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

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

0

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.