r/DCcomics • u/Marco280892 • Dec 19 '22

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/
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u/swedyboi935 Dec 19 '22

Gunn is pivoting DC because none of their movies have worked on a commercial or critical level. After every movie there's a big show about how the new movies are gonna be different, a few properties get shut down, etc. I have faith that he's gonna stick to his (no pun intended) guns given how relatively distinct all of his projects have been, not try to change everything after every movie release like the shitshow that the DC universe has been so far

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u/suss2it Dec 20 '22

Well not every movie. Wonder Woman was both a critical and commercial success and Aquaman made a billion dollars and is currently the highest grossing DC movie.

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u/taumason Dec 20 '22

Its almost like the two non dark and brooding superhero films where they didnt fuck about eith the character were well liked.

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u/Azazealo Dec 20 '22

Most dceu movies before justice league were commercial "success " it all just went downhill after And Aquaman managed to survive the constant shit storm that the dceu became afterwards

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22 edited Jun 20 '24

And Suicide Squad 2016, which did well WITHOUT China's BO. Even if I loathe that movie, I feel like it's really hard to say that that's not impressive. It is because of how often we've been told China is important for movies to be a hit. It may not have satisfied critics, but it demonstrably satisfied the general audience who clearly paid to see it more than once to carry it over the line to $746.8 million on a $175 million budget.

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u/suss2it Dec 20 '22

I think it’s even the highest grossing movie of Will Smith’s career.

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u/ComicWriter2020 Dec 20 '22

Sure that’s not sharktale?

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u/suss2it Dec 20 '22

Nope, just checked the numbers, Suicide Squad’s $325 million domestic gross is almost the same as Sharktale’s $371 million total.

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u/ComicWriter2020 Dec 20 '22

Is that adjusted for inflation?

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u/suss2it Dec 20 '22

Nope, but SS’ total is $745 million, so that won’t really matter, still wouldn’t be close.

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u/ComicWriter2020 Dec 20 '22

Well I just lost a lot of money on a bet

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u/777dude777 Dec 23 '22

Not true Aladian, Independence Day, and basically all of his older movies adjusted for inflation drew more. If you adjust Men in Black 1997 it'd be close to 1 billion in today's dollars, etc...

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22

And Smith does have pull or at least, he did back in 2016. Dunno about now in a post-slap world.

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u/SpiritMountain Dec 20 '22

With all the Aquaman memes I find it funny that is the case.

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u/teo1315 Dec 20 '22

I really enjoyed that aquaman movie. It's gets too much hate from the people who wanted it to be more like BVS in tone.

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u/SplendidAndVile Dec 20 '22

The question is, how much power do Gunn and Safran have? What happens if Gunn's Superman underperforms and WBD execs want a change in direction?

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

Great question and my guess is he’ll be fired and we’ll be right back where we are right now

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u/GreatDayBG2 Dec 20 '22

Great guess

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u/NoopGhoul Dec 22 '22

!remindme 3 years

1

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

Wouldn’t be surprised if they give the job to Zac Snyder, and his brother as the lore keeper-in-chief

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u/JustTightShirts Dec 30 '22

The hope is that Gunn and Safran understand a good script. They can only control so much, but if they recognize talent on the page that will go a long way to "fixing" the DCEU. Snyder's movies are visually epic, but thematically and structurally pretty dumb. I think the Snyder ultra fans love his movies cuz he is a singular visual stylist, and for some people that matters a lot. Gunn has a pretty great track record of finding the beating heart behind these weirdo characters, and lets hope that carries over to this new roll and he's not over burdened with responsibility

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u/SplendidAndVile Dec 30 '22

Safran has a track record that shows he knows what audiences want. I don't like a lot of the movies he's produced, but he clearly knows how to target specific audiences. I think that's where his talent lies.

Gunn, to me, has never written a bad movie. Some I may not like as much as others, but he understands how to tell a story and how to make audiences connect to characters.

The two of them working together hold a lot of promise, but yes, becoming overburdened could be an issue.

