DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond

[Christopher]

The biggest thing for me with the canon question is the characters who's scene were cut, like Iris If she is in whatever version of The Flash movie that ends up on screen, will they have to bring Keirsey Clemons back, or will they still have to option to recast the role?

Why would they "have to?" Movie series recast actors all the time.

And like I said, movie series are never bound by canon. There are countless movie series that wildly contradict their own earlier installments or ignore them altogether. The DCEU canon as it currently exists already has numerous inconsistencies and retcons. Canon is not a restriction on creators, merely a label for the overall body of their creations, no matter how well or poorly it fits together.

 

[Samurai8472]

Henry Cavill in Talks to Return as Superman for Warner Bros

https://www.thewrap.com/henry-cavill-in-talks-to-return-as-superman-for-warner-bros/

At the time, insiders said Warner Bros. was rethinking its strategy for DC Comics movies, moving away from the shared universe approach and toward standalone films. And indeed, just a few months after Cavill departed, so did Batman actor Ben Affleck, and the planned standalone “The Batman” was retooled to focus on a younger version of the character played by Robert Pattison.

So...they confirm that at some point, Cavill was let go as Supes. Now they're doing this song and dance again because the Snyder Cut is apparently happening?

.....okay

 

[The Realist]

Variety and Deadline are also reporting this. Per the latter:

We hear Cavill could come back in a couple of different ways, not a standalone film, but there are plans to put him back in the big red cape again sources with knowledge tell us.

Warner Bros. is not developing a Man of Steel sequel, and Wonder Woman 1984, Suicide Squad are in the can, and Superman isn’t expected to make a cameo in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Other projects where Cavill could make a cameo are Shazam 2, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam or Aquaman 2, which are the next productions to be prepped once COVID-19 safety restrictions lift.

I confess I've never entirely warmed to Cavill as Superman, and not just under Snyder's direction; to me, he's still a bit of a stiff even in the theatrical cut of Justice League. Still, we could do worse, and hopefully if he continues in the role (beyond a cameo in somebody else's movie), Amy Adams might return, too. I get the impression she really likes working with Cavill, and I read recently where she's still open to playing Lois again.

 

[dahj]

The biggest thing for me with the canon question is the characters who's scene were cut, like Iris If she is in whatever version of The Flash movie that ends up on screen, will they have to bring Keirsey Clemons back, or will they still have to option to recast the role?

This movie was pre-Crisis, so you can always blame Barry. Either one of them.

 

[theenglish]

On the other hand, it should be remembered that the reason the Snyder Cut wasn't released the first time is that the studio was quite unhappy with it, so unhappy that they were willing to spend a lot of money on reworking it massively.

Or was the reason that it was reworked because they were desperate for a smash hit after BvS didn't live up to expectations and created a fan backlash against their incarnation of the DC universe? It could be argued that the theatrical version is the one that was made because fans were listened to and that it was hastily put together resulting in a critical and financial failure in the eyes of the studio.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Not rewarding bad behavior, just creating unrealistic expectations that all you have to do is make noise and start an online petition and eventually the studios will give in. Most of the time, fan petitions accomplish nothing.

People signed petitions calling for a new version of The Last Jedi and of the final season of Game of Thrones. That ship has not only sailed, it has sunk.

PS - I agree with your point that the pandemic and restrictions on film are likely to have played a part in this decision. Nope, I don’t claim to have any insight into WB’s decision-making, but it does make sense. A lot of people, me included, have grumbled that we’ve signed up for Disney plus but aren’t going to get shows like The Falcon & the Winter Soldier in our first year of subscribing due to shooting being postponed. So I can see why it would be a no-brainer for a newly launching subscription channel to go down this route. All the more reason to see this as the exception, not the rule, in response to fan clamour.

 

[Christopher]

Or was the reason that it was reworked because they were desperate for a smash hit after BvS didn't live up to expectations and created a fan backlash against their incarnation of the DC universe? It could be argued that the theatrical version is the one that was made because fans were listened to and that it was hastily put together resulting in a critical and financial failure in the eyes of the studio.

