DCU Movies

[HsssH]

Into the Spiderverse and GotG 3 showed that people will continue to have interest in superhero movies if they’re well written and clever.

GotG 3 made good money, but people quickly forgot that 6 or so months ago general assumption was that it is easily going to hit a billion. It is going to fall short of that by 100-150 million and likely will earn less than second part did.

[Vordan]

My biggest takeaway for Legacy: If Gunn is just using it as a back door pilot for setting up the rest of the DCU with Mr. Terrific/Authority cameos & guest appearances it’s going to flop. If the main plot is Superman vs. Lex Luthor and a bunch of no names like the Authority it’s going to flop. There better be a big name Superman villain in there like Brainiac because the general audience needs to see something new. They’re not interested in **** they’ve seen before already, the Keaton guest star, Flash cameos, and callbacks to MoS are not helping that movie at all.

That said I don’t agree that Gunn has to drop Waller/Peacemaker. Waller and Peacemaker are set to be HBO MAX shows, they’re not likely to be in Legacy anyway. Bloodsport can return for a guest star role in a Superman movie just fine, I seriously doubt the general public will not see a Gunn Superman movie if he appears. Long as the JL is recast, which they will be after this flop, that is the most important thing.

[Username taken]

This.

Saying that superhero fatigue has set in is dishonest and ignores *everything* that has happened in the last three years. The film industry is different than it was in 2019, nothing is performing like it was, not just this genre. People will point out the handful of successes we've seen since covid, like Top Gun, but those are exceptions, not the rule.

I do believe in "bad movie" fatigue, and "I've seen this before" fatigue, which is a big part of the problem Marvel is having. Marvel, specifically, has the issue of setting the bar too high with Endgame and doing too good a job of wrapping up the Infinity Saga, leaving audiences with unrealistically high expectations and little reason to stick around with Stark, Cap, and Thanos all gone. But that's a MCU thing, not a comic book movie thing. Marvel's phase 4 was always gonna struggle under the weight of phase 3's success, and the pandemic just multiplied those issues.

DC's problem is on the other end; they've made so many bad movies people just stopped caring. Why waste money on tickets when you know the film is almost certainly bad? Especially when you can stream it for free after a measly month and a half? It's going to take time for DC to undo the damage and earn people's trust again.

It's not the genre. It's the quality. Spider-Verse, Peacemaker, GotG3, a ton of the MCU shows on D+.....they all prove that genre fatigue hasn't set in, they've just proven that audiences have higher expectations now and theaters aren't churning out billion dollar box office returns like they were a few years ago. We *are* at a point where Kevin Fiege can't just slap the Marvel banner on a film and know he'll make a billion dollars, but there's a big, big difference between "genre fatigue" and "we no longer dominate the whole film industry unchallenged, leaving no room for any other successful films."

Big picture people. Big picture.

Gunn's DCU is gonna struggle hard, and would have even if the rest of the film industry was still healthy. It'll rely entirely on smart, wide-spread marketing and the early success of Creature Commandos and Superman Legacy (maybe Beetle depending on how much they try to tie it to Gunn's new DC). Commandos won't be more than a niche hit at best, but that's all it needs to be. If it can do that and generate good word of mouth, it's a step in the right direction and will get the ball rolling. Legacy *has* to be good. The marketing *has* to be clever and wide-spread. Superman's big enough to get attention and open up the potential for solid revenue, and if the trailers, word of mouth, etc., can capitalize on that, then DC can start rebuilding brand trust with consumers (which will take years no matter how great Legacy is). But if DC stumbles out of the gate, if Gunn fails to provide a unique story and just recycles the Marvel formula, then they're gonna be in trouble and the new DCU will be dead on arrival.

I agree.

We literally just saw GoTG 3 cross $800 m and Across the Spider-verse is still bringing in big numbers.

Box office is still in recovery and good films will have to carve out their niche in the market. There's no room (for now at least) for mediocre superhero movies.

If the Flash had great critical acclaim from audiences (and an un problematic main actor) it would have been a hit. Gunn has his work cut out for him to be honest. Whatever he's doing has to be a clean break from what came before.

[Ascended]

My biggest takeaway for Legacy: If Gunn is just using it as a back door pilot for setting up the rest of the DCU with Mr. Terrific/Authority cameos & guest appearances it’s going to flop. If the main plot is Superman vs. Lex Luthor and a bunch of no names like the Authority it’s going to flop. There better be a big name Superman villain in there like Brainiac because the general audience needs to see something new.

Agreed with everything but the need to have a big name villain. People want to see something new, and not just a recycled Marvel formula yes. But while it'd help, a bit, to have someone like Brainiac I don't think it's necessary. We need 'new' but that could be achieved with lesser known villains like Ultra-Humanite, Parasite, etc. I do believe in going as big as you can right out of the gate, because holding back for the sequel means you might not get that sequel at all, but I don't think we 'need' an A-list villain in Legacy, we just need a good Superman movie. If we get that, the rest works itself out.

