All of Snyder’s Films Rumored To Be Erased In The Flash; Cavill Out Also

[Frontier]

Well, cast was enthusiastic about Whedon's Justice League as well.

Well, maybe not as much as they told the public, but yeah.

[Prime]

MOS made 700 mill. With a good script and a good director the second movie would have made more. It was ruined by introducing Batamn. They should have given Superman more character development before anything.

[Doctor Know]

I honestly don't care about geriatric Batman and I feel like most people are chill on that since there's a young second year Bruce Batman getting his own film in a few months (one that has significantly more hype than anything else in the DCEU). It's the full removal of everything Clark that is wild. Hopefully black Clark Kent is a good take since I'll take any Clark over just removing him altogether.

The thing about the MCU is that they built up their legacy characters over a decade and built a lot of fan enthusiasm into their product before transitioning. I don't even get what WB is doing tbh especially since some of these movies are apparently streaming only. How is Batgirl going to be the future of DCEU when you put her movie straight to HBO Max while Bruce's reboot is getting a full cinematic treatment? After Wonder Woman 84 tanking all the goodwill of the first movie, there's a lot riding on The Flash and Aquaman since The Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey flopped and Shazam came and went. If these two movies don't do it, it'll be interesting to see what happens to the cinematic universe. Might need a full reboot but idk. I think Reeve refusing to let his Batman reboot be part of the shared universe might be one of the smartest plays ever since that's the only product that seems to have any enthusiasm behind it right now

That's a good point.
I honestly don't know what WB is thinking.

WW84, Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad all flopped at the box office. And yet, Black Canary is getting a leading role in the Batgirl movie and WW is getting a sequel. Think back to 2020. When the Snyder's Justice League was released on HBOMax. Two weeks later WB started promoting the theatrical cut of Justice League 4K blu-ray release. Completely tone deaf to the audience and critic reception to the Snydercut.

It's like they're dead set on make decisions counter to their own success.

I've said this earlier in this thread but I'll say it again.

2021 saw the release of 3 high profile JL type properties. Zack Snyder’s JL, Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy and MCU’s Eternals. Eternals flopped and was rotten with critics. Jupiter’s Legacy was rotten with critics and cancelled after 1 season. WB has the GENUINE ARTICLE, positive feedback from fans and critics and they are intent on doing nothing with it. They deserve to lose and fail. Way to take the wrong lesson from 2021.


I wonder what WB will do if the Flash turns in a performance like TSS, WW84 and BOP? Things don't look good.

[Superlad93]

I don't see that as exactly the same thing. Pretty much all the Disney+ shows can be skipped right now and you can follow it. Now this might change when new characters like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel show up but Strange basically ignores everything WandaVision in the teaser and we already saw Steve give Sam the shield at the end of the Endgame. IMO it's the height of craziness to launch the new 'Batman' on HBO Max instead of theaters especially when HBO Max has significantly less subscribers than Disney+. It'd be like Marvel putting the next Fantastic Four only on streaming, just crazy.

And to an extent you'll likely be able to skip the Max movies and shows off the general idea of "huh, I guess that's Batgirl" or "we already met Supergirl" once a JL movie gets made.

But that's kind of the beauty of DC's main IPs...people already know what a Batgirl is in the general sense, but not to the point of telling you what Barbra's day job is (I don't even know that). Thus, they're left with so much room to play with in the Max shows, while also being able to lean on the general idea of the IPs in the JL movie.

And this is the basic idea why DC is down to put new characters in old roles. You have both the easy to recognize aspect and the freedom of a new character. It remains to be seen if the Max model will work out though, but if any characters can do it that aren't current Marvel, it's DC characters.

[DochaDocha]

How much of The Suicide Squad's "flop" has to do with the simultaneous release on HBO Max and the pandemic? Like, I don't think it's fair to assume that people were going to sign up for HBO Max just to watch TSS. I suppose it underperformed expectations, but it still was still playing with a deck stack against it.

[Vordan]

I don't know, I think that people wouldn't have cared that much about Loki and the other shows if MCU wasn't a mega hit. Nobody really cares about DC's cinematic universe, why should they care about Batgirls movie on HBO?

I'm obviously not an expert, but I can't imagine how Flash doesn't flop? Almost everything we hear about it sounds bad.

Also has BP2 next week. Maybe we get surprised if it gets good reviews but if reviews are bad + covid is still raging + the leaks causing the Snyder stans to turn against it + the general audience already displaying a lack of interest in DC Films? Don’t see it doing well.

Well, the cast seem enthusiastic enough about it and maybe there's some semblance of a proper movie mixed in there, but...

