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.
(Via GeekTyrant) Well, OK, it’s not really that bad right now for me. I liked Justice League! I felt that they were aware of the problems in the franchise, and were trying to right course before it crashed into the ground. I want the DCEU to succeed; I grew up reading Superman and Batman, not X-Men and the Fantastic Four.
So this Walter Hamada guy might make things better. He’s got stuff like It and The Conjuring on his resume; I’ve seen the former but not the latter, and It was lots of fun. So I can’t see how this can be a bad thing. Truly.
Moe Lane
PS: Yes, you may all scoff, now. That’s fine.
It might be smarter to go with Joss Whedon. Just tell him you want your cinematic universe to be something people will actually want to see, then stand back and let him do his Buffy, Angel, and Firefly thing.
No.
Just no.
.
Bathos would absolutely kill the DC brand. Sacrificing the dramatic build for a cheap joke is as close as diametrically opposed to the brand’s identity as you could get.
Largely agree, although, Whedon handles bathos better than most. I think the main reason to skip on Whedon is that his style of banter is too pervasive these days. We don’t need another too clever by half quip fest.
Yes, we must stick to the established style — perhaps best described as “dark, murdery fearscape with a side order of clunk.” We certainly don’t want any fun or inspiration in our superhero adventures.
WB really needs to demonstrate that they have a plot. A shared universe more or less requires some sort of overarching plot, and that’s one of the reasons why the MCU has worked. Everything that’s happened so far in MCU advances one (or both) of two meta-plots. First it was the Avengers plot – i.e. getting the team together. And starting with the first Captain America movie, the Infinity War plot got started.
Except Ant-Man. That movie was more or less out there on its own. But that’s okay, because it was a lot of fun. (Yeah, I know, the movie introduced the character; but you could cut the movie from the MCU, and it wouldn’t be a terrible loss to the meta-plot)
Meanwhile, over in the DCEU corner, we go from Man of Steel to Batman vs Superman to…
Suicide Squad!?
Wonder Woman finally managed to break the curse of weak DCEU movies. But aside from giving us background information on Wonder Woman, it didn’t really do anything for the meta plot.
As an example, consider the two “back in the old days” movies from the MCU and the DCEU. In the MCU, we have Captain America: The First Avenger. In the second scene of the movie (arguably the first scene plot-wise, since the actual first scene is the frozen bomber) we are introduced to a glowing cube. Now the movie is not about the glowing cube. The movie is about Cap fighting Red Skull. But the glowing cube is an important macguffin within the movie, and the movie makes sure that we know that there’s this glowing cube that’s really powerful. The movie also makes sure that we know that Howard Stark ended up with the glowing cube at the end of the movie.
Meanwhile, the connection that Wonder Woman has with the greater DCEU is apparently the character herself, and a photograph that Bruce located for her. But the significance of that photo appears to be entirely found within the movie itself, and has nothing to do with the greater DCEU. Why didn’t they add something? One of the first things that we learn in Justice League is that the plot of Justice League is tied to ancient technology. Couldn’t they have included something in Wonder Woman that at least hinted at this? Such a connection would have helped suggest that the movies really are interlinked, and not just a bunch of random scripts that are haphazardly being linked together with Batman cameos.
That’s a great idea. The problem is, in the DC universe, the movies aren’t so much interlinked as they are a bunch of random scripts that are haphazardly being linked together with Batman cameos.