As for Waller and Peacemaker....I do think it would be best to leave them behind in the new DCU. The brand damage is so deep I support a scorched earth policy; anything connected to the DCEU needs to die and WB better hope that includes audience expectations too. I know that's not what Gunn is doing, but I feel like this might be a case of his ego more than anything. I think best case scenario right now is that the Peacemaker/Waller stuff is quarantined as an Elseworlds. Wrap up the story but leave it disconnected from the new stuff. Otherwise you have continuity problems before the new DCU has even started and I don't think you can build a successful shared universe on a fractured foundation.

Then again I'd be much happier if we weren't getting another shared universe at all, so what do I know?

[Last Son of Krypton]

Gal Gadot feels empowered to focus on other stories after scrapped Wonder Woman 3

They feel all happy to focus on other stuff.

[TheCasualReader]

Superman vs Brainiac isn't new in itself since Brainiac is "just" a super-intelligent robot villain. There's a lot of movies about people facing off against a super-intelligent robot. Same with Lex Luthor who is "just" an incredibly rich morally bankrupt man. Both are the kind of villains that are a dime a dozen in the movie world.

Story is always key.

Casual audiences do not care if the villain is some big name like Lex Luthor or Brainiac. They don't need big-name heroes either - that's a strange mistake people keep making despite the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy is incredibly popular.

Guardians of the Galaxy, in the eyes of the casual audience, was a team of complete nobodies versus a complete nobody villain, but it made 773 million dollars. Similarly, Antman was a complete nobody, but the movie made 519 million dollars. The third Guardians movie came out this year and made 810 million dollars. Iron Man made 585 million dollars.

Man of Steel had one of the most recognizable heroes in superhero history as its lead, and it made 668 million dollars.

You don't need a big name hero or a big name villain: you just need to make a good movie and if you want the immediate pull that Marvel/Disney movies have then you need to establish a good reputation with casual audiences. Me and my family watched a lot of Marvel movies because we know that, even if we might not love all of them, we can count on being entertained and thinking it a worthwhile watch (Thor: Love and Thunder still had enough good moments) when we're done. We know what quality to expect. DC movies? No, and they're competing in a market where people have alternatives to their specific product even when they aim their movies at a older or even adult audience.

(The R-rated Deadpool made 782 million dollars on a budget of 58 million dollars while the R-rated Harley Quinn made 205 million dollars on a 82-100 million budget)

In my country, a movie ticket cost about 13 dollars for an adult ticket and if you have kids, that's 10 dollars per tickets. If you want people to buy tickets that expensive on good faith, you better have accumulated a lot of good faith, especially since they have to decide to pick your movie over another movie. If people don't have that faith, they'll rather wait for your movie to hit streams.

EDIT: People aren't skeptical about Blue Beetle because it features an unknown hero. They're skeptical because DC movies have a terrible record.

[Pinsir]

Saying that superhero fatigue has set in is dishonest and ignores *everything* that has happened in the last three years. The film industry is different than it was in 2019, nothing is performing like it was, not just this genre. People will point out the handful of successes we've seen since covid, like Top Gun, but those are exceptions, not the rule.

First of all, I have consistently been saying other brands have also been failing, especially the traditional Disney one's like Disney Animation, Pixar and Star Wars. The people who ignored this were those saying this like, "How can superhero fatigue be a thing if 4 superhero movies made were ranked in the top 10 for box office?" Superhero fatigue is still a thing though, this is like saying we shouldn't consider a recession caused by a housing bubble bursting to be a real recession because the housing market is just a part of the overall market, which is true, but its such is such a major component to the market that if it falls, so does everything else.

It's not the genre. It's the quality. Spider-Verse, Peacemaker, GotG3, a ton of the MCU shows on D+.....

The Disney+ shows are the most clearest sign of diminishing returns, holy ****, why would you site them?

[Frontier]

Agreed. And for fans, who get cheated with her and Keaton. It was the very definition of an appalling, cynical move. And you could have gone the other way without changing Gunn's plans at all, just leave them alone in their own place. I detect the hand of Gunn, who likes that sort of thing, in this. I don't really think he should be helming the entire DCU slate. At best a franchise suited to his taste and talent, but not the whole thing.

Well, he helped deliver one of the only real successful recent Superhero movie releases so he has that going for him.

[The Kid]

IMO I think superhero fatigue is absolutely a thing. Both for critics and audiences. GotG3 was great and its WoM carried it but it's still likely going to do worse than the second one. It basically had to be a great movie that audiences loved just to get close to the second movie's box office. It's a real thing right now and the MCU has the cache to still do ok in this climate if they learn how to manage their budgets (Ant Man 3 would have made a profit if its budget wasn't 250 million). Could say the same about Black Adam but Shazam 2 and The Flash are going to be outright bombs which is a big problem. Gunn has his work cut out for him

[Last Son of Krypton]

Gunn has his work cut out for him

He is probably regretting to not have stayed with Marvel right now.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Superhero fatigue is really just movie fatigue. Covid did a number on movie theaters and now you pretty much have to be considered a tentpole can't miss film or you get an underwhelming result. People aren't interested in going out to see "above average" anymore. The bigger thing is that the critcial love affair that the Marvel films got has now ended and they aren't getting good scores anymore for sticking to a cookie cutter formula, which is worse for DC who tends to be riskier and making more uneven films.

