James Gunn Announcement.

It's one of the drawbacks of making a movie based on an existing fictional character, especially ones as iconic as Batman and Superman. There are the current fans, who have expectations, and want references to events in the modern era. And then there is the majority of the movie going public, who want their recognizable hero. I remember Snyder at one point saying he underestimated how attached people were to the Christopher Reeve Superman. I remember when Tim Burton's Batman came out in '89 there were a lot of people worried that people wouldn't accept an Adam West like take on Batman. Fortunately that fear vanished after opening weekend.

If you go in with something fresh, there are no expectations. Look at Star Wars in 1977, people went into that blind. Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo were all gibberish names. Unfortunately for Lucas, that freedom ended as soon as the credits rolled and people demanded a sequel.

Yeah I mean Bryan Singer tried to keep his Superman Returns as essentially a sequel to the originals, but with the evolution of technology I think everyone wanted something bigger and better. Bale only had three films and Cavil had three films. Man of Steel is over ten years old now, which means theirs a generation that only knows Superman as Cavil. I think WB should have just powered through with the Snyderverse, which is what they will probably have to do with Gunn’s films. I bet Man of Steel will probably beat Gunn’s Superman in the box office, but they’ll just have to push through and get people use to the new guy for two or three films. It’s going to have to bomb incredibly badly to discontinue the franchise again.

What I'm worried about is Superhero burnout. You're already starting to see cracks in the Marvel armour. Movie fans are notoriously fickle. Action movies ruled the day in the 80's, Rom Coms were king of the roost in the early 2000's. I remember a period of time in the late 80's when small character pieces were all the rage, Orlando, Shakespeare in Love etc. The hype machine is different now, but if someone could master predicting what people will want 2 years from now, they would be very rich.

Yeah I hear that, Superhero burnout can definitely happen. The Black Adam bomb may be a sign of that also. I think Wakanda also did poorer than expected, but I could be wrong, Marvel failures aren’t as public as DCs. That’s another thing I liked about the Snyderverse is that they felt very different than Marvel movies which kept it fresh. Gunn said he’s not doing DC as Marvel 2.0 but they definitely hired him because of what he’s made in the past and I think their is some expectation of the action comedy moving forward from the studio, even if it’s not stated explicitly. Part of Marvel slowing down is partly because they are following the comics which is how you get this central all star original Avengers that can carry solo comics and movies to one A lister on the Avengers west coast and east coast Avengers then the rest are uninteresting cheap knock offs. The coming X-men will likely save Marvel if it’s done well.

There may be Superhero burnout...but it may also be that many of the movies are mediocre at best. And many of them are not bringing anything new or interesting and run by people who don't even seem to like the material. There is little in Phase 4 I have any desire to watch again, and they keep pulling the "the villain has tortured/killed tons of people, but they were treated badly so we should love them" bit. Not to mention, in several, the title character ends up not being the focus of their own movie, so you don't built as much connection to them.

The main thing that keeps me interested in this new DC direction is that Gunn seems to love comics. That doesn't mean he always sticks to the characters, but he does lean into the weirder side of them and makes something fun rather than cookie cutter. So I am cautiously optimistic. He seems like rather than trying to translate comic characters to the real world he tries to let them remain comicbook-y just in live action. Fingers crossed.