Clemons doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic anymore lol

She went on to add, “Honestly, it’s been so long. I initially came on to the movie excited to work with who was the director at the time, but also excited to be in a superhero movie. Now, it’s less about the movie. I’m excited for Andy, who’s our director now, but now it’s more so, I’m excited for the people who are excited, and who have been commenting on my photos “Iris West” for five years. Like, are you joking? This is for them.”

[Frontier]

But that's kind of the beauty of DC's main IPs...people already know what a Batgirl is in the general sense, but not to the point of telling you what Barbra's day job is (I don't even know that). Thus, they're left with so much room to play with in the Max shows, while also being able to lean on the general idea of the IPs in the JL movie.

I wonder how many people think of Barbara Gordon as a librarian. I guess more people probably think of her as a tech nerd via Oracle.

Clemons doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic anymore lol

Guess I don't blame her. She was originally going to work with a director she had a history with and now it's shifted 2-3 times and taken so long to get off the ground that her scene in JL has been cut and added back in two additions of the movie. It's crazy.

[Superlad93]

I wonder how many people think of Barbara Gordon as a librarian. I guess more people probably think of her as a tech nerd via Oracle.

I doubt most people give any thought at all, and just think of Batgirl as Batgirl, and he name is Barbra.

Supergirl's life is so nebulous that it's not that big a deal to most casuals if she's just a reporter too. To this day I don't know what they hell Wonder Woman does when she's not being Wonder Woman. The movies just kind of what "I dunno bro, she's hella old, so probably some museum shit, right?"

These characters could have a new job every single run and I wouldn't bat an eye.

[The Kid]

That's a good point.
I honestly don't know what WB is thinking.

WW84, Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad all flopped at the box office. And yet, Black Canary is getting a leading role in the Batgirl movie and WW is getting a sequel. Think back to 2020. When the Snyder's Justice League was released on HBOMax. Two weeks later WB started promoting the theatrical cut of Justice League 4K blu-ray release. Completely tone deaf to the audience and critic reception to the Snydercut.

It's like they're dead set on make decisions counter to their own success.

I've said this earlier in this thread but I'll say it again.

2021 saw the release of 3 high profile JL type properties. Zack Snyder’s JL, Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy and MCU’s Eternals. Eternals flopped and was rotten with critics. Jupiter’s Legacy was rotten with critics and cancelled after 1 season. WB has the GENUINE ARTICLE, positive feedback from fans and critics and they are intent on doing nothing with it. They deserve to lose and fail. Way to take the wrong lesson from 2021.


I wonder what WB will do if the Flash turns in a performance like TSS, WW84 and BOP? Things don't look good.

Well I don't have a problem shelving the Snyder stuff since I thought ZSJL was actually a solid conclusion (surprising considering how much I hated BvS) but the way they are handling Superman is just dumb. It really will come down to Flash and Aquaman. The first Aquaman movie was a huge hit but it basically had no pop culture impact and the sequel might not even have a China release so it's not really a guaranteed follow up hit. Black Adam might pull through through the power of the Rock but I don't have faith in any of their DCEU films right now. I have way more faith in their out of continuity films like The Batman which seems like it'll be an easy smash hit. As long as they WB doesn't try to force it into the shared universe after it's inevitable success

[Frontier]

I doubt most people give any thought at all, and just think of Batgirl as Batgirl, and he name is Barbra.

Supergirl's life is so nebulous that it's not that big a deal to most casuals if she's just a reporter too. To this day I don't know what they hell Wonder Woman does when she's not being Wonder Woman. The movies just kind of what "I dunno bro, she's hella old, so probably some museum shit, right?"

These characters could have a new job every single run and I wouldn't bat an eye.

I think the Arkham games helped make Oracle more mainstream and that's bled into her Batgirl identity.

With Supergirl what's most important is her backstory and relationship with Clark...and, I guess, who raised/taking care of her depending on what age she is, because pre-TV show her life outside the costume was mostly being a high school or college student pre-Flashpoint and Pre-Crisis. The TV show had to come up with something because she was depicted as a 24-year old working woman.

With Wonder Woman it's a matter of whether she even has a life outside being Wonder Woman to begin with, because Diana Prince is either an Easter Egg or she's just Diana/Wonder Woman 100% which is usually one of the bigger contrasts between her and Clark/Bruce. The movies have been surprisingly consistent in coming up with something believable for Diana Prince to do considering her personality and history that isn't being a government agent which was Diana Prince's old thing.

[JediBatman54]

I enjoyed the Snyder films its sad that Affleck and Cavill will be gone if the rumors are true
i'm excited to see Keaton again but i dont know how to feel about him being the main Batman if they will erase all Snyder films why not better to do a full DCEU reboot since zero?

