Justice League (2017)

As a non-DC-fan but still a super hero / comics fan, the interest I have in those characters is definitely not the Justice League. Only time I've liked Superman was Red Son. Batman I like his interactions with his antagonists and some of the Gotham ongoings. Wonder Woman I barely am aware of what her comics and stories are. Those 3 names may be super identifiable but at this point Marvel has done better to make people fans of their B and C tier characters than DC has with their A listers. It's not like Hulk and Iron Man aren't decently well known. DC has mismanaged their CU, movies and TV, for basically the entire time they've had any and they don't really deserve benefit of the doubt.

Maybe all the good talent is taken up by Marvel but I doubt it considering Marvel constantly is pulling talent out of almost thin air. There's always tons of good people looking for that kind of work, DC / WB just are too far behind the times at this point.

Zweischneid said:

This!

Feels like all this is increasingly being graded on a curve.

Imagine you could go back in time 5 years and post on FoH that
a) 2017 will see the release of a Justice League movie with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the whole shebang
b) That same movie will also open below Thor 3, another Spiderman reboot, a Wonder Woman solo-flick and some Guardians of something Marvel C-tier property nobody ever heard of?

What do you think people would've made on that comment?

I mean seriously. It‘s a fucking Justice League movie! It should be murdering screens left and right. It should be printing cash for WB like no tomorrow. It should be the one who knocks at Star Wars‘ throne for this year at least. It shouldn‘t be „people who only saw three Superhero movies on the big screen in 2017 probably missed it“-level.

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Guardians is some D list shit tier Marvel Property and the first movie is awesome, and the 2nd movie was good if not great. DC is really fucking the dog on this.

Yeah one question you can always ask yourself with a big budget movie is "Am I seeing where all that money went up on the screen?". For all of the problems a movie like Blade Runner 2049 created for itself with it's budget, there's no question they put it to good use as far as the film itself is concerned. It's all up there for you to behold.

At $300 million JL would have needed a VR double barrel knob job from Wonder Woman and Lois Lane for you to go "yup, money well spent."

So I was going to watch this movie...and I decided to read some of this thread. I decided my time was better spent by watching the following over the last couple of days:
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Justice League: Doom
Justice League: War
Justice League: Crisis on two earths
Batman: Bad Blood
Batman: Assault on Arkham
DCU: Batman and Harley Quinn
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Justice League: Gods and Monsters

And that's not even all of them.

Yeah...

Most likely won't see this any time soon, but you have to just scratch your head when you can literally watch good adaptations of the DC universe for dozens of hours, but they had to make a stinker while having that exact material available the entire time.

Sadness.

Animation can subsist on a smaller audience because the budgets are orders of magnitude smaller than a tent pole live action film. As a result they can drill down deeper into the source material to satisfy the core fans.

Interestingly enough, Snyder's feature length animated movie is actually pretty good though it has nothing to do with comic books.

Royal said:

Yeah one question you can always ask yourself with a big budget movie is "Am I seeing where all that money went up on the screen?". For all of the problems a movie like Blade Runner 2049 created for itself with it's budget, there's no question they put it to good use as far as the film itself is concerned. It's all up there for you to behold.

At $300 million JL would have needed a VR double barrel knob job from Wonder Woman and Lois Lane for you to go "yup, money well spent."

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Yeah, the whole project looks really mismanaged. The villain was comical, the CGI was bad.

That's not even getting into the main issue with this movie outside of what's bad about the movie itself. The reality is Marvel's block busters could happen so well because the individual characters got their own intro movies. Movies that Marvel almost seemed ready to only break even on, because the goal was set the character up. Now the individual arcs are crossing over and becoming as big as the "meet up" movies even--but all of that took time and a ton of risk. Marvel took lesser known actors (When the two Chris's were just known as those good looking blonde guys, and the third was a goofy red head) and locked them in and counted on developing them. You can see through the history of this, after IM1 smashed it, they really set about to take their time and do it right.

The moment Ben Affleck was cast as Batman it illustrated a profound fuck up. Not because Affleck is bad...Shockingly I think he's by far the best part of these films. But more because it should have been obvious that locking the guy in to do a decade worth of movies, so they could build his Batman up, was not going to happen. It showed right out of the gate they were planning on rushing the fuck out of this.