Well, first off, fans have an unfortunate tendency to assume they constitute 100% of the audience. The majority of any movie's audience is casual viewers, people who are just looking for a movie to take the family or a date to, or who are going to see an actor they like, or whatever. So it's the general public's response and the box office returns that studios listen to, far more than the clamor of fans online, because the online complainers and petitioners represent a statistically trivial fraction of the total moviegoing audience. That's why fan petitions almost never work.

Considering what will satisfy the audience is not just about listening to the audience. It's about listening to your own judgment and experience as a professional to assess what has satisfied audiences in the past and what's more likely to do so in the future (though of course there's no guarantee that it will work as well as you hope). Remember, the WB execs decided they were unhappy with the rough cut of JL when they saw it, not when the audience saw it (because the audience still hasn't seen it). It was their own professional judgment that it was inadequate and required reworking. This happens all the time, despite fandom's kneejerk reaction to it as some kind of crisis or scandal every time they hear about it. It's a normal part of the creative process to assess a draft version of a work and send it back for revisions if it's inadequate. It isn't about audience feedback, because it happens before the audience sees it -- the whole point is that you want to improve a work as much as you can before you let it out into the public.

Besides, doesn't it stand to reason that if BvS "didn't live up to expectations," there was no reason to expect that the subsequent movie from the same director would be any better? Why assume Snyder's JL would've been better than what we got instead?

There's no question that the reworked version of JL was rushed and suffered because of it. But that doesn't mean the original version was some flawless masterpiece. If it had been, they wouldn't have needed the reshoots in the first place.

 

[The Realist]

I suspect the main problem with the rough cut, from the studio's POV, was that it was very Snyder. And post-BvS, the studio had belatedly decided they didn't want "very Snyder." Those who like what Snyder does will probably be delighted with his cut.

 

[Soong-type Android]

I’m also baffled by the idea that it’s rewarding bad behaviour, as I’ve seen suggested (not so much here but on twitter). It’s a response to demand by fans, by Snyder himself and by some cast members, including Affleck and Gadot. Really, it’s not all that different from the Donner cut, from Lucas changing the Han v Greedo scene again so that Greedo no longer shoots first, from the various other directors’ cuts that have been made, to the forthcoming legacy sequel Ghostbusters etc. Much, if not all of what Hollywood does is driven by demand or what it perceives to be in demand. This is just another example of it.

I don't subscribe to the idea of it rewarding so called "toxic fandom". They are just fans who happen to be invested in the highly divisive (and failed) DCEU and want "Snyder's vision" of Justice League which they imagine to somehow be better than the released version completed by Joss Whedon. The circumstances caused by Covid-19 shutting down filming that created a need for new material and streaming sites like HBO Max wanting a Mandolorian type product happened to make the perfect storm that allowed the Snyder Cut to get the necessary support to be released.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Besides, doesn't it stand to reason that if BvS "didn't live up to expectations," there was no reason to expect that the subsequent movie from the same director would be any better? Why assume Snyder's JL would've been better than what we got instead?

There's no question that the reworked version of JL was rushed and suffered because of it. But that doesn't mean the original version was some flawless masterpiece. If it had been, they wouldn't have needed the reshoots in the first place.

So basically no director's cut is worth doing? Because it didn't live up to the expectations of WB execs? And aren't reshoots a normal part of the filmmaking process? I know I've heard that whenever someone post negatively about a movie doing reshoots.

 

[Christopher]

So basically no director's cut is worth doing?

Huh? How do you get from an observation about a single specific case to a blanket generalization? If someone says to you "Man, that was a bad pizza I had last night," would you answer "So basically no Italian food is worth making?"

And aren't reshoots a normal part of the filmmaking process? I know I've heard that whenever someone post negatively about a movie doing reshoots.

Yes, that's exactly the point -- that it's common for an early draft to be heavily revised, and that it is not logical to assume that every preliminary cut has to be better than the released version. Again, it makes no sense to apply blanket generalizations when each case is different and needs to be assessed on its own terms.

 

[JD]

Henry Cavill in Talks to Return as Superman for Warner Bros

https://www.thewrap.com/henry-cavill-in-talks-to-return-as-superman-for-warner-bros/



So...they confirm that at some point, Cavill was let go as Supes. Now they're doing this song and dance again because the Snyder Cut is apparently happening?

