What is Wrong With DC Films?

What is Wrong With DC Films?

Some may say DC is 0 for 3 when it comes to it's cinematic installments. What's wrong and how do you fix it?

Review Opinion
By STF - Aug 18, 2016 05:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Suicide Squad

 
 
Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and now Suicide Squad. Personal opinions aside, you cannot deny that with the amount of diversity between fans among these films, things could be going exceptionally better.
 
The problems with these films have been pointed out by fans so much to the point of annoyance.
 
Personally, I wasn’t worried about the future of DC’s films until Suicide Squad made its debut earlier this month. I thought Man of Steel was solid. Not great but I was thoroughly entertained throughout. Now granted, I haven’t seen that film in easily close to two years, but when I think back to it, I don’t remember being disappointed like I was when I saw Batman V Superman
 
Batman V Superman had a lot of hype, potential, and pressure to live up to. A film that had a 250 Million dollar budget and two of arguably the most popular characters ever obviously would. So when I saw it, I was easily let down by the amount of shoehorned cameos and ridiculous plotlines that never blew me away. The short version is, it was just a huge mess.
 
But you’ve heard all of that before. It’s like beating a dead horse at this point. The main reason I wasn’t worried at that point was because of Suicide Squad. The first trailer looked promising. If you remember, those trailers gave you a different feeling of the tone of the movie then what it actually turned out to be. Instead of a darker, grittier, and more centered film, we got another crowded, choppy, and over the top film that didn’t even come close to satisfying me and most viewers.
 
The original logo of Suicide Squad was a dark metallic font that set the tone for the film. (See below)
 


 
It aligned pretty well with the first trailer. Our first look at Suicide Squad was a realistic, chilling, and pretty somber tone. Personally, it sounded amazing to me. Not to mention that joker appearance at the end was very educing.
 
But somehow, because of the result of Batman V Superman’s critical response of the film “Not being fun enough,” they decided to rehash the ENTIRE film to appeal to that ONE complaint and our first glimpse of that reaction coming into play was the logo change.
 

To me, that’s the reason this movie failed critically. The box office numbers obviously hold up pretty well and anybody reading this article has probably seen all DC films and you will most likely see the majority of future ones.
 
The overall problem here is that it seems DC can’t figure out what kind of world they want to build here. They went dark and gritty with BvS but people complained it’s not as fun as marvel, so they take their next film, which happened to be suicide squad and in the MIDDLE OF PRODUCTION, and did a complete over hall on the film to appeal to that one complaint and in the process of doing that, made a choppy, inconsistent, and overall disappointing movie. I mean seriously, within that first trailer did it really look like Bohemian Rhapsody would fit well as a song in that film? Absolutely not. Most Marvel films have that same tonal feel. It can be dark and serious when it needs to be, but there are always good moments of humor thrown within them. Sometimes it works better then others but with all the flashy colors and neon logos suicide squad brought, I don’t remember hearing many laughs within the theatre. The reason for that is because this movie was originally not intended to have big amounts of humor and be a “fun” movie. Obviously your suppose to have fun while you see it, but not in a Guardians of the Galaxy kind of fun. More like a Christopher Nolan Dark Knight kind of fun.
 
I truly believe there was a good movie within the footage they shot. I feel let down with the amount of Joker clips cut out, the tonal shift, and amount of re-shoots that were obviously used to lighten up the film so this could be DC’s version of Guardians of the Galaxy.
 
