Ava DuVernay is the director of A Wrinkle In Time, but I’m not trying to hold that against her. There is some indication that she actually wishes to direct this particular superhero movie, which is good; and New Gods is of course Jack Kirby at his Kirby-ish. If it’s walled off from the rest of the DCEU — if, indeed, it can even be said to be part of the DCEU, Steppenwolf or no — that may very well be for the best. I have high hopes for the Aquaman movie, but we’re still trying to get a director who can really understand Superman as a concept. Or who can be allowed to show that concept, I suppose.
So I hope DuVernay can make it work. But — speaking as a DC comics kid — I really wish that DC had somebody like Kevin Feige directing traffic. It’s not so much that all of the MCU movies flow into each other; it’s that the Marvel movies are all being watched over by somebody who fundamentally cares about the source material. Then again, I have no idea who that might be, so what do I know? I guess that the best that we can hope for is the occasional good standalone. May this be one of them.
Hard pass.
.
She already proved that she has a tin ear for stories and themes, and she engages in wildly inappropriate casting that runs directly counter to what the story demands.
At best, it’ll merely be awash in bathos.
And I judge the best case to be vanishingly unlikely.