Justice League (DC 2017 film)

I say keep the thread.

this movie is probably going to be horrible. better to have the freedom to express that without tying it to this horrible thing

ffs

Warner Bros and DC are in the early stages of another Batman Universe spinoff movie, this one telling the origin story of the signature villain The Joker. The studio has set The Hangover's Todd Phillips to co-write a script with 8 Mile scribe Scott Silver. Phillips will direct the movie, and Martin Scorsese will produce it with Phillips. This will be the first film under a new banner that has yet to be named in which WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.

I’m told that the intention is to make an origin story that isn’t part of any other iteration. The Joker has memorably been part of two Batman movies in the form of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, and was most recently played by Jared Leto in the first Suicide Squad film. He will reprise in the Suicide Squad sequel and the Harley Quinn spinoff, but this new film will launch the character with a different actor, possibly younger.

An intriguing part is the setting. The intention is to make a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in early-’80s Gotham City that isn’t meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese’s films from that era, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or The King Of Comedy. I’m told that Phillips and Silver are writing already, but there is nothing firm on where this will fit into the DC schedule.

fucking hell, are warners using mad libs to assemble their pitches? joker + scorsese + phillips + silver is not an intuitive assemblage of property and talent

also, if this is set in the early 80s, presumably with the proto-joker as a young adult, that mean the joker in suicide squad is supposed to be in his mid-50s, right? hmmm

I feel like WB execs looked enviously at the success of the MCU and their takeaway was nothing more complex than 'making a bunch of movies featuring characters you own = $$$!'.

I just learned that WB is also planning a Hanna Barbera cinematic universe. Sigh.

there's already been a crossover between dc comics and hanna-barbera comics, right?

god i'd pay so much money to watch batfleck star in an onscreen teamup with the funky phantom

yeah these things just make money, film any shit, just put in some Batman cameos and comic references, you got a cool billion. BvS and SS proved they can make money in their sleep.

on some level i almost suspect the constant shake-ups are to purposefully stir the pot. keep fans bitching about reshoots and studio meddling, that way you can sell them the movie twice when the directors cut comes out.

Something really really weird is going on at DC: http://www.avclub.com/warner-bros-announces-a-second-joker-movie-with-jared-1798372980?rev=1503539056267&utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

'Something really really weird' has been SOP at DC/WB for nearly a decade now.

Still. Making three films about the Joker at once, after the latest depiction was widely panned. That takes a pretty large amount of delusion. Or cocaine.

their takeaway was nothing more complex than 'making a bunch of movies featuring characters you own = $$$!'

why would their takeaway be anything else

I'll stick with the DC TV shows, which are the best superhero material going imo

and even those are not really that great - Supergirl being top of the pile and gets by largely on the charm of the lead actress and the ability of the writers to tread a lot of fine lines re: balance of "relevant" topics, ridiculous Silver Age shenanigans, action sequences, and soap opera romance plots.

An attempt at state of play

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-current-state-of-dc-superhero-movies-1798376485

Come on, CW DC shows aren't the best superhero material out there. I watch them all but they're preeeeeetty trashy. Like, they're largely there for me and my gf to shout at (YES WE KNOW OLIVER, EVERYTHING EVER IS YOUR FAULT, WHY DON'T YOU QUIT SUPERHERO-ING FOR A WHOLE 24 HOURS AGAIN).

And as for this:

why would their takeaway be anything else

― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 24, 2017 11:06 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whether you enjoy or agree with the decision, the secret to the MCU's success is tying everything into one coherent whole (or at least paying lip service to the idea before the TV shows went their own way) AKA synergistic marketing.

And making the movies actually good doesn't hurt (and yes, I know you disagree with that part).

is the MCU outperforming DCU stuff at the box office by that much? because all the studio cares about is the fact that they're still making money hand over fist. quality is totally irrelevant.

also I haven't watched Green Arrow lol - just Supergirl and a bunch of Flash episodes (that League of Tomorrow or whatever it is looked p bad tho)

They all feel very much like the same show to me. Arrow being the 'darkest' inasmuch as it's basically a Batman show in everything but name.

is the MCU outperforming DCU stuff at the box office by that much?