[HsssH]

How much of The Suicide Squad's "flop" has to do with the simultaneous release on HBO Max and the pandemic? Like, I don't think it's fair to assume that people were going to sign up for HBO Max just to watch TSS. I suppose it underperformed expectations, but it still was still playing with a deck stack against it.

Does it matter in the end?

[Stanlos]

Bear in mind this is happening for a couple reasons:
1. Cavill. Originally they wanted him to be the “Nick Fury” of the DCEU, Keaton was the backup choice. If he had agreed to do cameos in Shazam, The Suicide Squad, and fought The Rock in Black Adam? Right now we would probably be hearing about him in negotiations with WB for another Superman movie, or at the very least an HBO Max series. Instead he walked away because he was under the delusion WB wouldn't dare to “take the cape” out of his closet. He made a gamble and lost
2. Abrams. WB went to him to revamp Superman and Abrams decided to racebend Clark, tapping Coates for the job. My guess is WB either thinks this is going to bring in Black Panther tier money or they're just shooting for an Oscar
3. Abrams and Coates wanted MBJ for the role but he declined, likely due to bad memories with the last racebent he played in Johnny Storm. HBO Max thinks MBJ is a superstar however and they offered him a Val-Zod series. Note that the rumors have this being a limited series called The Kryptonian (so not even using the Superman name) and its unlikely to have any bearing on what the film side is doing, just like the Titans show is disconnected.
4. Superman will be going into the public domain soon. WB is making sure they have a replacement they own wholesale for when he does

All that said I'm not sure why you guys think there won’t be any more Clark content. Coming up we have more Clark content then we had back during the Snyder era where Cavill was playing Clark on the big screen. Clark will be in theaters with the animated League of Super Pets movie, Hoechlin is playing him on the small screen, he has his first animated cartoon in 30 years coming next year, there’s an animated CoIE trilogy coming in 2023 apparently so he’ll be in that, he has a ton of comics projects either out now or in the works, its not ideal but its still pretty good. Even stuff I’m not enthused about such as the upcoming SS game or the Coates project will have versions of him in them.

Plus if theres ever a Superman video game… its going to star Clark. Theyre not totally giving up on Clark, theyre giving up on Cavill. WB’s idiocy is that they seem to think only Cavill can be used for a “mainstream take” on the film side. Why not just kick Cavill out and bring in Routh? Im sure he’d be happy to do the cameos! The Rock’s production company wants to do Kingdom Come one day, and if Black Adam and League of Super Pets are successful, i think WB will let him.

No matter who they pick to play Supes it is a bend of race. Kryptonian are fictional

[Myskin]

I'm obviously not an expert, but I can't imagine how Flash doesn't flop? Almost everything we hear about it sounds bad.

I'd say that a lot depends on the release period and the consequences of the pandemic. Ayer's Suicide Squad was critically panned and it is considered one of the worst movies of the entire DCEU (and that's saying a lot) by critics and fans as well, but it was released in a very specific moment, basically without any real competitors, and that's how it became a financial success (well, it was successful enough to generate a sequel and a TV series). So yes, the Flash may not flop, but at this point I don't even know whether we should hope for it to be successful.

Anyway... The real surprise here is that someone is actually surprised at the current news. I mean, the concept of the Flash as a continuity-bending movie which would reshuffle most of the DCEU has been in the air since the movie was announced. As for what they are planning to do with their forthcoming Supergirl/Batgirl/Black Canary movies, even if they clearly don't have the same popularity as Batman, well, my best guess is that they are hoping to get a profit by not spending too much money on them. I mean, I can't see WB making a Batgirl big-budget movie. I'd say that they will cost, I don't know, 80 million each and they will be used to increase the HBOX Max subscriptions. I mean, it's actually not that different from what Netflix did in its early days - there's plenty of medium budget movies on Netflix which relatively few people care about, but it's "there", it's original material, and from time you may feel like watching them.

Any hope for a shared DCEU universe should be discarded by now and again, the writing has been on the wall for years at this point. They will probably continue with this confusing, messy approach for some time ("the DCEU hasn't been erased, we still continue telling DCEU stories - except, hey! Everything counts! We want to tell more stories about characters who are not BatFleck or Cavill Superman and don't even take place in that universe! And we are going to replace BatFleck, too!") or as long as there's some profit. But again, is it really a surprise? I mean, I know that there are still fans who are thinking of incredibly convoluted ways to take Cavill back into the DCEU (by partially erasing continuity or stuff like that), but the fandom bubble hasn't much to do with the vast majority of the audience. Heck, the fandom bubble is the same place where someone still thinks that WW84 wasn't that bad or that it will become a cult in some years. In the real world, no one cares about WW84 and I'd say that it is more or less forgotten one year after its release.

