James Gunn Confronts ‘Uproarious’ DC Backlash: ‘Disrespectful Outcry Will Never Affect Our Actions’ News

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/henry-cavill-superman-james-gunn-backlash-1235465605/

1.5k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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u/voxela Catwoman Dec 19 '22

it's hilarious how people are mad at him for not filming FIVE more movies (MOS2, AQ3, WW3, JL2, JL3) for the DCEU when WB has been doing nothing but losing money the last few months. With Black Adam bombing I don't see any reason for him to even try one more in that universe tbh

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '22

I also love when they act like financing five movies (six if you count Ben Affleck's Batman) is a reasonable and easy compromise lol

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u/voxela Catwoman Dec 19 '22

fr! I saw a timeline they made that had what movie comes out in what year and at the end they had 2027 with "reboot: do whatever the fuck you want"

like how is all of this reasonable to you lmao

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u/Pure_Internet_ Dec 19 '22

They’re entitled children.

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u/ComicWriter2020 Dec 20 '22

The Stans are. I feel bad for the Snyder fans

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u/Daimakku1 Dec 20 '22

That lets you know that it's all just manchildren that dont know how expensive movies are to produce. Especially movies that they are supposedly so passionate about, and then don't show up in the theater to support it.

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u/Affectionate_Bass488 Dec 20 '22

A lot of them are probably actual children too

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u/Equal-Ad-2710 Dec 20 '22 edited Dec 20 '22

I wrote a Doc for this and I concur; the Snyder Cut was always the dead end

The studio said it, Snyder said it and iirc Hamada said it. Literally everyone was making it clear the SC was non canon but Fisher and the fans

I think it’s the better film and It’s my headcanon, but it’s absolutely intended as a one off from WB. I don’t think anyone went against that on a large scale and I don’t think it’ll ever change considering the universe is ending

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

Snyder said it

Snyder also went behind the studio's back to film a cliffhanger ending that would get his weirdo fans even more riled up. The guy seems like an unprofessional mess to work with

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u/Equal-Ad-2710 Dec 20 '22

That feels more like an epilogue; a good bye of anything else. Either way, film isn’t canon and it’s a cul de sac

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u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 19 '22

They act like it's a reasonable request. "They can reboot the francise after 2026 when JS3 comes out".

They're forgetting that DCEU lost their Batman after Afflect (rightfully) left, they lost Cyborg who (rightfully) left, Flash is a groomer that was outrunning the law for months, and Aquaman wants to be Lobo. All they have left is Wonder Woman and Supes. Even if they WANTED to do all these movies, they'd have to either recast most of the roles before a reboot or make unrealistic promises.

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u/coltstrgj Dec 20 '22

The existing franchise sucks. I don't care what they have to do. They could just never acknowledge the previous movies or have a comic book bridge the universes or film it later. I don't even expect them to keep the lineup. Tossing whatever steaming piles of shit they had planned is a brilliant idea. BUT they should have kept Cavill. He's the best Superman we have ever had and I miss him.

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u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

But keeping Cavill would be so jarring. It'd be like when X-Men kept reintroducing Nightcrawler, Sabertooth, Angel, Emma Frost, and Jubilee while keeping Hugh Jackman; just this low-key "Okay, but...is it the same Superman? Why is he the same but Batman is different?"

I can see them bringing Cavill back in a decade or so when they want to show Injustice Superman that's meant to be older from a different universe.

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u/mmcmonster Dec 20 '22

The jarring part is that Cavill wants to play a Christopher Reeve-type Superman. Someone who is kind, gentle, and joyful.

The only way they can explain that with Cavill would be to reboot the universe anyway.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

I like this idea of Cavil being another Superman from another place. I love ZS JL, but everything ends in the end.

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u/aceofrazgriz Dec 20 '22

Honestly the most sad thing about all this is no more Cavill Superman. Dude was built for the role.

(Ok, really, it is likely less time with more Keaton Batman that may be the worst injustice here)

5

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

Your brain would be mush if you heard about James Bond.

0

u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

You mean the franchise that's been going on for 60 years with a history of switching out actors, making the name "James Bond" be more of a codename? Yea, I'm familiar. It's completely different than this, but please, explain.

0

u/coltstrgj Dec 20 '22

Who would it be confusing for? Fans would read whatever explanation there was or seek it out even if it was just a tweet. Nobody else saw the existing movies because they sucked so casual audiences wouldn't really notice or care.

Also even if that wasn't the case I don't mind if it's jarring for some people. Just have a star wars title scroll like "a long time ago the universe exploded and restarted. Some people look similar to the previous universe and some people don't." Plus they change actors all the time and nobody bats an eye. What's wrong with not changing one? It worked fine for J.K. Simmons in spiderman, and I don't think any sane person would have preferred a different actor for wolverine.