Yes. Even allowing for the fact that there are 4 DC movies and a billion Marvel movies, if you cap it at the top four Marvel is winning handily:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=avengers.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=dc.htm

xpost But see, that's DC successfully taking a page from Marvel's book. If these shows were disconnected, I might only watch one or two of them, but going this route gets completist freaks like me on the hook.

The only one I watch is Flash, and to the extent it ever crosses over with the other DC shows I can mentally fill in the blanks pretty easily without having to watch the others. This isn't exactly Proust.

When Flash is good, it's the best of those DC shows; when it's bad it's STOP SPINNING YOUR WHEELS AND GET ON WITH IT.

DC's top movie would rank #5 if included in Marvel's list.

MCU is also stomping on the X-Men:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=xmen.htm

Yeah, Marvel easily making a profit on something like Doctor Strange is what DC would die for. I don't quite know what the equivalent would be, perhaps a Shazam film. But so far DC has had to use their big guns, Superman, Batman, the Joker. When, of course, it's Wonder Woman who has been the big hit. It's hard to say what they should do at this point to turn it around, but planning four Joker-films at once (yes, four, according to gizmodo it's Scorceses Joker, Suicide Squad 2, Joker & Harley Quinn, Gotham City Sirens, all planning to use the joker)

Also, I haven't seen Doctor Strange, but it's supposedly not great, but not bad. That sweet spot is something DC can't seem to hit.

The Marvel movies have an edge over the DC movies in that you see the heroes figuring out their powers/capabilities as the stories go along rather than coming straight out of the gate as masters of flight/combat/tactics/what have you. For every character like Thor or Scarlet Witch, who appear on screen in full command of their powers and just straight up wrecking shit, you have offsetting characters like Ant Man and Spider Man, who are clearly new to the superhero game and make tactical mistakes or have to figure out a new use for their powers in the middle of a fight. It brings a level of relatability into these movies that DC's general god-mode doesn't have and probably factors into the charisma bump the Marvel movies get over the DC movies.

^^ And when the DCU did try to do that with Man of Steel they absolutely FUBARed it.

Doctor Strange was bad fyi

xp

Like you think any of the films are good

For the record, I would go to a dog for advice on putting together a complimentary color palette before I went to Shakey for opinions on the quality of MCU movies.

http://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/640/ds-photo/getty/article/99/191/532221225_XS.jpg

"This is my latest phase."

Looooool, DJP OTM.

doctor strange was pretty bad tho

and my MCU stan cred is impeccable

tbf yeah p bad movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9-DM9uBtVI

why the 90s alt rock cover of "Heroes"? i would rather hear the Bowie original, this just reminds me of TV shows and commercials that go the low budget route and get some random band to cover a Beatles song. then again, didn't they just have another trailer for this with "Come Together"? Thor has the real Led Zeppelin, Guardians of the Galaxy has real 10cc. get your shit together DC. this is embarassing.

this goes for everything else about this trailer (bad cgi, lame mugging, where is this mars? Aquaman can fly now??? i guess there is water in the air...). feels cheap and expensive at the same time, like someone just shit out a bucket of money.

on the plus side we get to look forward to a team of heroes fighting yet another endless faceless army

I know It's some Fourth World shit or whatever but having them fight a loaf of manbees was not a good choice

Looks horrendous obv

god help poor amy adams, appearing for the third time in an utterly thankless supporting role

that's what the money's for

boy does this feel like some also-ran shit. I'm guessing another reprise of Wonder Woman will be the only draw.

So red and bro-tastic! YEAAHHHHH!

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/justice-league-review

stoked for the madness

is it just me or has there been less of a marketing juggernaut around this than usual? i’d pretty much forgotten this was out this week until i saw a billboard yesterday

Wait, it's out this week? Would never have guessed. Saw the trailer before Thor and that's the extent I've seen.

