WB's Justice League 2017 movie pre-discussion thread

My greatest fear is Wonder Woman turning back into a bland character that's only there for the action scenes like how she was in BvS, especially after she became an actual well developed person in her own movie.

Zach Snyder always finds a way to screw things up.

 

i doubt they will be time for her, as aquaman, cyborg and the flash will need some more screen time as they havent got their own origin/stand alone movies yet. I mean look what happened to bvs becuse they tried squeezing a batman origin movie into it and the movie suffered as a result. Imagine what is gonna happen with more characters in the justice league movie.

 

Well, with Joss Whedon writing and directing the reshoots and doing the final edit, I expect we'll get more character-building moments than if it had been Snyder throughout. The overall story structure and action sequences may be set, but reshoots could refine the character interaction and dialogue, and a Whedon-led editing process would probably prioritize the character bits more than a Snyder-led one. I've read that it does look as if the reshoots involve some Diana-centric material, among other things.

Besides, I think Diana was the least bland character in BvS, though that owes far more to Gal Gadot than it does to the script or directing.

 

Mark Hughes is a big Snyder fan, so he's not always unbiased. For every article saying "Snyder's work is not being redone", I can share just as many saying it will. Trust me, the hiring of Elfman and the firing of Holkenberg should be a red flag that this is no longer a Zack Snyder movie.

 

I've seen many such articles. The Forbes article does a good job deconstructing them, and not by spending too much time cheerleading for Snyder. Those articles that spend time arguing the film is essentially being revamped end to end, however, are largely Snyder-bashing rather than cogently arguing their point.

 

So? The truth of an idea is not determined by how many people are claiming it, but by how informed and reasonable their arguments are. Reality is not a popularity contest. The Earth orbited the Sun even when most people believed it was the other way around.

 

Soooo... why did you choose to share the one article that emphatically and repeatedly states that Snyder's work is not being redone???

 

If you thought Wonder Woman was "bland" in "Batman v. Superman", well I guess you do. I certainly didn't think so. In fact, I definitely didn't find her bland. And by the way, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot were not the only ones responsible for Diana's characterization in "Wonder Woman". Snyder and the two other screenwriters wrote the script.

So the fear that Snyder will find "a way to screw things up" by making Diana "bland" really doesn't make sense to me.

Ever since the release of "Batman v. Superman", the level of hostility and bashing toward Snyder has been really high . . . and rather excessive to me. It seems as if the media and a good number of fans are making him out to be the next George Lucas - you know, the Lucas who made the Prequel Trilogy. To this day, I find the hostility toward Lucas rather ridiculous and excessive. And I can say the same about the hostility toward Snyder. And his reputation is being shredded to bits over one movie . . . or because he didn't portray Superman as a one-note hero.

 

Just like george lucas, snyder works best as part if a collaborative effort and usually doesnt do well when left to his own devices.

 

Am I supposed to accept this as a fact? Or is this your opinion? Whether you regard it as a fact or an opinion, I don't agree with you. Period. I think there is something about "Batman v. Superman" and the Prequel Trilogy that scares the shit out of people. And I don't believe it has anything to do with the quality of the films.

 

The main reason the idea that Whedon is going to be basically redoing the whole movie is hard for me to believe is the time left before release. The movie is coming out in 5 months, and that really just doesn't seem like enough time for the massive changes that some people suspect are happening.
Edited to fix incomplete sentence and gramma.

 

All this agonized debating over the nature of finishing touches concerning a movie about grown men in capes fighting mosquitoes...

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Also, the expense would be ridiculous. They're not going to throw out everything they already spent insane amounts of time and money to create. And of course, they've already been rethinking and reworking everything all along, because that is how creativity works.

What gets me is the collective amnesia of the Internet. We go through this every single time a major movie is announced as having reshoots. People always overreact and think it means it's a wholesale effort to "rescue" a doomed production, and the rumors always turn out to be exaggerated, and the people who know what they're talking about always explain that it's a normal part of any major movie's production and is planned for and budgeted from the start... and then, just months later, it all starts up again with the next announcement of reshoots. How long is it going to be before people catch on that this is routine?

 

It's only provoking overreaction because Snyder is a whipping boy. If it was happening on a film where the main creative director was not anybody's whipping boy, no one would notice.

 

It was shredded long before that. Remember the reviews to Suckerpunch? Even Watchmen was divided.

 

They didn't scare me, they bored me.

 

RDJ doesn't hijack anything. He's a hired hand, like everyone else. It's to his advantage that the majority of the movie-going public wants to see him play Tony Stark, and he'd be a fool to not take advantage of that while he still can. He obviously enjoys it. Maybe that's what bothers you?

The writers put Stark in these movies because he's a popular character. If you don't like it, fine. But it's not a big evil RDJ conspiracy to take over the Marvel comic movie franchise. And even if it is, it will only last as long as he's a box-office draw.

 

I didn't have a chance to read the entire article, nor did I think everyone was going to be nitpicky about it. I chose it because it was one of the only articles I could find from a reputable source that had an accurate timetable for the reshoots.

Alternatively, Jett from Batman-on-Film (which has been around for a while) emphatically reiterates that Whedon coming on-board will largely reshape the film. In other words, the film that Zack Snyder was planning when filming began in April of 2016 is not going to be the same film audiences will be seeing when it opens, if it doesn't get pushed back to 2018.