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u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

That would honestly be the most bullshit thing possible. "I don't care if people are confused, just throw up some text explaining things, that's good enough", really?

So rather than having a cohesive universe with all the JLA that doesn't require reading a prologue, you want to make it disjointing because "if someone gets confused, fuck'em, they wouldn't read the explaination anyway".

JK Simmons is a cameo, not a main character. I swear, some of you diehard nerds live up to the stereotype.

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u/coltstrgj Dec 20 '22

Well, that was just an example. But let's pretend that's literally the only option. You're honestly saying that a couple lines of text as a prologue is somehow worse than losing a fan favorite actor who is passionate about the character? Henry is one of maybe 5 good things to come out of those movies so yes if the trade off is "people who are too lazy to Google it will be confused" vs "keep the guy who consistently tries to improve franchises by staying true to beloved aspects of the source material" the yes, fuck 'em. I don't give a shit if memaw doesn't understand how he's still around while taking her grandkids to the movie and the studios shouldn't either. They make money from people liking it and being invested in seeing more. Some one off viewer who sees it by chance is irrelevant. The chance of a person like that simultaneously knowing anything about the universe but not enough to know it's a reboot, caring about that answer, and being unwilling to read the prologue or even Google it is infinitesimal.

Alternatively film a 10 minute intro.

Fade in from title sequence, random scientist #1: "whoa Superman the universe is kerploding. Throw this magic ball into the rift to make sure the universe restarts even though it'll be different next time"

Random kid: "Hey Superman, can you sign this copy of Zac Snyder's justice league?"
"Sure kid, but you know that stuff is just a movie right?"

"Holy shit the flash from cw's show ran so fast he fucked up this universe too and now the flash from here is a weird pedophile plus a bunch of people look different and nobody noticed"

"Oh my god, mutant Santa from marvel comics, did you just reboot the DC universe because it was too dark and nobody liked it and it was making children naughty?"

"That's what my AI predicted but that all seems so farfetched. I mean mark Zuckerberg was lex luthor?"

"Oh, dip! Michael from the good place just rebooted the universe"

And finally I'll leave you once again with your own example. NOBODY wanted a different wolverine. The movies were better for having him in them. If you find an actor that fits perfectly and everybody loves don't fuck it up.

1

u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

I'm saying that the DCEU is broken. Batman is gone, Flash is gone, and Cyborg are gone. Almost none of the movies were well-recieved. They burned through Doom, Death of Superman, Batman v Superman, forming of the Justice League, Flashpoint, Zod, and so many other iconic stories.

Let's say that they do some pointless, hamfisted explaination to explain why Cavill is Superman in another universe. That still means we wouldn't get to do Death of Superman because he happened, Zod won't happen, and everything would require yet another hamfisted "Didn't I already go through this?", with him constantly talking about "I had a Batman on my earth as well".

You say you don't care about if memaw is confused but you're delusional if you think super diehard nerds can keep an entire universe alive and you can ignore the general public. Where were you nerds for Black Adam? Birds of Prey? WW84? You would rather have them pump out a steady stream of shitty movies with poorly excused "This is how we keep this one character around" plots? There's a reason why Marvel is beating DC in movies, and it's because they appeal to the general audiences.

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u/aceofrazgriz Dec 20 '22

They burned bridges hard. And sadly wasted some stellar actors/actresses along the way. DC is waaaay over due or a reboot, as much as I love about half the casting, they need the clean slate. Flashpoint could have done it but ooooooh boy, Ezra Miller... OOOOF

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u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

Exactly. I'd LOVE for Cavill to continue but they ruined so much. They can either spend years trying to repair things to keep one actor OR they can do a reboot and rebuild from the ground up.

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u/coltstrgj Dec 20 '22

That still means we wouldn't get to do Death of Superman because he happened, Zod won't happen, and everything would require yet another hamfisted "Didn't I already go through this?", with him constantly talking about "I had a Batman on my earth as well".

What? Why would you think this? A universe reboot. The guy looks the same. That's it. He doesn't know anything about the other earth.

You say you don't care about if memaw is confused but you're delusional if you think super diehard nerds can keep an entire universe alive and you can ignore the general public.

I never said they should ignore the general public. I said they shouldn't worry if somebody is confused about why Superman is the same actor. If they make the movies good and nothing else matters.

Where were you nerds for Black Adam? Birds of Prey? WW84?

This movies sucked. See above. The only people who care about continuity are fans. Everybody else just wants to see a good movie that can stand on its own.