The good news for DC is that if the reboot hits the ground running and has clear direction and the quality is there, it can succeed at a high level.

The bad news for DC is that it has to hit the ground running and have clear direction with high quality to work, and that's not a given with them.

Superman Legacy is critical because if it isn't an immediate successs, it's really going to just set everything else up for failure the way MoS being polariizing did

[TheCasualReader]

IMO I think superhero fatigue is absolutely a thing. Both for critics and audiences. GotG3 was great and its WoM carried it but it's still likely going to do worse than the second one. It basically had to be a great movie that audiences loved just to get close to the second movie's box office. It's a real thing right now and the MCU has the cache to still do ok in this climate if they learn how to manage their budgets (Ant Man 3 would have made a profit if its budget wasn't 250 million). Could say the same about Black Adam but Shazam 2 and The Flash are going to be outright bombs which is a big problem. Gunn has his work cut out for him

To be honest, I don't think it's fatigue so much as it is that superhero movies just isn't that unusual anymore. Before, it was a very... skeptical genre where things were often kind of cheesy - and expected to have that cheesiness. Sort of like video game movies, but better. Basically, there was a "it was pretty good for a superhero movie" sentiment instead of "That was a pretty good movie."

Nowadays, that sentiment is completely gone and the superhero genre is seen as just as "respectable" and valid as any other movie genre, but that also means there isn't the same kind of newness to seeing a good superhero movie. It's not the same extra spectacle and amazement anymore to seeing a big-budget superhero movie that looks fantastic and has a good story. We even have superhero shows that look as good and don't have that old cheesiness.

It's funny, I once heard Black Adam described as an early 2000s superhero movie made with modern day special effects, and I thought that was oddly accurate. It was extra amusing to see people try to defend it by saying people expected too much of a superhero movie. It would probably have done well in those days, but it doesn't measure up to the current superhero movie standard. There's also, as said, the fact that it's budget was way too high, especially for the kind of action flick movie it was.

[Morgoth]

All of superhero movies bombs over the past years had bad reviews from critics and audience (except Suicide Squad, but there was a reason). Ant Man, Eternals, Black Adam, Shazam, now the Flash. So, it's really more about quality.

[Ascended]

First of all, I have consistently been saying other brands have also been failing.

I wasn't responding to you specifically, just the sentiment that superhero fatigue is a prime driver in the current climate. I will agree that the novelty has worn off. It's no longer a question of whether movie FX can handle superheroes, or whether a shared universe can work, or whether a film can be successful without a big A-list name like Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman. The idea has become the institution, so to speak, and once that happens things stop being so exciting because all the unknowns are accounted for, there's no curiosity left to satisfy. But that's not 'fatigue' it's just the ever-shifting landscape of entertainment.

The Disney+ shows are the most clearest sign of diminishing returns, holy ****, why would you site them?

Far as I know, we don't have any real data on how profitable streaming shows are and viewership isn't released to the public (just some approximations by third parties I guess?). So I can't say whether these shows made money, but they were among the best reviewed products of Marvel's phase 4. In this I'm just speaking to reception, not revenue.

It also seems that, generally speaking, the stuff that's done well for Marvel is the stuff that broke away from the typical formula. Wandavision, Moon Knight (I think?), etc., as opposed to the more standard fare like Falcon/Winter Soldier. But that's a casual guess, as I haven't sat down to compare reception directly.

And I don't really know if we can even talk about 'superhero fatigue' as if it impacts the whole genre. Isn't it more "Marvel fatigue" if anything? It's not like we had a robust collection of studios making these movies. We had Marvel, who did it well, and then everybody else, who (mostly) didn't.

IMO I think superhero fatigue is absolutely a thing. Both for critics and audiences. GotG3 was great and its WoM carried it but it's still likely going to do worse than the second one.

Indeed, but that's not just a 'superhero movie' thing, that's a 'cinema industry' thing. The idea that these films will perform the same as they did before the pandemic just doesn't fly. Movies just aren't doing what they used to regardless of genre. It stands out more to us because the superhero was the biggest genre for so long and because we're fans, but this is affecting everything. There's a ton of other factors impacting movies before we even get close to considering specific genres.

[mace11]

First of all, I have consistently been saying other brands have also been failing, especially the traditional Disney one's like Disney Animation, Pixar and Star Wars.

The only star wars movie under disney that flopped was solo,so star wars is not failing.
The last one still made over a billion dollars plus season 3 of the mandalorian had a high viewership.

Even andor.
'Andor' Joins Top 10 Most Watched 2022 Series on Disney ...
https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2023...-analysis.html