Production Hell - The Entire DCEU

You know, usually my

production

hell

videos tend to focus on a particular project that was notoriously difficult to make, whether due to behind-the-scenes creative differences, issues with cast and crew, difficult filming conditions, or just plain crazy As a general rule, film history is littered with stories like that, and not only can they teach us valuable lessons about how not to make movies, but they're also a lot of fun to point out and laugh at, but there are some mistakes so monumental, so unfathomably huge, that they can't be limited to a single movie or TV show and instead extend to Encompass, an

entire

franchise spanning more than a dozen projects over a span of nearly a decade.

I'm talking, of course, about DC in the movies, better known as

dceu

, the big plan. that was to rival Marvel, which turned out to be one of the biggest creative and commercial disasters, not to mention Talon waste in all of Hollywood history, it was an epic story of greed, envy, creative mismanagement, alliances , backstabbing and arrogance, so settle in with a glass of something smooth and intoxicating because the Drinker is about to tell you DC history on film, now the idea of ​​a shared cinematic DC Universe wasn't exactly new In fact, back in the late 1990s when Warner was still trying to get a Nick Cage Superman movie off the ground and check out my video about that disaster if you want to know how it's possible to spend $30 million without filming a single frame.

There has already been talk of a possible crossover with Joel Schumacher's Batman films in which they may even star. in a Justice League team-up, one can only imagine Nick Cage's Delights teaming up with the campus Batman since Adam West, anyway, needless to say, nothing came of this great gig and Warner abandoned it quickly to focus on Superman and Batman solo movies, but well, nothing. rejuvenates old ideas faster than someone makes money off of them, and the meteoric rise of the MCU in the early 2010s was enough to make Warner execs think once again, hey, this whole Shared Universe thing seems to be working out quite a bit.

Good for Marvel, we should have done it. One of our great ideas, man, but we need to get it going quickly because Marvel is so far ahead and we have a lot of things to do. We agreed to bring me someone who can make that happen and it turned out to be the man. chosen for the job was Zack Snyder. Now I think that, in retrospect, most of us would probably agree that Snyder, well, how can I put it diplomatically? He may not have been the optimal choice for a role like this, but 10 years ago it was quite a different story. and in many ways it had a lot to recommend him as a director: he had had a string of well-received films in which he excelled at producing dark, gritty, violent films that contrasted starkly with the bright colors and light-hearted humor of the MCU, and in theory , all this would allow DC to position itself as the great, mature and avant-garde alternative to Marvel.

Now you would think that Snyder would have been a logical candidate to direct a dark, gritty and violent Batman movie that would have been up to par with him. alley, so of course Warner did the exact opposite and put him in charge of a Superman movie. Man of Steel turned out to be the film that would launch the new DC Universe in cinema and, although the casting of Henry Cavill was generally well received, Snyder's was developed in a conflicting shot. about the character it was not like that and Man of Steel got a lukewarm reception at the box office, but don't worry, the worst was yet to come, much worse.

Snyder's plan was to make a sequel to Man of Steel first and then introduce Batman based on The Dark Knight Returns followed by a team-up with the other members of the Justice League in an epic two-part story that would culminate in death. of Superman's story from the comics, but Warner executives were not happy with this plan that Marvel had. They already had their first big Avengers team-up movie that grossed $1.5 billion and naturally wanted a piece of the action, there wasn't time to introduce each character in their own movies and patiently build the franchise like they should have.

They wanted results, and fast, so Man of Steel 2 became Batman vs Superman, a film that would feature not one but two of the biggest stories in DC history, as well as being a backdoor introduction to Wonder Woman. Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash, and if all of this sounds like a lot of work to make the second movie in a franchise, well, that's because I don't need to tell you that Batman v Superman was a show, it was too long, too bloated and complicated. , the conflict between the two tracks didn't make much sense, the tone was gloomy and depressing, and Wonder Woman's introduction felt tacked on and distracting.

The failure of Batman vs Superman sent shockwaves through Warner Brothers, who were convinced they had a mega hit on their hands. It was clear to the studio heads that Snyder's dark, bleak and bleak version of the franchise wasn't working and they needed to change course drastically, his movies needed to be lighter, funnier and shorter, basically, they needed to be like the MCU, exactly what they had. They were supposed to be against it and the casualties began to move immediately. Suicide Squad, which at the time was practically in the can, was subjected to extensive reshoots and re-edits in a desperate attempt to shorten the length, inject more humor and quicken the pace.

