Oh, wow. Such as black adam is about to be released: DC’s second movie of the year, but the last in a while with an agency release plan: Kit Boris has delivered a report revealing a chaotic state of play for the DCEU’s plans. There are so many sentences in this piece that it’s just wild: the franchise having a sequel in the works as the star pleads not guilty; the wrestler-turned-celebrity who wanted to sneak Superman into his movie; all that’s missing is someone covered in blood eating a muffin to make it the wildest drama of the year. Every sentence of this article is now his personal article in The Direct.
“Right now it’s the Wild West,” says an insider. “Everyone is trying to grab as much as they can. And this is exactly what happens in a leadership vacuum.”
But of course, the history of the DCEU is full of drama, but the tumult and uncertainties of the Zaslav Era have increased the drama even more. As they say in screenwriting college: battle, battle, battle!
After all, you should read the whole story, but here’s a summary with a review from me. The main story is that, with former DCEU director walter hamada Leaving the studio this week, a Game of Thrones-esque IP seizure is underway with some of Hollywood’s biggest nerdy kings (and a queen or two) furiously laying claim to it.
Let’s kill the players!
• Hamada is out this week, without so much as a production tile to interrupt his touchdown. Thus ends a pretty good streak with movies that were generally well-acquired, taking Snyder-era castings (Momoa, Gadot, Levi) and turning them into canon, and letting authors win Oscars with their portrayals of Batman. It deserved a better ending.
• Perhaps most surprisingly, duane johnson is taking the event of your black adam press ops to become a “shadow Feige”, selling his own concepts and plans for a lot, no doubt a lot, of DC initiatives, telling the New York Times that they need to look beyond the Big Three: “there are some great characters in there. You just have to give it a try and trust the investment.”
He’s even said he’d love to help out in the DCEU’s search for a new Czar: worry trolling at its most interesting. But maybe they should listen to him, since he has done something that people have been asking for for a long time, bring back henry cavill as Superman. There is reportedly a Cavill cameo in black adam – a transfer that was actively dominated by Hamada. But exhibiting the GoT-type cunning of his, Johnson went from Hamada to studio heads. Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy, and received the reshoots made just a month ago. Johnson may also be publicly stumped about a “Black Adam vs Superman” movie, and let’s face it, that’s not a bad thought. The Rock and Henry Cavill fighting around the world: creativity overflows. Adding to the comfort: Rock’s supervisor, Danny Garcia, he can also be Cavill’s supervisor.
• Okay, what about Superman? The greatest superhero of them all has been languishing on film (although quite busy on the small screen with Superman and Lois etc.). But WBD execs are said to have “an intense desire to repeat Cavill’s iteration of the hero.” It’s time. DCEU veteran Charles Roven He’s reportedly on board to provide Man of Steel 2.
And of course the comics end things (we’ll come back to that) recently brought a push for Superman, a move that could represent some of that earlier studio synergy in more structured instances, and who knows. of, maybe it is?
• But this is not the only Superman! JJ Abrams and Tanehisi Coates have been preparing their own Black Superman movie which could be, like Joker, outside of “DCEU continuity”. Abrams has been taking some L’s right now: worldly women, his expensive present on HBO, did not receive the green light; the streamers for Constantine and Madame X (anadu) were scrapped (but are being purchased); and the animated Batman: Caped Crusader may also be looking for a home. He signed a big deal with HBO back in the early days of AT&T, but he’s working more outside the studio. But he’s a Hollywood powerhouse, so don’t depend on him. He has received a horse in this battle!
• But we are just getting started! james gunnwhose distinct imaginative and prophetic with the suicide squad Y Pacifier Received with great praise, it can also be said that it is breaking the surface, launching a new and unknown film project of its own.
Sources tell THR that Gunn and producer Peter Safran are in talks with Warners for a presumably additional thriller that Gunn would work out. (Safran is already inside the DC business, producing Shazam! and its upcoming sequel, as well as Aquaman and that film’s sequel.)
Gunn is probably the most beloved figure in superhero movie land, now that Taika Waititi gave up the crown, so this sounds promising.
• And then there’s matt Reeves, who delivered a successful new Batman earlier this year and has a Battinson sequel in the works, on top of that Colin Farrell Penguin series that, of course, has not been canceled or bought. And just to keep up to date, he has his OWN secret plans!
The filmmaker is meeting with writers and directors to build movies — certain movies, not just sequences — centered around the Batman villain’s gallery, both established and more obscure, with characters ranging from Scarecrow to Clayface to Professor Pyg. All these initiatives are in very early stages of gestation.
It looks healthy.
• In case you forgot, there are are Accurate movies within the works. WBD actually has two movies already nearly finished but languishing in release date limbo, Aquaman 2 and the ever-troubled The Flash. Y Patty Jenkins is engaged in Wonder Woman 3.
• As for Flash, it has been renewed requires that the film be discarded due to the star by Ezra Miller points, but the people asking for the scrapping seem unaware that the film has has already been done. Filming began in April 2021 and led up to October 2021. Ezra’s troubles didn’t really go public until earlier this year, even though it seems like they’ve been a one-person rogues gallery since time began. . Regardless, I personally don’t think Miller should return for the sequel which is reportedly already in the works, but given the angst over Batgirl’s scrapping, maybe we should always applaud the work of the 499 OTHER people who worked on TheFlash. It’s a gross scenario and no answer is ideal.
• Although I hesitate to use the word last in all this, after the failed search for The Chosen One, when the producer Dan Lin turned down the job from “DCEU’s Feige”, maybe The One was in his own backyard the whole time. According to Kit, co-studio head of WB miguel de luca is…a big fan of comics! And possibly he was simply filling the void.
For now, De Luca, who is known for his fanboy roots and displays a deep grounding in esoteric comic lore, remains firmly in charge of DC. He greenlit Joker 2, has been making selections on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Flash, and has met with filmmakers. Rumors abound that his role could evolve into one with more permanent and even DC-only oversight.
• While writing about all these messes is a reward in itself, let’s not neglect the little guys who made it all possible: DC Comics. What about the open-plan office where DC logos shouldn’t even be prominently displayed? Well, as noted, DC’s presence at NYCC was limited to panels, with some promising newsletters and plenty of signatures from Jim Lee.
Waves of layoffs continue to hit WBD, but while observers continually fear that DC is the victim of another massacre, they have been saved for now. The latest wave basically comes out of Cartoon Network, merging its operations with WB Animation, a move that spells the end of the room for one of the most iconic games of this century (Adventure Time), or just changes.
The most optimistic ideas about DC Comics are based on the fact that it has already been lowered to the bone, and there is no one left to cut while keeping things going. That in no way stopped Company America, but I was told that the division head Pam Lifford, who seems to have taken a huge dislike to DC since he started on WB, doesn’t focus much on simplifying it further. Be grateful for small favors.