I'm partially expecting an embargoed 'secret' final third, like BVS was supposed to have and pulled off to a degree (the WW reveal and the big Doomsday fight), with a resurrected Superman and Darkseid.

Justice League more like Enabler League

afaict the Big Reveal is going to be that Superman isn't really dead which uh... wow guys, who could see that one coming?

Out this week?! I don't think I've even seen a trailer or commercial or ad for it. Like if asked, I would've guessed that it was coming next summer or something. Bravo, WB.

no pars or quotes, to try and avoid breaking tags

'You said that Marvel movie fight scenes are bad because they don't match up to Hong Kong action movies, a genre specifically known for very excellent fight choreography. I agreed with this premise, but noted that I don't think the two genres are really comparable, yet you keep moving the goalposts'
-- This did not happen at all. I said that some, and not all, of the MCU movies I've seen have generic, incoherent animated final boss fights. Incoherent is fine to dismiss as opinion, but the rest is demonstrably factual: someone posted a How We Make 'Em video in the MCU thread, and multiple directors have talked of turning down offers to direct Marvel films when they asked about the action scenes and were told those would be done in-house / not part of their remit. I specifically named one director of Marvel movies who makes clear, coherent, thrilling, funny action scenes that enhance & are integrated with the character development in the rest of the script. I ~quoted that citation~ further in the conversation as a reminder tbc that I was speaking of a select plurality, not an inevitable universality.
-- Dan, in a comical style of unreasonable rhetorical hyperbole that is familiar from his two decades here, suggested that no MCU films can contain incoherent action, by proposing a binary consisting solely of 'all MCU films' and 'two far more incoherent films by one director.'
-- In another familiar rhetorical style, I proposed that a wide spectrum of perspectives exist instead of a binary, and illustrated this with a list of directors from a variety of countries who direct a wide type of visual action. All have fight scenes within their repertoire, but deploy them in different rhythms, different stagings, for different narrative effects, with the intent of creating different emotional reactions in an audience. (Sammo and Jackie aside - Jackie surpassed his mentor in skill and art and variety of action types, but they m/l write h2h fights for the same narrative ends.) (nb I wanted to include France to rep another continent, but afaik Transporter 2 is sadly an outlier in Leterrier's career)
-- You decided that Prachya Pinkaew and Park Chan-wook and Chad Stahelski are Hong Kong directors for some reason (and that eg Chan doesn't direct chase scenes, nor Chow direct dance scenes) and set up your own smaller set of goalposts there, and insisted that we now consider this the sole binary, not the Michael Bay one, AND BUT ALSO that it was an invalid binary. You then got mad at me for still standing by the enormous open goalposts going "everyone can have a kick over here, plenty of room," and ~stayed~ mad when multiple ppl pointed out that I was still in the same place wanting everyone to have fun kicking a goal.
(fwiw I literally fell asleep in JumanjIII when it switched to animated action scenes credited as being directed by a talented stunt coordinator, rather than the headline director, and performed without the name cast in their own roles. those can derail a non-MCU movie too!)
'by insisting they are the same by bringing.... fucking Happy Feet into it somehow?'
-- this was already covered by wins? but also fwiw Happy Feet has loads of dance scenes with dozens & dozens of li'l pengies all moving around at once, honest it does
'You have no consistent argument other than to prove, yet again, your superior film knowledge and better tastes than us other mere mortals.'
-- I'm saying that filmmakers who are interested in showing you 900 dudes in a row getting their faces kicked out the back of their heads, or Jack Nicholson fucking three women so hard that he turns into a devil baby puppet, can also be very good at visual storytelling. As far as historical expressions of snobbery on the I Love Music message board and its offshoots go, this hardly moves the needle, m'lud.
-- It is clear that you genuinely believe that I was disingenuously trolling in bad faith! (also that you are extremely stressed out in general terms this month!) But since you reached that conclusion by (in your own account) ~starting from the assumption that I was~, and quod erat demonstrandum by wins and Simon and Brad, misreading what I typed, mb next time ~don't~ assume that I am trolling, or that I hate you, or that I am trying to shame you, and thus yell at me for doing one of those? I assure that as far as I know you as a person here I wish you well, and sincerely hope that you get a timeline for vaccination soon.