Call me gullible but I actually see huge potential for Ben Affleck’s solo Batman film. I’ve always enjoyed his directing work but besides that, I’m not stoked for Wonder woman, The Flash, or Aquamans future films and it simply comes down to the fact that at this point, I don’t trust DC to make a film they are 100% committed too. Of course I will see them, but given DC’s recent history, I will be skeptically optimistic…
 
 
 
 
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MrMajestyk
MrMajestyk - 8/18/2016, 7:31 PM
ComicBookGuy015
ComicBookGuy015 - 8/19/2016, 3:57 AM
The DCEU films are not terribad like most are saying they are. They are nowhere near the quality of Batman and Robin, Catwoman, or Elektra. The problem lies with WB who cant seem to stay out of the way of the directors they hire. I don't think Man of Steel was mucked up by studio interference but BvS and SS sure were. Hopefully Geoff John's can right the ship and sail the DCEU into Paradise Island cuz right now it aint so looking so hot.
Jazzy4
Jazzy4 - 8/20/2016, 4:33 AM
The problem of the DCEU is that it took someone else concept and try to simplify it without really understand how a shared universe should be built.

I really think that WB would have been more successful in the old format with separate franchises and punctual crossover (like with their CW TV shows) than trying to compete with Marvel in the shared universe department.

When you are the second on the market trying to replicate a concept, you'll be compared to it. It's better to do it if you intend to improve it.

Also, WB hasn't found its 'artistic signature' yet and seems to try everything all at once with no clear direction.

As for the financial performance of the three DCEU movies so far, It's not that they terribly performed but since the DCEU went with the reversal of the MCU template, using only its biggest A list characters and lore at that with mostly team up movies, their first movie performance may be the peak within each potential franchise.

As first movies, they quite even overperform considering their critical rates. So that's a good point when you nearly act as bulletproof against critics and tend to limit financial underperformance.

Problem will come with a potential direct sequel since sequels by essence are frontloaded, have shorter legs and an opening weekend that is usually influenced by the goodwill or lack of goodwill of the first movie of the serie.

In that regard the three first DCEU movies may have failed, making the prospect of each potential direct sequel opening lower than its perdecessor with worser legs, hence lowering the final BO prematurally in the serie.

Add the fact that it will come at a point where the DCEU will need to venture outside of its big guns and you have a DCEU who may never really perform financially over the likes of BvS with franchises BO decreasing more rapidly with each movie in from a lower point than Marvel did with its highest BO.
Scarilian
Scarilian - 8/20/2016, 2:44 PM
Rather than allowing the directors to have the vision they want, they are choosing to fiddle with it. Each DC film has had that situation currently and its worsened the films.

Though that's not the core problem, the core issue is that there really is no need for a DCEU at this time. Or at least not the sort that DC are trying to make. They want to make a sort of interconnected universe like Marvel, when they should honestly be making a bunch of solo films based around all the lesser known characters which are more likely to be trusted due to the nature of Superhero films currently. That way they could make the lesser known characters of the DC universe as recognisable as Superman or Batman - who are currently the only two that the general non-superhero audience might know and see a film about.
BloodyBed
BloodyBed - 8/21/2016, 5:49 AM
@Scarilian - that's smart! too bad wb isn't smart and instead they are panicking and pulling the batman card each and every movie
StarlordsDad
StarlordsDad - 8/21/2016, 12:45 PM
@STF my problem with the DC films is I feels that works as comic adaptation but fail as films, that is why some comics fans love these movies, but critique hâte thème. Iron Man 3 is à film that was hated by fans, but loved by critics. That us because it works as a movie but fails in some aspects as a comic adaptation. As a fan I can read the comics at anytime, so I want movies that are not only cool comic book movies but good movies in general.
monsterswin
monsterswin - 8/22/2016, 11:20 AM
It was totally obvious to me that there was a big problem when I saw MOS. Building the universe off of that. Making that the foundation was a mistake from the get go. So they are going to need to change up things quite a bit. Possibly they can use the events of the JLA film to get the characters right, inject some heart into the material, and give us some more color. Supposedly Zacky boy likes the Heroes journey and is into the myth of it all. Myth is bigger than life so give us some bigger than life color. Not just in the palette but also in the writing. It's going to take a lot of doing. Good luck to them.
monsterswin
monsterswin - 9/5/2016, 1:37 PM
Yeah DC/WB's has not earned my trust at all. They have a lot of work to do.
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