DC Cinematic Universe ( The James Gunn era)

[Detached Nacelle]

I don't see how watching a single movie is an "investment." Nobody's required to watch every installment in a shared universe; that's just an option. If an individual movie is good, it's fine to enjoy it for itself and not worry about what happens in the sequels.

That's not how my brain typically works. Watching a single installment takes a fine balance between apathy and curiosity to a property.

Typically if stories are connected then I must seek out every bit of it, at the very least in some basic bullet-point form. If something does not properly fit in or ends on an unresolved cliffhanger I'm compulsed to aggressively headcanon a fix.

It's a situation unique to me when I talk about investment like that, I'm aware. I wish my brain didn't require me to be an insatiable maximalist most of the time, it's a pain. I've just got the bad brain.

 

[Mudd]

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That dialogue's an awkward mouthful, but he manages it about as gracefully as Harrison Ford did Lucas's.

 

[Set Harth]

I don't see how watching a single movie is an "investment." Nobody's required to watch every installment in a shared universe; that's just an option. If an individual movie is good, it's fine to enjoy it for itself and not worry about what happens in the sequels.

I mean, I find the DCEU enormously inconsistent, and I didn't like its first two entries, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the individual films within the series that I did like, such as Wonder Woman and Aquaman and Blue Beetle. The fact that BvS and Wonder Woman 1984 are bad doesn't make Wonder Woman any less good, because they're separate works.

"fact"

 

[Detached Nacelle]

The ultimate edition of Batman vs Superman is for me, the best DC film of them all.

 

[BillJ]

I'm not investing in a universe. Next Tuesday, I'm going to see a new Superman movie. That's exciting!

This. I’ve learned that life is short and we don’t get too many chances to experience something like this on the big screen with friends, family and/or fellow fans.

Whether this is a standalone or leads to hundreds of sequels, there will be no moment like being there for the opening.

 

[Christopher]

That's not how my brain typically works. Watching a single installment takes a fine balance between apathy and curiosity to a property.

Typically if stories are connected then I must seek out every bit of it, at the very least in some basic bullet-point form. If something does not properly fit in or ends on an unresolved cliffhanger I'm compulsed to aggressively headcanon a fix.

I'm a completist too; if there's a whole series, I like to seek out every part of it. But I'm able to judge the value of the installments independently of each other. Every series has bad installments alongside the good, and I don't feel the good installments are diminished by the bad ones. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself of a potential good experience because of a hypothetical concern that future installments might disappoint me. Why assume the worst before it happens? If you have a good experience and are later disappointed, at least you had the good experience. Cheating yourself out of it because of pre-emptive fear is just self-defeating.

I mean, look at the animated "Tomorrowverse," the continuity of DC Animation's direct-to-video superhero movies over the past few years. It started out strong with Superman: Man of Tomorrow, but what followed was mostly mediocre, disjointed, and cut prematurely short. As an overall series, it's quite disappointing. But by itself, Man of Tomorrow is still one of the better Superman movies out there and I'm glad I saw it. (For that matter, most would agree that the later Christopher Reeve Superman movies were disappointing, but do not diminish the worth of the first one.)

Besides, unresolved cliffhangers are the exception, not the norm. Usually in a shared film universe, each film tells a complete story in itself, and any teaser for a future installment is just a minor addition. It's not supposed to be all one continuous blob, it's supposed to be a bunch of individual stories with a secondary layer of connection.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

I'm a completist too; if there's a whole series, I like to seek out every part of it. But I'm able to judge the value of the installments independently of each other. Every series has bad installments alongside the good, and I don't feel the good installments are diminished by the bad ones. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself of a potential good experience because of a hypothetical concern that future installments might disappoint me. Why assume the worst before it happens? If you have a good experience and are later disappointed, at least you had the good experience. Cheating yourself out of it because of pre-emptive fear is just self-defeating.