I mean, BASICALLY THE SAME POWERS ONLY MORE SO is a solid complaint about the Norton Hulk, I don't dig "wellll the Abomination has a Might rating of 9 and the Hulk is an 8.5 but because he Means It More he's upgraded to a 9.5".

I think a lot of MCU films avoid this, more clever fights and endings like Doctor Strange please.

(I mean, arguably the ending of Doctor Strange is "I'm jammed in here with you and my Asshole rating is 10")

BASICALLY THE SAME POWERS ONLY MORE SO fits most of the origin stories, as the villain's coming from the same place. Tt's organic to the story. Iron Man 1 (Stane steals prototype suit, backwards engineers a megasize suit) & 2 (Whiplash & Tony's dads developed the arc reactor, Hammer Industries' patriot force mimics the Stark IM design), GotG 2 (Peter Quill & Ego, Peter's dad), Doctor Strange (they're all magicians), Ant-Man (both coming from Pym particles), Black Panther (Wakanda royalty in-fighting), Captain America 1 (Red Skull as early formula proto-Cap), Norton Hulk (military wants their own gamma ray soldier), maybe a few others I'm not reading that way.

Focusing on the powers misses out on seeing the various relationships grow over the movies, as the actors sink into the characters. Watching Endgame's scene with Natasha and Steve, before Scott appears, picturing their evolution together added extra depth to the scene. Same with the Steve / Bucky relationship over the years, and Steve / Tony. Seeing Iron Man's sacrifice is weighty enough in Endgame, but if you've been watching from the beginning, it resonates even more. Etc. You shouldn't have to have seen every Falcon/Winter Soldier appearance to enjoy the new series, but if it deepens the experience, why not? I wouldn't read the last Harry Potter book and think I wasn't missing something if I hadn't read the first six.

The DCU movies have left me mostly cold, but I think the MCU has been nailing character as well as the bombast.

the marvel movies make me feel nothing but contempt for tony starks and this contempt builds upon itself with each successive marvel movie i watch

v effective storytelling and characterization

No interest in his move from orphan / self-absorbed playboy / warmonger to team player / surrogate dad / family man? He's a well-adjusted Bruce Wayne.

I kind of like the parity of MCU villains and heroes. The movies repeatedly underscore the good and bad of, say, Stark tech, and that for every good thing that comes out of it plenty of bad stuff does, too. That is, the same technology that can make someone a hero can make someone else a villain. Same with the powers of the infinity stones, or magic, or military experiments or the way Spider-man Homecoming addressed the fallout of the alien invasion of New York and all the weapons and tech it left littered behind. It's basically an ongoing arms race fueled by different moralities and philosophies. The criticism often made of the Snyder films is that they are basically about feuding Gods and that he doesn't give a shit about people. The MCU films seem to be about people trying to elevate themselves to the levels of gods, much to the curiosity of (more or less) real gods, or godlike beings, who fwiw often struggle or are tasked with trying to become more "human." I think it's what makes the characters and characterization more compelling than their DC movie counterparts.

Anyway, Snyder should have gone all-in and made this square, black and white and *silent*. *Earn* those comparisons to Lang and Murnau, goddamit.

The criticism often made of the Snyder films is that they are basically about feuding Gods and that he doesn't give a shit about people

and this to me is very basically incorrect

there is a sort of deity-esque awe at superheroes going on in his films but his whole conception of clark kent in man of steel is tremendously human to me, this push-and-pull between what he feels like he owes people and his own desire keep everything inside and live a normal and private life

batman also isn't a god in any sense and is never filmed like one. he's introduced as someone who's fought crime in gotham for 20 years and has grown so cynical re: the capacity for human goodness that he brands criminals so they can get murdered in prison. and it's only when he glimpses clark's humanity (his love for his mother) that he realizes how far he's strayed

I'll take your word for it, I've just heard that criticism multiple places.