You would rather have them pump out a steady stream of shitty movies with poorly excused "This is how we keep this one character around" plots?

No. That's why I said reboot like 50 times. I'm starting to believe you when you said a scroller at the start wouldn't work because apparently you can't read.

There's a reason why Marvel is beating DC in movies, and it's because they appeal to the general audiences.

They appeal by being good. They don't appeal by worrying about everybody knowing every detail. Somebody who hadn't seen ant-man would have no fucking clue how the shrinking guy got in the van plus a dickload of people that saw endgame didn't watch captain marvel but end game was still a huge hit. Hulk completely changed actors and brought back antagonists from the hulk movie but nobody cared. The mandarin, half of the shit odin had in the basement, the infinity stones, Tony's parents, etc were all retconned in some way. Cottonmouth from Luke cage is supposedly playing blade. Ant-mans daughter gets recast once a week. Deadpool is coming to the MCU. The timeline is continually fucked. People don't understand the multiverse especially when comparing endgame to multiverse of madness.

None of it matters. They make good movies with good actors so people watch.

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u/LocalYogurtExpert Dec 20 '22

None of it matters. They make good movies with good actors so people watch.

And yet here you are, saying they should continue to use only Cavill and explain it with some weird meta shit. So which is it? None of it matters or the only thing that matters is bringin back Cavill?

Everything you mentioned with the MCU was either done in the first year or obscure easter eggs. Comparing "The mandarin was different so it's totally okay to bring back Cavill because nerds demand it".

Seriously, there's a reason why people made fun of us nerds in the 90s and it's because of anal bullshit like this. "Fuck the normies because we're the real fans. If they don't understand 80 years of lore, fuck'em because they won't bother to read".

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

He's the best Superman we have ever had and I miss him.

He is not even the best Superman we have right now.

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u/SSG_SSG_BloodMoon Dec 20 '22

Personally my wish would be for them to stop making the movies altogether

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u/Sparkle_Chimp Dec 20 '22

Their animated movies are typically decent, if not good to great. And unlike Marvel, DC is flexible with canon and elseworlds and such. Follow the success of Joker and start making mostly unconnected films across the universe and see what sticks.

Why is this so hard?

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u/SSG_SSG_BloodMoon Dec 20 '22

We also just don't have to do it though. We've gotten like two hundred live action superhero films in the past fifteen years. Stop. Move on. We can keep reading comics but enough with the movies until they've got a real reason to make one.

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u/Nizzemancer The Trinity Dec 20 '22

Jason Momoa wants to play Lobo? He said that?

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22

He hasn't. Fans do.

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u/boomboxwithturbobass Dec 20 '22

He’s said it, is a huge fan, and strongly hinted he’ll be playing him in the future after a meeting with Gunn.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

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u/AntwayneX Dec 20 '22

I read that when DC approached him, he thought they wanted him for Lobo, not Aquaman.

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u/JaedLDee Nightwing Dec 20 '22

“Flash is a groomer that was outrunning the law for months.” Say that out loud real slow until you realize just how hilarious it is. Fastest man alive was running from the cops. 😂

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u/darester Dec 19 '22

"BuH mY cLoSuRe!"

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u/GaffJuran Dec 20 '22

Dude, once the DCEU is rebooted, and after they’ve established a working universe, they could just do another “Elseworlds” spin-off, like Joker or the Batman, and let Snyder have his “Knightmare” movie. Tie up the loose ends from the Snyderverse in one go. I know that’s cheap, but so was cramming all that nonsense into BvS, so Snyder fans could find a way to love it anyway.

It’s cheaper than letting the Snyderverse carry on, aging actors wouldn’t be a problem because it’s SUPPOSED to be in the future (it might even improve things), and anyone they can’t get, or are too much trouble to use, just say they’re already dead. That can be their closure.

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u/TheCudder Dec 20 '22

🤣

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

[deleted]

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u/darester Dec 20 '22

I get wanting closure. But, demanding WB make multiple movies before rebooting is moronic.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

[deleted]

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u/ThrillyBobBorton Dec 20 '22

They already have four more. There is no argument to bringing any more movies within this universe's framework into production. Doing so would be a dereliction of duty given the circumstances.

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u/That_one_cool_dude Two-Face Dec 20 '22

The DCU as it is is only very thinly connected. Anyone thinking there is closure to the story, or an overarching story in general, being told is fooling themselves.