IMHO most of what would happen was already clear from the very beginning, that is MOS. The entire DCEU was built on very weak foundations. The problem with MOS isn't that it was divisive. Inside the fandom bubble, we had constant fights between people who thought it was a masterpiece and other people who were horrified ad Superman killing and Snyder's bleak approach. But again, these fights concerned ONLY the fandom bubble and fans tend to overestimate their importance. In the real world, where the real money is, most of the people who saw MOS said "Meh" and went on with their lives. The main failure is not that they made bad movies (even if there are some awful movies in the DCEU, don't get me wrong), but that they were spectacularly incompetent at creating a brand people could have faith in. This is actually an interesting phenomenon - if you think about it, these days pieces of pop culture are being consumed and put aside more and more quickly. Does anyone care of Star Wars' Rey or Kylo Ren anymore? It's not even about the money the single movie makes, because one movie could actually be a hit but at the same time it could fail at creating a brand/franchise people could trust. I'd say that what Feige was actually incredibly talented at doing was not just creating (mostly) enjoyable movies, but building a series of interconnected works which everyone - especially younger generations who didn't have the slightest idea of who Iron Man is and never read a comic book - could recognize. I mean, would anyone watch the Loki TV series these days if there hadn't previously been ten years of movies involving him as a secondary, but beloved character? I mean, I have got a feeling that the confidence in the Marvel brand is so strong that even people who HAVEN'T seen the Avengers movies could watch and enjoy the Loki series. It's more or less THE perfect pop culture machine - not what I'd personally want to see in movies these days because I am sick of superheroes, but it's a strategy which should be studied in books about the industry of entertainment.

And it's not that Feige never course-corrected - there ARE some course corrections in the MCU. But they are done in such a smart and clever way that you never get the impression that they are apologizing because they have done something wrong. I mean, the Red Skull is more or less a forgettable villain in The First Avenger, but the way they reprised him in Infinity War was actually surprising, coherent and well-done. The last time we saw Jane Foster she was in the most forgettable (and pretty bad) MCU movie ever. But hey, she is back in Thor 4, and she may become a superhero! Isn't that smart? And can we say the same of most DCEU movies? I mean, every DCEU movie course-corrects the previous one, sometimes in such a spectacularly contradictory way that you barely get the impression that they are taking place in the same universe. And most of the time - especially the Snyder ones - they are bland. Not dark. Not bleak. Just bland. Add that all the Snyder movies revolved around Superman; Superman IS actually a difficult character to get; yes, making a good Superman movie IMHO is barely possible; the current DCEU situation clearly mirrors the critical situation WB is, especially as far as its comic book division is concerned, and you get an idea of how we came to this.

[Myskin]

(COLUMBO MODE ON) Just one more thing...

To be 100% fair, there actually is ONE thing they are doing right, and that is creating some micro-franchises on different platforms entirely focused on one single character.
I am referring to Reeves' The Batman (what else?) and the spin-offs they are planning to launch more or less at the same time the movie is released, so one series about the GCPD, one about the Penguin, etc. Of course, a crucial element is that the series are supervised by the same people who are behind the movie and that these people are actually talented creators - Matt Reeves has basically become the Kevin Feige of the Batman universe, so to speak. And I'd say that this approach makes more sense than trying to force characters who don't have much to do with each other, like Superman and Batman, into the same shared universe. IMHO we are going to see more examples of these micro-franchises in the next years (they are planning to do something similar with the Dune universe).

But it's Batman, that is a character which can survive literally everything, whose supporting cast has already proved to be strong enough to have their own series/movies (Gotham was quite half-assed, but without it maybe we wouldn't have a GCPD series today). I really can't see them doing the same with Superman (with a Lois Lane HBO MAX series, a Steel series, etc.), firstly because of budgetary reasons, and secondly - and most importantly - because the character should be entirely rebuilt to actually work, and I can't see anyone, or anyone actually talented, touching this can of worms.

If it helps, IMHO WB's current strategy, or lack of strategy, doesn't have much to do with the public domain thing. I may be entirely wrong, but shouldn't Batman fall in the public domain just one year after Superman? And it's not that they are not doing their best to exploit the Bat-brand. I believe that the public domain thing is actually more complicated than people think it is - it's not that in ten years the entirety of Superman will fall into the public domain all of a sudden. As far as I remember, ONLY Action comics 1 will become available, but it will take more time - years, I guess - for all the other elements of Superman's supporting cast. And for guys like Brainiac it will take decades. Of course, I am no expert. But the Sherlock Holmes situation (partly public domain, partly belonging to very aggressive copyright holders) shows that no matter how complicated the situation is, you can technically build successful franchises on characters which are in a legally complex situation (of course as long as the characters are not irreparably dated, which Superman may actually be, I am afraid).