Elfman's hiring signifies a change in tone and direction. This really goes back to Warner Bros.' course correction they initiated last year after Batman v Superman received negative reviews and a polarizing response from fans. I honestly didn't think they would take such drastic measures to change Justice League to fit a certain mold, but I am glad they are if it means making the film a better one.

Let's face it. I'm sure Snyder had a rough cut he presented to the studio, they didn't like it and so he got replaced - just like Holkenberg got replaced. It would be one thing if the reshoots were minor - like how Patty Jenkins reshot only one scene for Wonder Woman - but 8 weeks is far more significant than that.

First of all, this is a major motion picture studio. When it comes to expense, cost is irrelevant. For Warner Bros., Justice League needs to succeed. After Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad all received polarizing reactions from fans and even worse reaction from critics, they can't afford a divisive Justice League movie. Now they're seeing Wonder Woman as an overwhelming success - great reviews, positive response from fans, and incredible box office - and they're probably realizing if these movies were so well-received from the beginning, maybe they wouldn't need to be doing a course correction.

Here's something that makes this situation a bit different than most occurrences where reshoots take place: the original director of the film has been fired. There's a new director being brought-in, and now a new composer. They are doing two months worth of reshoots, which again is more than just your average week or two for pick-ups or additional photography. This is what makes this situation slightly different than most situations where films experience reshoots. Even Rogue One, which underwent extensive reshoots, still had the film's original director involved. Yes, Tony Gilroy was on-board to consult and assist, but Gareth Edwards was still involved. Not in the case with Justice League, where a director has departed five months before release and a new director is being brought on-board to reshoot and/or add two months worth of additional material. Again, I can't empathize enough how significant this is.

 

Reading and understanding the whole article is the opposite of nitpicking. To nitpick means to focus on small details at the expense of the whole, and that's kinda what you did -- you took the report of the shooting schedule out of context and came to the conclusion that it meant the exact opposite of what the article actually said it meant. Statistics are meaningless without context.

Besides, it's an interesting article in its own right. I recommend reading it in full.

Which is not at all unusual. Like I said, creativity is a process. Stories don't instantly spring into being in complete form and remain immutable from the beginning to the end of their production -- they evolve through trial and error and experimentation. Scripts get rewritten countless times in pre-production and during production. Films are often significantly transformed in editing.

Heck, as a rule, you don't want your finished creation to be exactly what you were planning when you started. You want it to be better than that. When you're just starting, you haven't yet put your ideas to the test, haven't discovered what parts actually work and what parts don't. You haven't yet made the serendipitous discoveries and lucky accidents that happen along the way and give you new insights. In the case of a collaborative production like filmmaking, you haven't yet discovered the new possibilities that the actors and other co-creators will bring to the table. All of that transforms the work while it's being made, and ideally makes it better.

Changing the composer doesn't mean changing the story. Alex North did a whole score for 2001 that Kubrick ditched, but the rest of the film wasn't changed as a result, as far as I know. Sometimes a reshoot leads to a change of composer for scheduling reasons, like when Alexandre Desplat was unavailable for Rogue One rescoring and Michael Giacchino took over, but I don't see why the cause and effect would go the other way. Yes, it's a change in tone -- a changed score always is -- but that doesn't mean the entire film is being redone. If anything, it means it doesn't have to be. You can transform a film massively with a different score or a different edit, even without reshoots. (Look at Ridley Scott's Legend.)

Which is all the more reason why it's illogical to think that process of change has only just started now with the reshoots. It's been going on since before the film even started shooting. That's one thing that's pointed out in the Forbes article, that this process of reconsideration and adjustment has been ongoing throughout the film rather than being some sudden afterthought.

This is both very wrong and deeply insensitive. Snyder left the project because of a terrible family tragedy. Before that happened, he had already decided what reshoots the film needed and had asked Joss Whedon to write the new scenes that he wanted. When he decided that helping his family cope with a tragic loss was more important, he stepped back and Whedon agreed to direct the new scenes and do the final edit -- but he was following through on a decision that Snyder had already made.

Let's be clear -- I think Joss Whedon is a vastly better filmmaker than Zack Snyder. I would love it if this fantasy of all of Snyder's work being tossed out in favor of a full-on Whedon movie were true. But I know that it's a completely nonsensical notion, factually incorrect and logistically impossible. It's blowing a normal, pre-planned part of the filmmaking process absurdly out of proportion in the name of wishful thinking.

Yes. Reshoots happen. Sometimes they are larger than others. Creative works get revised, often heavily, before they are deemed ready. This is not anomalous. Creating stuff takes work. It doesn't just instantly fall into place right at the start.

Yes, which is exactly why it is routine for movies on this level to have extensive reshoots. It's why they plan from the start to have such reshoots, why they budget and schedule for them in advance. Like I already said, this exact same conversation has happened with virtually every major tentpole movie for the past couple of years -- certainly with every DCEU movie from BvS onward.

Again, that is a complete lie. He chose to walk away to deal with a personal tragedy. You should be ashamed of yourself for twisting that to fit your conspiracy theory.

 

Wait, are you seriously saying they lied about Snyder choosing leave because his daughter committed suicide? I find it really, really hard to believe the people at WB, and especially Snyder himself, would do something like that. Hell, I tend to think most executives for big companies like WB tend to be assholes, but I doubt they that big of assholes.