The resulting Frankenstein film was all but disowned by director David Ayer, who was rightly angry that his Creative Vision had gone to

hell

and was harshly criticized by fans who to this day campaign for the original cut to be released. , the only point of hope for DC in film was the surprise success of Wonder Woman, which had been largely isolated from The Fallout of Batman vs Superman and enjoyed a relatively problem-free

production

and its success cemented the idea of that the only way forward was to get rid of the grim nihilism of Snyder's films and focus more on optimism, warmth, horror and positive heroic characters, unfortunately, one good movie wasn't enough to keep the franchise going and an even greater disaster was on the horizon.

Justice League was intended to be the franchise's biggest movie yet. bringing in all the major players for an epic battle, all of which would eclipse even the Avengers, the only problem is that Warner was now in full panic mode after the failure of Batman vs Superman, desperately trying to correct the cost and their attempts to get Snyder to do it. Producing a shorter, funnier, lighter version of the film was a bit like asking Sarah Silverman to do something she's not, and when the personal tragedy of Snyder leaving post-production hit, Warner took the opportunity to hire a man who could give you his own personal version of The Avengers, quite imaginatively, the man who made The Avengers in the first place, it was a desperate move by a studio lurching from one disaster to another groping for a solution to a problem that didn't. they completely understood and even if they did.

Whedon was not given the time or resources to properly fix the film. An overweight and alcoholic Ben Affleck was brought back for hastily arranged reshoots and no amount of makeup and costumes could hide the fact that he was out of shape and disinterested in the part of Henry Cavill, who was in the middle of filming Mission Impossible, who was denied permission to shave his mustache. budget of over $300 million and resulted in a Frankenstein monster movie that was clearly two different movies made by two different directors clumsily stitched together. Justice League was an absolute commercial failure and was criticized by fans and critics alike at this point in the

dceu

.

I was practically in free fall. Plans to make a solo Batman movie with Ben Affleck fell apart and Ben took the opportunity to quietly exit the franchise. Rumors also grew that Henry Cavill had exited as Superman with no plans to develop more films with him and it wasn't just the actors who dropped out, either John Berg and Jeff Johns, the two executives put in charge of the franchise after the Snyder's departure were also ousted after the Justice League Force replaced them by Walter Hamada, who had a new plan for DC in film to rebuild the franchise around the more diverse cast of core superheroes Batman and Superman would be. eliminated and replaced by their female counterparts Batgirl and Supergirl Pro and would join Wonder Woman as the three central pillars of the new and inclusive dceu with Harley Quinn will also have her own film series, beautiful things, the only problem is that all of these things would take years to implement and, in the meantime, they still had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in films currently in development and they couldn't afford it.

Can they that kind of thing would come later, so the dceu would go through a transition period focusing more on solo films without a particular overarching story to tie them together as they prepared to release their new, inclusive version of the franchise and what it is? The interesting thing is that some of these movies ended up doing quite well. Aquaman somehow managed to gross over a billion dollars becoming the highest grossing movie in the

entire

DC EU, although I will never understand how or why people went to see it and although Shazam was a more modest financial success its small budget and A positive reception were enough to greenlight a sequel.

The end result of all these shenanigans was a strangely confusing picture where movies with low expectations turned out to be big hits while crowd-pleasing movies were what they needed to anchor their franchise. it kept failing miserably, which made things even more complicated. They were independent films like Joker that became mega-hits with small budgets, ultimately earning them the critical and commercial success they desperately wanted, but which was impossible to incorporate into the larger dceu. 2020 would end up being a turning point for Walter Hamada's New Vision Birds of Prey, the film that was intended to launch Harley Quinn as a major player in the franchise, turned out to be a huge commercial and critical failure and, looking back, I think It's pretty obvious that the study seriously overestimated two important things.

Harley Quinn's popularity as a character and Margot Robbie's star power, and if that wasn't bad enough, Wonder Woman 1984 followed. See how Freedom director Patty Jenkins' first film succeeded in having more creative control about the sequel, including the writing of the script, which again, in retrospect, showed that the studio seriously overestimated two things: its ability to write a compelling story and its ability to direct competent action scenes in any way. Wonder Woman 1984 soared in reviews, largely destroying goodwill towards the character and the unspecified Unknown Origin virus effectively ended her chances at the box office and, if all that wasn't bad enough, a ghost from the past of DC was about to return to haunt them.

Since the Justice League debacle, there has been a growing movement online. Having the studio release Zack Snyder's original version of the film, naturally, this wasn't something Warner wanted to do because if it turned out to be a huge hit, it would only underline the magnitude of their own management of the film, but that all changes conveniently enough when T bought them and, because they needed something to put on their new streaming service HBO Max, Snyder's cut came back from the dead as a zombie and was released in March 2021. now from the point of cinematic view. I have to admit that it's fascinating to compare the two wildly different versions, but from a commercial perspective it was an absolute disaster because seeing what amounted to a competitive project released that even hinted at the possibility of further cinematic development only served to fragment an already established foundation. of divided fans that undermines Warner's own plans for the future and makes them look like a studio at war with itself, but hey, there was at least one small reason for optimism on the horizon, James Gunn, who was taking a hiatus from Marvel after some awkward old tweets. resurfaced was lured to DC to make a Suicide Squads sequel.