Speaking of Batman and Gods and not Gods, the RLM guys were actually poking fun at the fact that apparently in this one, while those with Godlike powers are rumbling at the end, Batman is basically driving around doing dumb basic stuff. They were like, let the super-powered Gods fights, aren't there some muggers to stop or something? Of course, the flip of this is all the humans in the MCU *do* stand shoulder to shoulder with or against their own God-like heroes and villains, which I don't think you're supposed to think about at all.

also it's not like batman transcends his ideology or anything, the "martha" thing is so sudden because it's not so much about understanding via empathy as it is just him being super triggered and redirecting his trauma. like the directly following image of his cooperative attack is reminiscent of the earlier drone strike, which is maybe schematic sure but feels more human than a lot of lesson-learned bouncebacks

As someone who has only seen maybe 5 or 6 of them, they seemed VERY formulaic in that every single one was MISUNDERSTOOD HERO FIGHTS EVIL DUDE WHO HAS BASICALLY THE SAME POWERS ONLY MORE SO; having been bored by this I haven't seen any since, so they way well have broadened their approach in the 300 movies since.

This makes me feel like the characters didn't do their job re: pulling you into the story as this yin/yang approach is a fundamental storytelling tactic and you didn't feel enough affinity for who the characters were to get past what they were doing.

also it's not like batman transcends his ideology or anything, the "martha" thing is so sudden because it's not so much about understanding via empathy as it is just him being super triggered and redirecting his trauma. like the directly following image of his cooperative attack is reminiscent of the earlier drone strike, which is maybe schematic sure but feels more human than a lot of lesson-learned bouncebacks

― lowercase (eric), Friday, March 26, 2021 8:11 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

huh yeah this is kinda otm!! batman vs superman, a movie full of queasy parallels

tbc there's definitely empathy but the pacing suggests that an understanding that's predicated solely upon it is probably pretty shallow, and (as he brands lex) that its inherent exclusions allow him to keep his conception of the categorical "criminal" unscathed. the film doesn't have the space to touch on a broader critique of "but if he fully got to empathize" (others have done that anyway) but still i always appreciate art that implictly pushes back against the notion of art being&doing good if it acts as an "empathy machine"

he doesn't brand lex!!!

oh yeah that's right, sorry, it's been a while -- i think it being on specifically a prison wall still signifies an "individual but not overall" change

which is maybe reading too much "better prisons are still prisons" into it but imo it still holds up (and the prisons are the same prisons)

also lmao now that i think about it given the scale and notoreity of what lex did it probably doesn't make a functional difference? besides the pain obviously

_BVS_ (extended cut) is the only Snyder movie I've seen that I actually think works back to front as a movie, and has enough weird shit in it to be genuinely compelling to watch, despite the length.

also hate to poke the bear but HK action is mostly corny af and I say that with deep affection.

gold standard is The Raid/Raid 2

the marvel movies make me feel nothing but contempt for tony starks and this contempt builds upon itself with each successive marvel movie i watch

but ghostface is only in the first one

the How Did This Get Made? and Blank Check podcasts dropped a crossover ep last night, in which I learnt that Snyder went into production with a full sequel script w/ Terrio ready to go, and the epilogue stuff in this movie is basically stuff that he is making up for not being able to get into another four-hour movie.

Most of the four speakers rewatched the other Snyder DCs and the Whedon cut in prep, and universally agreed that they really admire and appreciate the Snyder cut, and also reckon both they and culture at large would have hated it if it had come out in 2017

lol sic

[Accidental paste deleted - mod]

Mostly because I feel guilty that sic took the time to type out a long response, I figured I would acknowledge that and not just ignore it, but spoiler tags so as to not clog up the thread:

Yes, I will absolutely cop to likely reading many of your posts in this particular thread expecting bad faith arguments. Though I think "bad faith" is not a correct term for it, because I genuinely don't think you operate in bad faith. However, I do think you press particular points in such a tangential way, with counterpoints and specific examples that get so far removed from the starting point that it sometimes becomes tough to follow which thread you were pulling from when you started. Anyway, I don't have the bandwidth or time today to refute your points one-by-one, nor do I really think that would be helpful at this point but I will say I did press the issue in an unhelpful way, even if I do still disagree with some of your points.