Yeah, an ensemble can work even without the build up, like with GoTG. But that's only really if the characters are so obscure that you're not relying on their core audience for word of mouth. That's just not the case with these characters, and they all really needed some time to develop. Yet what we got was a shitty movie that even in the movie things felt rushed and half assed.

Bondurant said:

Justice League Could Lose $50M to $100M For Warner Bros.

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The Forbes article cited in that linked article above is a great read if the nuts and bolts of motion picture financials and how movies make their money are of interest to you. The comparison chart of 20 comic book movies from the past 5 years is particularly damning for Zack Snyder. All three of the movies he's directed have had low rates of return on investment for WB. One more reason for them to show him the door.

(direct link to the Forbes piece):

Warner Bros. Faces A Possible $50M To $100M Loss On 'Justice League'

Lithose said:

Now the individual arcs are crossing over and becoming as big as the "meet up" movies even--but all of that took time and a ton of risk. Marvel took lesser known actors (When the two Chris's were just known as those good looking blonde guys, and the third was a goofy red head) and locked them in and counted on developing them. You can see through the history of this, after IM1 smashed it, they really set about to take their time and do it right.

The moment Ben Affleck was cast as Batman it illustrated a profound fuck up. Not because Affleck is bad...Shockingly I think he's by far the best part of these films. But more because it should have been obvious that locking the guy in to do a decade worth of movies, so they could build his Batman up, was not going to happen. It showed right out of the gate they were planning on rushing the fuck out of this.

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Not sure about that. RDJ wasnt unknown and having a reasonable post-90s comeback since Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Tropic Thunder, the Soloist, etc.. were alsomostly filmed before IM1 hit theatres. Nothing to make him the world’s best paid actor by miles, but not so different from non-Comic Book Affleck not quite 10 years later. Some surprise hits, some stinkers, but generally a name people would recognize.

Also brought on Samuel Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ed Norten (all a lot bigger 10 years ago), Jeff Bridges, Anthony Hopkins, etc.. more recently Cumberbatch and quite some casting for admittedly more one-off roles (Redford, Michael Douglas, Blanchett, etc..). Vin Diesel also was in the top 10 best-paid actors before they hired him to voice essentially a single line, because why not?

More importantly, I think Marvel is willing to cut out things that dont work (while keeping the things that did work around a bit too long, arguably, thus sometimes feeling formulaic). Ed Norton Hulk no good? Bye. Cap. America 1 a bit boring, complete new team and style a go. Same for Thor, etc...

DC just clings to the stuff that largely didnt work (mostly Snyder I guess, or his writers, dunno).

Its like an alternative universe where Marvel would’ve insisted in hanging the entire MCU on Ed Norten & his crew and the style of that movie, consequences be damned.

Marvel didn't move away from Ed Norton just because that movie didn't work. Norton ended up being a gigantic pain the ass to work with. Marvel didn't dance around that with niceties when they announced he was being replaced for The Avengers either:

We have made the decision to not bring Ed Norton back to portray the title role of Bruce Banner in the Avengers. Our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members. The Avengers demands players who thrive working as part of an ensemble, as evidenced by Robert, Chris H, Chris E, Sam, Scarlett, and all of our talented casts. We are looking to announce a name actor who fulfills these requirements, and is passionate about the iconic role in the coming weeks.

So what do you think Kevin Feige/Marvel/Disney would do with Affleck, being-on-off-on-again, directing, not-directing, pissed-because-not directing (with some added hyperpolitical groping shit possibly brewing most recently)?

I think the back and forth with Affleck continuing with the DCEU has mostly been WB trying to manage the situation from a PR perspective prior to JL's release. I think the decision was made mutually months ago to part ways but you can't put that out there to hang in the air while you're promoting a movie. But the press has just refused to move on.

Just because you know a character, doesn't mean you care about them. LOTS of people know who Jesus is, but not so many want to watch a movie about him.

j00t said:

Just because you know a character, doesn't mean you care about them. LOTS of people know who Jesus is, but not so many want to watch a movie about him.

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I dunno. I'd pay money to see da Jesus have his come to Cap moment.

I said MOVIE you fools. Ultimate warrior had his own comic book...