I mean, look at the animated "Tomorrowverse," the continuity of DC Animation's direct-to-video superhero movies over the past few years. It started out strong with Superman: Man of Tomorrow, but what followed was mostly mediocre, disjointed, and cut prematurely short. As an overall series, it's quite disappointing. But by itself, Man of Tomorrow is still one of the better Superman movies out there and I'm glad I saw it. (For that matter, most would agree that the later Christopher Reeve Superman movies were disappointing, but do not diminish the worth of the first one.)

Besides, unresolved cliffhangers are the exception, not the norm. Usually in a shared film universe, each film tells a complete story in itself, and any teaser for a future installment is just a minor addition. It's not supposed to be all one continuous blob, it's supposed to be a bunch of individual stories with a secondary layer of connection.

Again, welcome to my broken brain. Trust me I'm aware I'm my own worst enemy.

They are less of an exception in this age of sequel bait, half-stories, post-credits scenes and sequels/spin-offs/season 2s announced before a thing is even out and then cancelled when it doesn't make All the Money™ we're sold on things being a portion of a larger whole a lot and I would bet there will be dangling plot threads, unanswered questions and teases of more in the Superman film. Now if it were to Flash-level flop then they would just evaporate into the next reboot. Sure, this doesn't diminish the bulk of the film itself but it is a downer.

The Tomorrowverse has nothing on the preceeding DCAMU now that was a beautiful series.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The trailer looks decent but I've been hurt too many times to invest in the entire universe again. I invested in the Snyderverse but WB sabotaged themselves and destroyed it and then wondered why it wasn't being successful

The DCEU began with an increasingly successful group of films (Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice & Wonder Woman)--among the best superhero movies ever produced--but at the first chance, the executives wanted to ape the MCU by dragging Whedon over to complete Justice League (after Snyder left due to the tragic death of his daughter), and from that moment forward with few exceptions (e.g., Aquaman), the DCEU was derailed, as seen with the travesties known as Shazam and Wonder Woman 1984. WB knew they were in freefall, and responded to mass audience interest by investing in Snyder to finish his version of Justice League as originally intended, which was another success, but in the end, films such as the lackluster Blue Beetle, the heavily manipulated The Flash and the Shazam sequel was concrete evidence that WB did not know how to leave a great arc to itself, and preferred to copy+paste the leanings of another franchise on DC. That experience alone is enough to sour anyone to the idea of following a rebooted film universe.

I don't have the heart to give the Gunnverse my full devotion as it will undoubtedly be retooled and rebooted upon a flop.

Probably. We will see once the full budget is released

but I will give Superman an open-minded watch as an isolated project and that's probably how I'll approach this era of DC content.

That's a rational way of approaching the Gunn situation.

 

[Christopher]

They are less of an exception in this age of sequel bait, half-stories, post-credits scenes and sequels/spin-offs/season 2s announced before a thing is even out and then cancelled when it doesn't make All the Money™ we're sold on things being a portion of a larger whole a lot and I would bet there will be dangling plot threads, unanswered questions and teases of more in the Superman film.

But that's just what I'm saying. A post-credit scene that teases a future movie is not a cliffhanger or a dangling plot thread. It is factually incorrect to treat those as interchangeable. The film's own story is complete. You could leave off the post-credit scene without having any impact on the actual plot. It's just a commercial for the thing that comes next, like when a TV episode has a preview of the next episode at the end. It's not a dangling thread of that movie's plot, it's just a sneak preview of a future movie's plot. That's why they put them after the credits -- because they're separate and optional.

The whole thing I'm saying is that not everything is about the interconnections -- or at least that there are different levels of interconnection. Just because two stories have a small thing connecting them does not mean they are merely chapters of a single continuous story. There's a big difference between, say, a trilogy that's three separate stories with continuity between them, like Star Trek II-IV, and a trilogy that's just one story cut into three pieces, like Jackson's The Hobbit. So just because a movie teases elements of future films does not mean it's incomplete. It means it's complete but has extra connections.

 

[Mudd]

You won't be able to tell anything about the profitability of the film based on a publicly released budget.