Oops, dammit. I didn't mean to leave all that pasted in.

too late, you now must watch nothing but the Snyder Cut for the rest of the weekend

let's just accept that I The Secret-ed jon's vaccination into manifesting and have a mod delete everyone's all our posts

lol at the people of earth burying their mother box in a four-foot hole in the woods

Put a bit of effort in lads

I just found out that the guy who plays the scientist who kills himself is the same guy who played the scientist who kills himself in Terminator 2.

yes they hired miles dyson to play miles dyson, one of my favorite things about the movie lol

Woo boy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/ray-fisher-opens-up-about-justice-league-joss-whedon-and-warners-i-dont-believe-some-of-these-people-are-fit-for-leadership

Among other things:

The tension only escalated when the issue of having Cyborg say "booyah" arose. That phrase had become a signature of the character thanks to the animated Teen Titans shows, but the character had never said it in the comics or in the original script. Fisher says that Johns had approached Snyder about including the line, but the director didn't want any catchphrases. He managed the situation by putting the word on some signs in his version of the film, as an Easter egg. But Johns' rep says the entire studio believed the booyah line was "a fun moment of synergy."

Fisher says he doesn't see the word in itself as an issue, but he thought it played differently in a live-action film than the animated series. And he thought of Black characters in pop culture with defining phrases: Gary Coleman's "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"; Jimmie Walker's "Dy-no-mite!" As no one else in the film had a catchphrase, he says, "It seemed weird to have the only Black character say that."

With reshoots underway, Fisher says Whedon raised the issue again: "Geoff tells me Cyborg has a catchphrase," he told him. Fisher says he expressed his objections and it seemed the matter was dropped — until Berg, the co-chairman of DC Films and a producer on the project, took him to dinner.

"This is one of the most expensive movies Warners has ever made," Berg said, according to Fisher. "What if the CEO of AT&T has a son or daughter, and that son or daughter wants Cyborg to say 'booyah' in the movie and we don't have a take of that? I could lose my job." Fisher responded that he knew if he filmed the line, it would end up in the movie. And he expressed skepticism that the film's fate rested on Cyborg saying "booyah."

But he shot the take. As he arrived on set, he says, Whedon stretched out his arms and said a line from Hamlet in a mocking tone: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you." Fisher replied, "Joss — don't. I'm not in the mood." As he left the set after saying just that one phrase for the cameras, he says, Whedon called out, "Nice work, Ray."

Hooooly shit. In a single wild statement, Geoff Johns used his Black First Wife, Asian Second Wife, and Mixed Race Son as political body shields https://t.co/ng9ooQcprS

— Allison Kilkenny (@allisonkilkenny) April 6, 2021

Also, he's pals with Akira Yoshida.

But Johns' rep says the entire studio believed the booyah line was "a fun moment of synergy."

"this is a dog who gets biz-zay, consistently and thoroughly"

Remember how the Bale Batmans had all of the 'POW! ZAP!' onscreen graphics whenever he fought dudes, same thing basically

Patterson Batman better have Bat Shark Repellant, is all I'm saying.

Is there a Flash thread for the 2023 film? Anyway, just watched this expecting to turn it off -30 minutes in. The opposite! I thought it had a good heart and actually honored its comic book origins. Ezra Miller's schtick is what it is, the cameos/callbacks are fun and, wonky as it is much of the time, i found this way more entertaining than the Spiderman film that mined a similar Multiverse Blah Blah vein a few years ago.

You had me until the end there - the three-Spider-man / Molina / Dafoe / Foxx film was great fun, I thought.

I enjoyed the Spidey film but thought this one was less "movie fan service-y", more "let's do something you'll find in a fun, goofy DC comics mini-series".