Just before the most critical day in Warner Bros and DC’s future, DC FanDome went off to a bad start as someone leaked the trailer for the Snyder Cut of Justice League.
This lead to The Batman somehow also getting leaked and I have no doubt someone is getting fired at WB. Once the leaked trailer came out it led to Zack Snyder no-holds-barred Twitter death of a critic so RIP and hope Forbes will find a way to recover.
Despite this disappointment, it’s clear DC FanDome is a phenomenal success, a true gold standard and let’s hope this virtual experience becomes real. It can become DC’s own Star Wars Celebration with live audiences for these panels over the whole weekend in the future. Taking it to different places around the world, but this year has been such a massive win that Lucasfilm/Disney must be kicking themselves.
First up, we saw the second official Wonder Woman 1984 trailer. It looks utterly fantastic and seeing the full transformation of Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah and looks terrifying, in a great way.
Also, as for the panel, I loved Lydia Carter’s interaction with Wiig as it was so incredibly wholesome; it got me emotional.
WB Games Montreal smashed it out with the Gotham Knights trailer. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting as we’re not Batman because he’s “dead”, so we’re playable as the Batfamily. The design of Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin were great, but the standout is Batgirl.
Also, the in-play footage looked fantastic and can’t wait to play this in 2021.
The only issue before seeing confirmed was which Robin did they pick because in the trailer it looked like Damian Wayne, but in the in-play had more of a Time Drake feel and via WB Games it is indeed Drake.
As I expected the Multiverse 101 panel was important, especially from a film standpoint as we heard from DC Films chief Walter Hamada for the first time.
He confirmed that the films would be following the multiverse model so the DCEU will continue to have Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Shazam etc. It sounds like they’re reusing Snyder’s foundations, which is why we’re seeing the return of Ben Affleck’s Batman.
Meanwhile, as for Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s The Batman, Hamada confirmed will be in its own Year Two Universe, and The Joker is an Elseworlds story with no universe.
The Flash was what we were expecting from the breezy 10 minutes. Still, I found Ezra Miller’s energy fun and continue the love of screenwriter Christina Hodson. Especially when talking about lost went from Bruce Wayne losing his parents to Harley Quinn losing her egg sandwich.
As for exclusive looks, it wasn’t major and as expected some production art as Andy Muschietti revealed a look at the new streamline suit designed and made by Batman (but which Batman???) and in one of the designs is Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne.
I have to admit I like it but will need to see more and ideally when it becomes live-action to warm to it.
Meanwhile, we arrive at the panel and film I was most interested in and wanted to get me on board with The Suicide Squad, and I’m glad to say James Gunn did it!!
The first was the character intros for the actors revealing John Cena is Peacemaker, Idris Elba as Bloodsport among many others like Sean Gunn’s Weasel and King Shark is in there.
The character designs for some of these like Elba, Jai Courtney’s Boomerang, Margot Robbie looks fantastic as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag has got the original yellow tee. Finally, the design of King Shark looks like the version of the character from the Harley Quinn animated show.
The thing that got me more onboard was the behind the scenes featurette and producer’s Peter Safran’s comments of it’s a gritty 1970s war movie with humour, and the sound of that is fucking dope.
Once again, Robbie’s Harley was the standout. The pure joy we’ll see her FINALLY using a bazooka will be great to watch. Additionally, seeing somewhat of the story is that Task Force X will have to battle dictator and his army.
With so many D-list villains, I can only see King Shark and Bloodsport being the only survivor of the new cast alongside the original cast.
We also got these DC FanDome exclusive posters, which also look great!
A small and really cool tidbit, but the surprise DC Comics panel was to reveal the relaunch of Milestone Comics. During the panel, it was confirmed talks are currently happening for a live-action and animated Static Shock movie.
The moment came and I’M FUCKING CRYING!!! I had to change my boxers. This trailer of The Snyder Cut of Justice League was perfect, and I’ll be watching it on repeat, watching reaction videos, I love it so much.
From the music, using Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as a clear sign to the fans and fits what we saw in this trailer. The emotional heart that was ripped out by Joss Wheldon and those running WB at the time is now back.
Seeing Ray Fisher act his heart out as Victor Stone and see more emotional depth from The Flash and the end with Batman.
We get to see Darkseid in full glory, the black suit Superman, the Knightmare and the original design of Steppenwolf.
Just before the trailer, Snyder revealed that it’s a four-part hour episodic series, but at the end will be put together to make a four-hour feature-length movie.
Meanwhile, he also confirmed for those countries without HBO Max like the UK a distribution plan is in the works. So either WB will release it as a four-hour movie or have the series hit Sky Atlantic.
That doesn’t matter for the moment, the important thing is releasing it this way is the smartest move and will get people flooding HBO Max, but no official release yet.
All I have to say if you didn’t like Man of Steel or Batman v Superman, you’re not going to like this, and that’s a good thing because it was never for you it was the fans who demanded a director sees out his vision after losing a loved one.
Then you have the title Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a beautiful saying.
Black Adam was next and this needed to do one job, get fans excited and interest in seeing Dwayne Johnson suit up as the character and bloody done a cracking job with a decent logo.
From the beginning of using the concept, production artwork and Johnson’s voiceover sold the movie and hinted to an incredible DC history lesson in the film that will be set in the modern-day. Meanwhile, we learnt the JSA is in the movie with Atom Smasher (played by the internet’s boyfriend Noah Centineo) and will be joined by Hawkman, Dr Fate and Cyclone.
Additionally, Johnson teased a showdown with Superman. So maybe we’ll see a post/end credit scene.
The 10 minute panel for Aquaman was incredibly fun to see James Wan and Patrick Wilson shoot the shit and gave some info that the sequel will be more serious, visit new worlds and will mirror today’s issues.
Another small panel, but equally as fun was Shazam that feature Sinbad, but while they didn’t give much away, they confirmed the title for the sequel which is called Shazam: Fury of the Gods.
The penultimate panel was Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and in their 20 minute panel and Rocksteady needed to match WB Games Montreal’s panel from earlier on with Gotham Knights.
The trailer looks fun and the design of the character looks great, but we really needed to know a little more. Apart from the info on screen, it looks like Brainiac takes control of the Justice League and the Suicide Squad needs to break the mind control.
Anyway, it’s a little let down compared to Gotham Knights, but it’s nice to know it’s continuing the Arkham franchise.
It looks like DC kept the best till last as before the trailer was released Warner Bros unveiled official images from The Batman, which set the tone perfectly.
Hearing Matt Reeves talk about this movie alone gets me fucking excited. Saying we’re getting this personal Bruce Wayne story and we’re getting versions of these character’s we’ve never seen before that while not a Batman origin it’s an origin for these villains.
Then came the trailer and HOLY FUCK THIS TRAILER WAS SO MUCH MORE THEN I COULD EXPECT. The tone, oh the gothic, grunge tone, the violence, the voice and acting from Pattinson, the clear nod to David Fincher, the gorgeousness of the film and the use of Nirvana’s Something In The Way was genius.
I can’t wait for The Batman to come and Halloween is such the perfect date.
I wanted to end by saying a massive thank you and congratulations to everyone involved in DC FanDome. You pulled off an incredible virtual event that will hard to beat. It was a genuinely gold-standard event, and I hope it’s the beginning of a yearly event.
The Bear Cave 