 

[Mudd]

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[Mudd]

'Superman' Special Sneak Peek: James Gunn Finally Gives Us the Man of Steel We Deserve for the 21st Century

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a new Superman!

collider.com

From everything we heard and saw, it seems like this Superman is going for a more timeless approach, with a lighter touch than we’ve seen recently. As production designer Beth Mickle told us, in regards to how this film differentiates itself from recent iterations: “I think what we really wanted to do was really brighten everything up and really lighten it up and make it hopeful, hopeful, hopeful. And so, that’s really what we’ve led with, with the visuals, and the tone, the lighting, the cast.” Mickle also continued, “some of the leading words we’ve used are 'nostalgia,' 'Americana,' 'timeliness,' 'bright,' 'colorful,' 'hopeful.'”

Of course, Superman is crucial in setting up this universe, but Nong talked about how each project within this new DCU will stand on its own. “The beauty of what James is envisioning is that he wants, and we want, every film and television show to be its own unique thing. We don’t want to do anything that negates what’s happening here, like they have to kind of flow. But we’re not handcuffed by it and everything is uniquely its own thing, and that’s really awesome.” Speaking of Gunn’s co-chairman and co-chief executive officer of DC Studios, Peter Safran, Nong said, “You’ll hear Peter say consistent but not connected.”

In talking about Gunn, both Sampaio and Gisondo were also glowing. Sampaio says, “I just trust him completely because he knows what he's doing and he knows every single little detail about the world. It's not just this movie that we're doing. He's already thinking about this and that, and it's fascinating. But he's such a normal, fun guy that even though he’s the big boss, he doesn't feel like that.” Gisondo agrees, stating, “James, for sure, there are a million things he's thinking about, but as a combination of him being so prepared and so excited and knowing the world so well, he just exudes this calm confidence, and it permeates throughout the whole production. Everything just feels easy.” Sampaio concludes the conversation by saying, “It almost feels like a small movie, even though it's obviously a big production, but it just feels very family."

 

[Nerys Myk]

You won't be able to tell anything about the profitability of the film based on a publicly released budget.

We're all seasoned Hollywood accountants here, sir!!!!

 

[oktay]

James Gunn On Adria Arjona As Wonder Woman: “She’d Be A Great Wonder Woman”

James Gunn is addressing rumors that he is looking into casting Adria Arjona as Wonder Woman in the DC Universe.

deadline.com

 

[Mudd]

We're all seasoned Hollywood accountants here, sir!!!!

The naivete of it all is delightful.

 

[Tosk]

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

We're all seasoned Hollywood accountants here, sir!!!!

Numbers do not lie, unlike some (not meaning you) who will use a box office return alone as "evidence" of pure profit when that has not now or ever been the way the actual profit is determined. Of course, when it comes to movies certain people still obsessively hate, they will make claims about how much a film "actually" earned, contradicting their stand about films they are campaigning for. Funny how it always works out that way.

 

[BillJ]

Numbers do not lie, unlike some (not meaning you) who will use a box office return alone as "evidence" of pure profit when that has not now or ever been the way the actual profit is determined. Of course, when it comes to movies certain people still obsessively hate, they will make claims about profits, contradicting their stand about films they are campaigning for. Funny how it always works out that way.

End of the day, we are all flying completely in the dark.

 

[Aragorn]

We're all seasoned Hollywood accountants here, sir!!!!

Harry Potter movie made a $200 million profit. Wait, Warner charged itself a $200 million distribution fee, so now it's break even and no bonus for you.

 

[Mudd]

Numbers do not lie...

You've never met an accountant.

"Numbers don't lie" is a misleadingly simplistic statement. Numbers don't tell the truth, either.

Outsiders have incomplete information - and, frankly, everyone who offers an opinion about the meaning of the few statistics that are made publicly available has a narrative that they're either promoting or else mean to undercut.

The various rule-of-thumb formulas that are bandied around online regarding movie profitability are jokes. They're good for bar room arguments, and that's all.