'Member When Ben Affleck Was Batman? Examining When And Where The DC Extended Universe Went Wrong

@LEVITIKUZ - Notably, Nolan, Raimi, and Lucas all fell apart in the third film, and all three had some kind of reluctance, resistance, or even hostility toward the franchise by that point.

If there are any general rules to be gleaned about cinematic universes from the MCU and the various shortcomings of other studios it's this: Producers plan, directors execute.

And both parts of that equation are important. Producers genuinely need to be creative forces, who care about the story and bring a perspective to the material. They can't just apply their MBA and some focus test results to paste together a marketable film slate and hand it off to a writers' room.

And directors need to get over their drama queen shit and understand that they're one part of a larger ensemble. Yes, you'll get to play your solo, but you also need to play off of the same sheet music as everyone else.

And there's a lot of communication and blurring of roles involved there (studios need to hire directors who they can work well with, directors need to be able and eager to involve themselves in each others' films, actors can themselves become curators of their characters and keeping them consistent. The whole endeavor is built on respect, restraint, and collaboration. Once it becomes about "whose job" something is, it all falls apart into turf wars and ego fights.)

@Spock0Clock - I actually disagree a bit in those 3 directors falling off in the 3rd films

With Raimi, I can’t really blame him. There is a lot that worked with Spider-Man 3. I think Sandman even works & ties very well into the theme of forgiveness the film was trying to do

The problem was Venom. Raimi wanted Vulture & based on his originals pitch Vulture would’ve been connected rob Harry. Also Sandman & Vulture would have met in prison & busted out together. When you think about all the stuff people disliked:

Jazz scene
Emo Peter
Venom
Eddie Brock
Gwen

That’s all tied to Avi Arad forcing Venom into a script that wasn’t meant for him to be in. In fact, I’d say Raimi suffered way more studio interference than Snyder ever did.

With Nolan, he was just done. I think DKR is still a fine & good film. Not as good as the first 2 films but you could tell he did the film solely to end the series

With Lucas, he was going through a divorce & stress but I still really love Jedi. There are issues but in my opinion it was one of the greatest final acts ever to a trilogy mostly because of the emotional strength of Emperor & Vader vs Luke. I do also think because of the epic ness & special effect of the space battle which still hasn’t been matched

I don’t think they are at all bad films. Just ok/good films that could’ve been better

I still don’t think you need to plan your trilogy or series out. In fact, I kind of don’t like knowing where a film will go. Not at all hating on the MCU but we all knew Thanos was the endgame since 2012. I’m fine with teasing an audience like that but I just look at how DKR had Bane & nobody expected Nolan to choose Bane as the main villain. I like that shock (and I do think Bane works as a role similar to the mutant leader in TDKReturns as being a physical opponent to an older Batman).

Get what I sort of mean. Like I don’t want to bring up the new Star Wars trilogy but you always hear people say Disney has no idea where they want to go despite JJ saying before TLJ that he wished he was directing TLJ just because he loved the script that much. People think Disney has no plan when JJ clearly does & has for a while

I think it’s more an effect of the MCU (not blaming them) where nowadays audiences demand to know about where future films are going and not focused on the film right now & studios do this & plan an entire universe before releasing a single movie

That’s just my opinion. I don’t mind the MCU but I don’t think we need to judge every film franchise but using the MCU as a benchmark where there is more than 1 way to plan a franchise.

I mean look at the reboot Planet of the Apes series

Is there hints towards future films leading to a complete Planet of the Apes reboot? Yes there is. However these films don’t feel as planned out as say the MCU films. No offense to marvel but again it’s like we don’t know what will happen in every Apes film & they’ve all been great & well executed

@LEVITIKUZ - "It's not _____'s fault, the studio didn't give him the complete control his genius obviously required!"

Fill in the blank with Raimi, Snyder, or really anyone else, but it's all the same personality-cult bullshit.

@LEVITIKUZ - Snyder and Raimi are different situations, but the impulse and mode of their defenses by defenders are the same. The director takes his frustrations out by lashing out and that hurts the experience for the audience, and then people in the audience defend him for it. That's the cult I'm talking about.

If a chef spits into my soup, it doesn't matter to me if he was only forced to put that soup of the day on his menu because the manager is a dick who told him to. He's the one who fouled it up, and he did so out of spite. Period.

As for Raimi's other Spider-Man films, they're okay, but far from great. They're painfully derivative of Donner's Superman in tone and approach. It reduces the traditional supporting cast into either flat maudlin simps or the chattering muppet harlequinade that was the Daily Bugle. I get that some people liked the first two, fine. They were marginally better than the other third-party Marvel films of the era, but "great" is ridiculous.

And you have to be drinking the Raimi cult kool-aid to look at Spider-Man 3 and see how the tangential inclusion of Venom was the problem. Remove him and the black suit, what have you got? Soap opera amnesia stories when people get bonked on the head like Fred Flintstone? An insulting retcon about Ben's murder? Omelettes?

Spider-Man 3 is terrible for all the reasons that people refuse to admit that Spider-Man 2 is overrated.

I don't wanna talk about it anymore, I'm getting worked up, and I don't like getting worked up...

@Spock0Clock - so let me ask you, why was it ok for Feige to clash with Perlmutter?

Feige is the chef of the MCU & Perlmutter was his manger & Feige forced Disney to get him out of the movies

All of what you said could be relayed to Phase 2 of the MCU & how films like IM3, Thor the Dark World, AOU, & Ant-Man turned out

@Atomicockroach - It's just a movie, dude.

And Affleck has become a very successful director and has any number of acting projects coming up and under his belt. So, I don't think it's a damn shame what he did to his life, especially just because a host of people didn't like him as Batman.

@Atomicockroach - If a Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back gif makes you feel sad...come on.

However, of course his life is clearly semi in the weeds and certainly in a large personal downward-spiral. Sad stuff to see. But he'd have been an alcoholic either way regardless of his career choices.

Whether you meant it or not, your initial comment came off as suggesting that his comic book films led to this would-be downfall. Apologies if you didn't mean that or if I offended you. Genuinely. I want no bad blood. I'm an un-proud alcoholic myself, but a Holden McNeil gif was meant to be a goofy joke. I legitimately meant no offense, but god bless, my friend.

@SisterSunday52 -


OH GOD NO!!!!!

@IronMandarin - "There is nothing left that needs to be said about the DCEU that has not already been said."

"Shut it down."

Specifically, it needs to be said by Kevin Tsujihara.