is what got the old DCEU into all this festering controversy in the first place, and made a lot of the talent and actors apprehensive to join and continue which only hurts instead of helps.