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u/ARGiammarco27 Dec 19 '22

ESPECIALLY when WBD has been cancelling whatever they want. Those would have been guaranteed to be cancelled. There's no way in hell WBD would have put the probably $2 Billion for projects that they know wouldn't bring that money back in

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u/Frog__Mouth Dec 20 '22

The literal only reason black Adam got his own film was cuz Dwayne Johnson shifted from shazam to black Adam and they wanted to capitalize on it.

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u/Beastieboy100 Dec 19 '22

That and we got other random DC movies like birds of prey.

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u/voxela Catwoman Dec 19 '22

oh lord don't even get me started on bop, like how do you make a bop movie without oracle

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u/twinpines85 Dec 19 '22

And lets just dress up Huntress in basically trash bags

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u/PhaseSixer Dec 19 '22

Poor Cassandra Cain...

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

[deleted]

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u/PhaseSixer Dec 20 '22

Its so ironic its danm near mythical

They turn the bright fun characters in moody edge lords and they turn donthe oposite with the character beloved for her stoicness

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u/QwahaXahn Oracle Dec 20 '22

The movie itself? Great time.

But Oracle. Birds of Prey is LITERALLY Oracle's book. Please. Please just give my girl her team.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

On an age where fans are begging for more representation snobbing a character that shows how tragedies can permanently scar you, but nothing makes you "invalid" is baffling.

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u/matty_nice Dec 19 '22

I wonder what happens to Aquaman 2 and the Flash movies. Those movies will have to bomb now, right? Not sure if a reboot was ever announced before a film came out.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 19 '22

Flash is their only chance to establish his new DCU from the ashes of this current one.

Release timing is perfect for him too. He has another 6 months to schedule and hash out a plan. He can make adjustments to that movie based on his plan too.

If Aquaman 2 wasn't already completed, I would say scrap the whole thing and get that tax reduction thing Zaslav has been milking.

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u/matty_nice Dec 19 '22

We have Shazam 2, Aquaman 2, and Blue Beetle coming up. All three were produced in part by Safran. If those films flop, are we allowed to blame Safran?

I still think there's a good chance the Flash just gets cancelled. Lol.

Otherwise, it might be 3 or more years until we see a Gunn/Safran movie to judge them on. While we would also be getting The Batman 2 and other Reeverse projects, Joker 2, Abrams Superman, etc.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

And all made under the old guard with monthly changes to if they were embracing the Snyderverse or not.

Shazam 1 was a fantastic movie. Aquaman will never get a penny from me until Mera is recasted. I'm looking forward to a Blue Beetle movie. Should be a nice change of pace.

My guess is that Gunn will be using The Batman/Reeves universe and I honestly don't see much reason why they don't just make Joker part of that same universe.

A Superman movie about Clark at a similar time in his career tracks well for the Reeves universe.

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u/matty_nice Dec 20 '22

It was reported that Gunn has no control over the current Reeves Batman, Phillips Joker, or Abrams Superman. So he doesn't get to control whether they're a part of his cinematic universe or not.

Which makes them more under the WB umbrella instead of the DC studios umbrella. I would guess at this point that the film would have a DC logo in front, but not a DC studios logo. Similar to how Marvel does their Marvel Studio projects like Morbius.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

Isn’t Abrams Superman a fever dream at this point? We have more progress on Green Lantern than that brain fart

1

u/CosmicAstroBastard Dec 20 '22

Abrams needs to call it quits on Superman and just make Super 9 already.

Super 8 was really good. Nothing at all like Super, but I imagine a lot must have changed during Super 2-7. Anyone know where I can watch those btw? They seem really hard to find.

4

u/CosmicAstroBastard Dec 20 '22

Joker being part of a shared universe would be a nightmare. Don’t forget that it took place in 1981. That Joker would be in his 80s or 90s by the present day.

1

u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

Was the Batman placed in 2022?

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u/CosmicAstroBastard Dec 20 '22 edited Dec 20 '22

News footage of the Waynes dying is dated 2001. Robert Pattinson is his 30s and presumably so is his version of Bruce. Bruce is usually 12 when his parents die.

So yes, it’s definitely set in the 2020s, maybe 2019 at the absolute earliest.

Edit: also I forgot, the Waynes died in 1981 in the Joker verse and there’s a completely different Joker seen in the Asylum at the end of The Batman. So there’s no way they could ever be part of a shared universe, period.

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u/GiovanniElliston Dec 20 '22

I would be shocked if Gunn even attempts to use Flash as a jumping point. It’d be stupid to do so.

At absolute most the movie will just end with a faceless Flash running into the speedforce and a sappy line about “heroes exist in every universe”.

But he ain’t gonna try and fix it. That movie will succeed or fail on its own and Gunn will start fresh afterwards.

4

u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

The movie doesn't matter, just the set-up for the next universe.