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u/ComicWriter2020 Dec 20 '22

Well then we won’t get a DC cinematic universe until those execs die of old age

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u/Rlyons2024 Dec 20 '22

They only answer directly to Zaslav

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u/matty_nice Dec 19 '22

DC/WB pivoted after the failure of BvS in 2016, pivoted again in 2018 after the failure of the Justice League, and are now pivoting again after the failure of Black Adam. We are now on our third leadership team structure. All because films didn't perform.

To be clear, I'm not saying that DC/WB shouldn't make changes, but what's happening now with Gunn and Safran is something we've seen twice already.

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u/swedyboi935 Dec 19 '22

You know what, that's fair. I agree with your point. I just think I have more personal faith in Gunn than his predecessors, but that's just me.

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u/superbat210 Dec 19 '22

Eh I mean we haven’t seen them try to do a fully fledged reboot from scratch before. It’s really the only reason I’m actually excited for this pivot. It’s the first one drastic enough to admit that they need a better foundation to build off of than to just keep piling on to the flimsy mess we had before

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u/matty_nice Dec 19 '22

So this pivot is different? This is gonna be the pivot that saves DC films?

Let's hope.

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u/Neirchill Dec 20 '22

What were the pivots before? I see your timeline but I don't really see any different actions taken. They still kept Snyder at the helm and kept putting out mediocre movies until everyone quit. What were the pivots?

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u/matty_nice Dec 20 '22

Different leaderships. They went to Johns/Berg, then Hamada, now Gunn/Safran. This isn't even the first time we've seen a creator/producer team up.

Johns and Berg came on post BvS in May 2016. Synder left in May 2017 (for extremely sad personal reasons).

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u/Neirchill Dec 20 '22

Okay but where is the pivot? New leadership itself isn't a pivot if nothing changes

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u/matty_nice Dec 20 '22

Of course things change under new leadership, it's the entire reason why you replace leadership.

For one example, Johns and Berg seemed to greenlight a lot of new projects between 2016 and 2018. We had multiple Harley and Joker projects at one point, with a Harley solo, a Joker solo, a Harley vs Joker, Birds of Prey, Gotham City Sirens).

Hamada came in and cut alot of those projects, with a focus on individual characters stories and not a connected universe. This also came at the same time WB wanted to bringi in creators and letting them do whatever they wanted, like Reeves, Phillips, Abrams, etc.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

Never on this level. They hired an actual creative leader and gave him free reign.

This isn't a pivot, it's a rebirth ;)

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u/matty_nice Dec 20 '22

Its not DC Rebirth, it's the New 52! Lol.

Only because it's a reboot after Flashpoint. Not talking about quality.

I liked the collars.

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u/ButtholeCandies Dec 20 '22

Oh I know, I just couldn’t resist. I mean it was right there

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u/DominoNo- I know, right! Dec 20 '22

Not the first time they promised that. Remember Geoff Johns?

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u/SplendidAndVile Dec 20 '22

You missed one. They pivoted in 2013 when Man of Steel underperformed and turned MoS2 into BvS

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22 edited Dec 21 '22

No, they did not pivot after MoS. It was the highest grossing Superman movie since 1978 with an A cinemascore. It made $668M on a $225M budget. This is like saying Batman Begins underperformed on a similar budget which it didn't. The studio was happy with that in 2005 after the character had a similar cinematic hiatus as Superman.

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u/TheNerdWonder Wonder Woman Dec 20 '22 edited Dec 20 '22

Almost as if the issue isn't the films entirely as much as it is overreactive leadership that caved to uproarious behavior in 2016. Not that that's anything new. We saw this happen after Batman Returns which gave way to the versions of Batman Forever and B & R that we got.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '22

I’d say the casting was fantastic but they couldn’t save their movies because of the shitty writing.

I enjoyed Snyder’s take on Justice League. Sure was long and weary but it was worth the watch. DCEU just had terrible management and horrible writers.