Moe Lane

Oh, Warner Bros, why must you taunt me with hope?

As part of a shake-up of its DC film operations, Warner Bros. is promoting Walter Hamada to oversee its comic book movies, Variety has learned. He will serve as president of DC-based film production. In December, the studio decided to replace Jon Berg and Geoff Johns as the heads of the DC movies. Berg became a production partner with Roy Lee, the producer of “The Lego Movie” and “It,” who has a deal on the lot.

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Jon Berg’s the guy who was keeping an eye on the production of the DCEU on behalf of Warner Bros. And he’s been removed.

Jon Berg, co-president of production at Warner Bros. Pictures, will leave his post at the studio to become a producer with filmmaker Roy Lee, who has produced successful movies for the studio including “It” and “The Lego Movie.” Berg, who ran point on DC movies and was credited as a producer on “Justice League,” has been an executive at the studio for about a decade. Toby Emmerich, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said it was Berg’s decision to step down.

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Short version: Justice League, perhaps surprisingly, did not actually suck. There is even a hint of a suggestion that the people who put the movie it may have tried to have fun in the process. I dunno just how much each one of you have felt betrayed by DCEU to date, but this is at least matinee-worthy.

Somewhat longer version: ach, well, it’s not a Marvel film, for better or for worse. I’m not going to get in on the relative merits of DC vs. Marvel comic books (largely because I was always on Team DC, so I’m obviously prejudiced there) but there are things that one IP can do more easily than the other, and vice versa. It’s hard for Marvel movies to achieve gravitas, and it’s bloody difficult for DC ones to shed their excess. If Justice League was trying to do anything else, it was trying to get out from under the gloomy nature of the DCEU films that preceded it. And I think that it did a better job than I expected it to.

Also: the movie actually rectified a nigh-constant complaint that I have had in the past. I won’t say more because spoilers.

I mean, we’ll know in a half hour, when Rotten Tomatoes ends an embargo on Justice League that everybody’s largely assuming signifies that the reviews aren’t going to be great. Certainly the New York Times, which doesn’t need no stinking embargoes, isn’t saying the same things about it that people said about Thor or Wonder Woman. And the Times didn’t even hate it! They graded it on a curve, but they didn’t hate it.

It’ll likely make a ton of money, though. If not here, overseas. So how to correct the DCEU? Well, if only there was a director with a proven ability to make a blockbuster film – preferably, one set in the DCEU universe – that was also widely applauded as being a good blockbuster film. But where could DC find such a wonder?

I dunno. I kind of started out wanting to love it, then I kind of wanted to hate it, and now it’s growing a little on me.

Come Together, Gary Clark Jr.

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Weird: it looks like the characters might be having, ah, fun or something. This is absolutely unnatural for any DC movie that doesn’t have Wonder Woman in it.. oh, right, Justice League has Wonder Woman in it.  Never mind: that explains it.

Hey! They discovered that the color wheel includes red!

I dunno, folks.  It presents more like a proper superhero movie than every DCEU movie that isn’t Wonder Woman so far.  Is it a proper superhero flick?  Guess we’re going to find out!

Moe Lane

PS: I like how they’re doing Aquaman, at least. So they’ve got that going for them.

And, I admit: I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t succumbed to temptation and shown any Justice League footage yet of Superman.

(From Geeks Are Sexy) (more…)

The ‘thing’ being that the Wonder Woman movie is almost certainly going to be their best-grossing DCEU movie by the end of Fourth of July weekend.  In light of that, I feel that DC should review their character conceptions. Potentially drastically.  Here are some suggestions. (more…)

Well. It looks more… actiony? That’s good, right? Still: SOMEBODY TAKE AWAY COSTUMING’S BLACK INK. THEY HAVE ABUSED THE PRIVILEGE OF THE DYE CLOSET.