.....okay

I don't mind seeing Cavill come back. I'm not a huge fan of how Superman was presented in his movies, but Cavill did do a good job and I'd be curious to see him do a version of the character that was closer to the comics. We did seem to be starting to head in that direction with the theatrical version of Justice League.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Huh? How do you get from an observation about a single specific case to a blanket generalization? If someone says to you "Man, that was a bad pizza I had last night," would you answer "So basically no Italian food is worth making?"

I did miss the shift from JL to BvS when the opinion of the WB execs was mentioned previously.

Yes, that's exactly the point -- that it's common for an early draft to be heavily revised, and that it is not logical to assume that every preliminary cut has to be better than the released version. Again, it makes no sense to apply blanket generalizations when each case is different and needs to be assessed on its own terms.

I just don't see why it doesn't stand to reason that it *could* be better. Even if it's not better, maybe just different, I think it would be interesting to see another take on the material. I don't understand the pushback on Snyder doing his own edit. I guess some people have something against the fans attitude or something, I guess that doesn't factor much with me.

 

[Christopher]

I just don't see why it doesn't stand to reason that it *could* be better.

As I said, there's no reason to expect Snyder's JL to have been any better than BvS was. Sure, the theatrical JL was flawed, but BvS was enormously worse. People seem to forget that in their eagerness to mythologize the unseen cut.

 

[dahj]

It's gonna be lit yo.

 

[The Realist]

As I said, there's no reason to expect Snyder's JL to have been any better than BvS was. Sure, the theatrical JL was flawed, but BvS was enormously worse. People seem to forget that in their eagerness to mythologize the unseen cut.

Nobody's forgetting anything. Most of the people "mythologizing" the unseen Snyder cut of JL LOVED BvS. Just because you didn't, and I didn't, doesn't mean nobody did.

 

[Ovation]

Nobody's forgetting anything. Most of the people "mythologizing" the unseen Snyder cut of JL LOVED BvS. Just because you didn't, and I didn't, doesn't mean nobody did.

Only people who wilfully live in a bubble of their own making, with little dissent allowed, would think otherwise. Sadly, staying within such a bubble precludes considering other points of view (no need to adopt a new view, just healthier to not shun them).

 

[theenglish]

Is anybody else struck by the irony of debating the effect fan petitions have on the outcome of a franchise on a STAR TREK board?

 

[Christopher]

Is anybody else struck by the irony of debating the effect fan petitions have on the outcome of a franchise on a STAR TREK board?

No, because it's a myth that the "Save Star Trek" campaign actually saved the show. According to documents presented in Solow & Justman's Inside Star Trek, the campaign was much smaller than Roddenberry later claimed, it was largely organized by Roddenberry through Bjo Trimble rather than being the grass-roots movement he spun it as, and there's no compelling evidence that NBC was actually going to cancel the show at all. It was just "on the bubble," its fate not yet decided -- and while having a passionate fanbase didn't hurt, it earned its renewal the same way that countless other bubble shows have earned theirs, through the producers striking a deal to reduce the budget of the following season by having fewer episodes, fewer guest stars, more bottle episodes, less location work, fewer original episode scores, etc. The famous onscreen announcement that tends to get interpreted as "All right, fandom, we surrender and will uncancel the show as you demanded" was more just "Listen, fandom, we're not actually cancelling the show so please stop flooding our mailrooms."

And even if the letter campaign had saved the show, it would've been the exception, not the rule. The belief that it had worked prompted countless other attempts at fan letter-writing campaigns over the decades (once in high school, a classmate tried to get me to sign a petition to save Mr. Smith, a mediocre sitcom about a superintelligent orangutan who went into politics), but only a vanishingly few shows have ever gotten their fates reversed by fan campaigns or petitions alone. Like I've been saying, it's important to understand the difference between a lone exception and a general expectation. One success does not guarantee others.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I'd be curious to see him do a version of the character that was closer to the comics.

Yeah...like early Golden Age, not that sugar water dopiness that was the Weisinger/Swan.