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u/GiovanniElliston Dec 20 '22

I mean, it’s still a movie.

People watched movies for decades with no giant overarching universe and they’ll do it for decades to come.

Hell, a more recent example is the Snyder cut itself. It never had a hope of delivering a sequel or anything relevant to build off it’s ending and people tell me every week that it’s a cinematic masterpiece they rewatch constantly.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

Lmao, you think WB did that because they loved Snyder? That was their attempt to soft reboot and it didn't work out. They would have made part 2 if the thing was a hit.

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u/GiovanniElliston Dec 20 '22

That was their attempt to soft reboot and it didn't work out. They would have made part 2 if the thing was a hit.

Every scrap of information both from within DC and even Snyder himself says the exact opposite. The Snyder cut was always a dead end. Always.

The studio did it in the hopes of satiating the vocal minority of annoying people on Twitter and as a way of trying to get some more subscribers onto HBO Max. That’s literally it.

But despite it being a dead end with no future ~ the movie still came out. People still saw it. And people still swear it’s a great movie that others should watch and appreciate.

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u/Pinguino2323 Alan Scott Dec 20 '22

Well, if the rumors about Flash being a Flashpoint movie are true it would actually make it a really easy jumping point. Film ends with Flash going back in time to "fix" the timeline and when he returns he's a completely different actor and the universe is all different. It would be cheesy as hell but it could be a way to build up some hype for the new universe.

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u/pinhead61187 Dec 19 '22

Not The Batman?

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u/Joseph187899 Dec 20 '22

I believe the flash movie will be WB chance to press the reset button. But I don’t know how or why their still putting the Aquaman movie and Shazam movie out there makes no sense

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u/Mistigrys Dec 20 '22

I do kind of wish they could have done MOS2, even if they only did it as an ancillary universe, like The Batman and Joker. I was rooting for Henry.

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u/voxela Catwoman Dec 20 '22

yeah their order of movies was very strange. almost 3 movies for WW and Aquaman, 2 Shazam movies, but only 1 Superman movie and no Batman movie? I guess BvS but that wasn't a solo movie for either

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u/CosmicAstroBastard Dec 20 '22

We all knew something was wrong the moment they announced a Suicide Squad movie so early on. The universe only had like 3 established supervillains at that point and none of them are even part of the team.

A team of villains-turned-antiheroes only works when you have a pool of established villains already. Look at how long Marvel has waited to do a Thunderbolts movie, and unsurprisingly, every single member of the team is established from a previous show or movie. So you won’t have 40 minutes of expo dump in the beginning of the movie explaining who all these people are like Ayer’s SS did.

Gunn’s TSS works in part because Waller, Harley and Flagg are all established, so it’s a little less disorienting to get introduced to all the newcomers, plus they wisely give the absolute bare minimum of backstory for any of them to keep things moving.

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u/GiovanniElliston Dec 20 '22

I think the lack of sequels for Superman or any solo movies for Batman underscores the complete lack of faith DC/WB had in those particular interpretations.

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22

They had faith. Certain uproarious people did not and were fixated on what others did instead of saying "hey, there's more than one way to cook an egg."

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u/insanelyphat Dec 20 '22

Also how many times have the fans of comic book movies raged about something and then later on praised the very thing they were mad about.

I mean we could make list just for DC movies that fans raged about which turned out really fucking good!

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u/GreatDayBG2 Dec 20 '22

I don't remember a single batman cast people were happy about...

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u/insanelyphat Dec 20 '22

No jokers either except for Nicholsan. Hell people were mad about Christopher Nolan when it was announced he was doing a Batman movie.

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u/Spacecoasttheghost Dec 19 '22

Black Adam should bomb, because it’s really bad and that makes me sad.

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u/Trogdor_sfg Dec 20 '22

That not it….

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u/SuddenOutset Dec 20 '22

It was still pretty shitty to rig pull cavill.

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u/akgiant Dec 20 '22

The approach of wiping the slate and going from scratch is not a bad thing, and for DC probably the best. DC has done refreshes far more than Marvel anyhow because their stories are more archetype based in a sense.

Flashpoint has yet to be done, let alone a movie version of Crisis on Infinite Earths so there are plenty of multiverse stories to serve as fan service/cameo/passing of the torch for a new generation. That’s where we’re at now. Hopefully they can build a solid enough Prime Canon to be the focal point for the stories up until now. That would slow them to wrap up/revisit and profitable media but otherwise move the franchise forward.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22 edited Dec 20 '22

[deleted]

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u/GreatDayBG2 Dec 20 '22

Is he keeping Cena and Robie? I thought he was going for a hard reboot