Some major DC Films news has broken today as Variety has revealed the layout and future of the DC comic movies including more R-rated films, plans for Superman and Green Lantern
Before I continue, I would highly recommend everyone to read the full article as it’s a fascinating piece as I’m just going to cover the headline stuff.
First and foremost, things at Warner Bros and DC Films are pretty decent at the moment as their films have been on an upward trend in regards to box office performance and reviews with a lot of credit going to Walter Hamada.
In case you don’t know who Hamada is, he’s the president of DC Films moving from New Line Cinema and brought films like IT and The Conjuring to major success.
Anyway, Hamada has been credited with plotting a new, more sustainable course for the DC movies and universe. He’s been seen as a man with a strong scene of story, keeping a firm eye on the bottom line and a strong hand on budgets so they don’t go crazy.
Under Hamada and Toby Emmerich’s leadership, the studio feels comfortable with backing comic book movies for adults, thanks to the billion-dollar success of Joker, like 20th Century Fox previously with both Birds of Prey and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad heading towards R-ratings.
Elsewhere, the studio is figuring out how to bring Superman back on the big screen (having found their footing with Matt Reeves and The Batman) for a winning strategy. They have spoken with J.J. Abrams, whose company Bad Robot signed a massive first-look deal, and had meetings with Michael B. Jordan who pitched a vision of the character earlier in the year.
The issue is Jordan has a full slate of projects and is not willing to join something that hasn’t got a writer or director attached with Variety insiders feeling it’s unlikely a new Superman movie will hit screens before 2023.
Speaking of The Batman and Birds of Prey, the US trade state that key cast members have options in their contacts to appear in sequels and standalone films. So we could see a standalone Zoe Kravitz Catwoman movie, which could be dope.
Not only are WB embracing the darker side of DC, the studio still wants to bring screens the big screen adaption they feel deserve. The first being Green Lantern with Geoff Johns delivering a script by the end of the year for Green Lantern Corps. They’re also looking at Abrams and Bad Robot to see if they’d be interested in producing the film.
It’s just the film Johns is working on as he is also teaming up with Greg Berlanti for the Green Lantern HBO Max show and that relationship could lead towards his involvement in the feature film.
The Studio still has faith in Ezra Miller’s Flash with IT director Andy Muschietti overseeing the project with Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson handling the script before she movies on to writing Batgirl.
The only issue is production on The Flash won’t be able to start until Miller has finished work on the next Fantastic Beasts movie meaning camera won’t be able to roll until 2021.
Furthermore, DC is looking on capitalising on the massive success of Aquaman as Warners/DC are looking for a director for The Trench. A spinoff about how a group of Atlantians became vicious undersea creatures.
As for the sequel to Jason Momoa’s King of Atlantis, the hope is James Wan will return and filming can begin in early 2021.
Speaking of HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, the future of DC Film could be made and premiered sole of the platform with the hope of slightly lower budgets and using up-and-coming stars keeping production costs under $65 million.
I have ideas for films and it should be used for bigger budget animated movies.
Finally, with HBO Max the hope is Warner Bros might let Zack Snyder finish up and release his version of Justice League or what we like to call it The Snyder Cut. However, it seems like the studio is unwilling to spend the money on finishing it with one person describing it as “a pipe dream” and “there’s no way it’s ever happening”.
I’d like to call bullshit on that as if they want to spend $65 million on something new, they could spend the same amount on the Snyder Cut or even without spending a penny.
Or as Forbes’ Mark Hughes says in his latest article “While Warner could indeed spend some additional money to finish a few elements or tweak a few others, Snyder’s version could be released as-is without additional spending and viewers would get a full film with 90+% completed footage, VFX, and sound.”
So this sounds to me that despite being close to finished or not wanting to put in some extra cash, extending the olive branch to both Zack and Debbie Snyder, while making money from fans and people to see this film on their streaming service.
The studio would prefer to be pig-headed and say it doesn’t exist or it’s nowhere completed.
The Bear Cave 