So, a new era of DC has begun. Over the last week we have Henry Cavil be told that they are going into a different direction, and he will no longer be needed to play Superman to Patty Jenkins WW3 script being turned down. So where does this leave us? To begin with we need to look at the state of affairs before James Gunn & Peter Safran took over, to actually look at what has happened to DC in the last 10 years.
When Zack Snyder was announced, he was going to direct Superman, was I excited, TBH not particularly I thought he was very hit and miss as a director. I thought Watchman was good, I thought 300 was Ok and I didn’t enjoy Sucker Punch, I know he has done more movies, before anyone shuts me down, but these were my main take away movies when I think of Zack Snyder. Then they announced Henry Cavil was going to be Superman, the guy who was turned down for Brendon Roth. I was expecting too much if I am honest, probably because I hold a torch to Christopher Reeves as he was and will always truly be my Superman, but I held out hope as I love DC. After watching The Man of Steel I came away liking bits and actually hating bits, I thought the fight scenes where incredible to finally see superman go toe to toe like he did in the comics and cartoons, did I like Clarks journey to become Superman not really how could he watch his dad die that way, and not even try and save him, there was a lot of holes in the story, did I like the them re-using Zod like previous movies, no, again it wasn’t original as superman as so many fantastic Villains in his vast history, and then to kill Zod in the end not my Superman at all.
Was I a little upset that we didn’t see the iconic quick change of Clark Kent into Superman, yes very but all in all I did hold out hope and I believed this is something that could grow, and we would finally get the Superman I wanted in up-and-coming movies. Then watching all the news from Comic-Con and the announcement that Man of Steel 2 isn’t happening and they are going to do Batman Vs Superman, my first thought was the negativity surrounding MOS shocked WB so much they scrambled and decided to bolt on Batman as they didn’t believe that it was going to be strong enough as a standalone movie again, but boy was I excited for something I had wanted to see forever, f**k it was BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, then they announced Ben Affleck was going to be Batman and my heart sunk, Daredevil as Batman are you serious?????
Then they showed us the pictures of Batfleck in the grey suit standing next to the Batmobile and I was like wow this looks awesome, finally a comic book looking Batman, finally a Batman in the grey suit, a director has finally done it and it doesn’t look goofy, my hopes were raised again. Then there were rumblings that he was going to don The Dark Knight Returns armor, something we all hoped for the moment we saw Batman Vs Superman the movie. Then the movie came out, and I really didn’t understand it everyone including the cats mother knew Clark was Superman no secret identity. Batman, although Ben Affleck was a great older Batman he had lost the plot and was going round branding people and then they died in prison, they managed to squeeze Wonder Woman in and Doomsday looked awful and then they killed Superman at the end ( don’t even get me started on the Martha stuff) the whole movie just seemed like they cramped so much in and they were playing catch up to Marvel, the movie didn’t flow either, I get that the movie we saw wasn’t Zacks vision and the fact they made him cut it down, in my eyes this was the start of the end. A studio had no faith in the director for the audience to see his full vision they didn’t understand his vision and it came out to a lot of negative reviews, but they had started on a rd. which they couldn’t turn back on. We then saw Wonder Woman, which was fantastic a very beautiful movie, but the ending still let it down, then we get a Suicide Squad, another movie either the studio didn’t understand the source material or had no faith in the director but what another shambles, would of loved to see David Ayres original vision for the movie as there where glimpse of something that could have been amazing but instead we got a disjointed movie with a story that didn’t really make sense and then the Justice league drama started. I could write a whole article just on this, but we all know what happened otherwise we wouldn’t be on CBM, but this is where it all started rolling down hill at a hundred miles an hour, they brought in a director to finish off another directors work which even if it was Christopher Nolan rather than Joss Whedon the film wouldn’t of worked.
They brought in JW who turned out to be a not very nice man (to put it mildly) he lied, bullied and did whatever he wanted to, to the cast and was protected by the higher ups. The movie came out and it was dropped like a hot potato, from the opening scene with Henry Cavils CGI mouth you knew that the film was going to be bad, then we had the fans (myself included) started the Snyder cut movement and this is where the toxic behavior started to raise its head. The online movement at first was peaceful, and as DC fans we wanted to get the best possible DC movie that could be made, and after a lot of campaigning we finally got it, was it the right move from the studio, did Zack Snyder play a large part in it by using bots?? I can’t answer any of those, but I thought it was incredible finally a DC movie that was just beautiful, but had there now been too much said and done for this era to carry on. During this time and after, Aquaman (was ok) and Wonder Woman 2 (just awful) had come out and a lot of films announced and then cancelled…. Then we get the announcement of The Flash Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are back as Batman, Holy Jumping beans I thought, FLASHPOINT, then all this news about Ezra Miller and the press he was getting for some of the stupid and damn right disgusting things he was alleged to have done, and I thought this DC universe is cursed. I also never held out too much hope for Black Adam I mean everyone loves The Rock but really did anyone think it was going to be good, and to top it off he ruined his end of credit scene before the movie is released in hopes it will boost ticket sales. In between that we get Batgirl finishing principal photography only to be canceled another nail in the coffin in my opinion and the Wonder Twins being cancelled on day one of filming and you think what a mess, are they really going to claw back from this.
With Discovery and WB joining they knew some substantial changes had to be made and of course DC was their main priority because they had seen how much money Disney had made with the Marvel property. So we then get the announcement James Gunn and Peter Safran are the new heads, me personally I loved GOTG I think its one of the best Marvel movies EVER, the second one not so much, and when he made Suicide Squad for DC I thought he just went way over the top, like a kid getting the keys to a candy shop and eating the sweets all in one night, it was way too much. We now have a new team going to do what they can but can they do there best with all this baggage from the last ten years, is everyone just going to compare Snyder’s DC with these new round of films, probably. So, what is the sensible move, we need to move forward, and that’s to wipe the slate clean and start again, I know some of you are going to say but what about the actors that they are keeping, how is that going to work? I hope they keep the actors and characters that actually worked out for DC, I love Margo Robbie as Harley Quinn and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, I’m super excited to see Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle I thought he did a great job in Cobra Kia, and if the rumors are true then I can’t wait to see Jason Mamoa as Lobo he was made for this part. I suppose what I am saying is this is the right thing to do, it's like breaking up from a toxic relationship there was always good parts but the bad parts out way the good ones tenfold so it’s time to move on and start a fresh. I personally will be standing inline to see a new Superman and Batman movie anything DC I will see, yes, I will have my opinion, but I whole heartedly can’t wait to see what the next ten years of DC looks like. I wish them all the best and hope they just don’t f**k it up, but if we are really true to ourselves everyone knows it can’t be as bad as the last 10 years.
I wish James Gunn all the best, it couldn’t have been easy to take on this toxic mantel and some tough decisions had/have to be made so they can give the fans what they want, and that’s a great slate of movies with the best and most iconic superheroes of all time. Marvels no soul same formular movies need to be challenged and we need to see these amazing characters in some great stories with heart, with audiences coming away think that they can’t wait to see another one. Marvels formular and what they did with some D-list superheroes was out of this world and it really pathed the way for superheroes to be at the forefront of cinema. So rather than everyone jumping on the bandwagon ready to dismiss these films before they have already begun let’s stand behind this team at DC and hope that they do what we all want and just make great movies.