I mean I say sequel but it was more like a soft reboot that replaced most of the main characters and basically started over anyway it was a huge hit with fans and even if it didn't wintoo much money due to the pandemic, it showed what weapons could do with DC properties and keep that in mind because it will be important later anyway, it was becoming pretty obvious that things needed to change and fast, the dceu had been Wandering without much sense of direction since Justice League Walter Hamada's vision of a female-led franchise didn't seem as appealing after The Birds Pray in Wonder Woman 1984 and most important of all, the studio was running out of money after the merger between Warner and Discovery.

This change finally brought about in the form of David Zaslov, the new CEO of Warner Discovery. Zaslov had a reputation as a tough businessman who took no and was willing to do whatever it took to get things back on track and after reviewing Hamada's plans for DC. In the movie, he quickly decided this and took a scythe for all of Aquaman 2. Black Adam and The Flash were too far along in development to be canceled, but as for the rest of his film and TV projects, it was an absolute bloodbath. Supergirl was killed off and so was Batgirl, not to mention Legends of Tomorrow Star Girl Batwoman and Batman Beyond.

He also began looking for someone to oversee all of DC's future projects and finally realized that what they really needed was their own version of Marvel's Kevin Feige, and as it happens, his attention soon turned to James Gunn. Remember well, he didn't pressure the studio with his work on Suicide Squad and, as he was coming to the end of his tenure at Marvel, they were able to hire him to oversee future projects, since for Black Adam, any hope of saving the dceu in its current form fell on its shoulders, the plan was for it to act as a kind of soft reboot that acknowledges past events, but is mostly used to ushering in a new phase of DC movies.

At the time, The Rock had something of a reputation as a franchise savior and lobbied hard to get Henry Cavill involved in the creation of future Superman movies. It seemed like DC was getting its act together, unfortunately Black Adam failed to take off at the box office and with that, when any real hope of saving DC was on film and not long after the cancellations started, Henry Cavill came out as Superman just a few weeks after announcing his return. for the role Gal Gadot left when Wonder Woman Black Adam 2 was canceled basically James Gunn was cleaning house by doing a complete DC reboot in the movie The only movies that escaped this cancellation were the ones that were almost ready for release, although You have to wonder who will do it. bothering to watch Phil movies that have no path forward once they come out the release of Aquaman 2 later this year is going to effectively represent the final installment of the dceu as planned and that ends what may be the worst I managed waste of talent and potential poorly implemented in the entire history of Hollywood, a franchise that stands as a textbook example of what not to do when trying to launch an extended universe and I think that if I had to specify the reasons for its Failure would probably list three main flaws.

One of hiring the wrong creatives. What this franchise needed was someone with a solid creative vision that would cover at least the next few years and also understand and respect the characters they would be working with and in retrospect, Zack Snyder was not that guy, his style was too dark, too grim, too nihilistic, and too divisive for a franchise like this, number two was playing catch-up rather than launching with a well-developed plan of its own. Warner waited until Marvel had achieved great success with the Avengers and from then on it was a frantic race to catch up.

Their excitement about releasing their own big event movie led them to rush and condense stories together, trip over their own feet, and produce substandard products that drive people away. of luring them to number three, a constant course correction, a series of early failures that threw the studio into panic and chaos and led to a revolving door of top executives, each with different visions of what the franchise should be, none of which he actually had the time to implement it properly. his ideas, this led to a series of wild swings in different directions, creatively forcing Hasty to reshoot and edit as film directors struggle to keep up with conflicting ideas, unlike Marvel, which charted one direction. consistent creative and stuck to it.

DC stumbled from failure to unexpected success. with no idea what they had to do and the sad thing about it all is that they had most of the elements they needed to succeed they had some of the best superhero characters ever they had a strong cast of mostly good actors who were They were perfect for the roles and had legions of devoted fans waiting to see their favorite comic book moments brought to life, but in the end they failed to capitalize on any of these things and the end result was a decade of time and hundreds of millions of dollars wasted. maybe James Gunn is the franchise savior everyone hopes he will be or maybe he's just another entry in a long line of short-lived creatives who came and went before really getting the chance to realize their ideas.

Either way, none of that changes the fact that the dceu really was a hell of a production anyway, that's all I have for today, go away now.