DC's current cinematic strategy strikes me, to quote Mark Millar, as "a great way of losing 200 million dollars." For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, congratulations on being smarter and more productive than I am. But since I'm pretending you care, here's a quick primer; Over the past 6 years, Marvel Studios (a subsidiary of DC's archenemy), has been setting Hollywood on fire with a loosely-connected series of films, which star a giant and interchangeable cast, and all take place in the same diegetic universe. These movies have made shitloads of money and, with a half-dozen more sequals in the pipeline, look like they'll keep doing that for the forseeable future. The state of Hollywood creativity being what it is, DC has decided to do the exact same thing. Their process began with last year's Man of Steel and is going to continue through the 2016 sequel, which will be introducing most of the Justice League in preparation for a giant interconnected series. If they stay the course, DC is going to lose vast amounts of money before it's even possible to stop. But, fortunately, it still isn't too late.
People underestimate the importance of Iron Man. The 2008 blockbuster is the first of what I'd consider the true MCU films (Edward Norton's Incredible Hulk, released 3 months prior, is technically canon but remarkably different in tone and structure. It's also, for my money, more than slightly underrated.) Iron Man did big, if not gargantuan, business in theatres, but more importantly was greeted with rapturous reviews and cult-classic levels of furvor once it hit DVD. It served the essential function of convincing the audience that comic book films could be both popcorn fun, and genuinely good, thematically rich pieces of cinematic art. The movie isn't actually either of those last two things, but it's one of the slickest, most confident, best-acted summer entertainments Hollywood has ever produced. Audiences loved it, and everyone told their friends. Without that effect, without getting that one movie right, I honestly believe Marvel would've stopped after phase 1. But they did get it very, very right and the rest is history. So, back to DC….
I give DC credit for this; they knew they had to get started the right way. It didn't work. Man of Steel, released last summer to giant expectations and tepid reviews, is an entirely competent movie. Critical discussion, as is standard in these circumstances, has divided between "majestic, gorgeous redefines summer tentpoles etc etc," and "typical comic-book shit." Reality, again as per usual, is somewhere in the middle. Man of Steel is a big, muscular, visually daring film, very well acted and presented on a scale which finally gives us the full scope of Superman's powers onscreen. It's also slow, badly written, ham-fisted in its Messianic depiction of Clark / Supes, and completely, iredeemably self-serious. Easy example; In both Iron Man and Man of Steel, we see the moment when each protagonist learns to fly. In Tony Stark's world, we are given giant, majestic shots of him climbing through the clouds and rocketing over city streets. Tony is laughing through most of the scene, Jarvis is spitting snark, AC/DC blasts in the background, and it's generally a loose, fun, joyful character beat. And then, there's Man of Steel….. Que the stirring orchestral chords, swirling long-shots, sonic-boom crack, and, of course, Messianic arms-outstretched pose in the clouds. Which one sounds like more fun?
That was DC's mistake, and the reason Zach Snyder was the absolute wrong guy to bring this franchise to life (for the record, I like Snyder as a director. I think he could give us a classic, if he ever got to work off a decent script (Related story; David Goyer is the most overrated screenwriter of the past 20 years.)). Snyder's great flaw as a filmmaker is that he brings a certain humorlessness to every piece of material, regardless of genre. All of his movies look fantastic, and he pulls off at least one holyfuckingshithowdidhedothat moment in each of them, but they're not the sorts of film to which an audience wants to return. On Man of Steel, working with a vast budget and a studio mandate to chase four quadrant appeal, he makes what is probably his safest, most dour film yet. Why does Iron Man work as a franchise starter? Because it's all kinds of fun to watch RDJ and his robot butler bitch at each other between scenes of giant robots punching walls and suchlike. What's more, it never stops being fun. Man of Steel is a cool movie with great effects, but there's no re-watchability. You see it once, and once is enough.
Look, I don't doubt that Batman Vs. Superman, or whatever they end up calling it, will be another big, beautiful, boring movie. It's also going to struggle to break even at the box office. Add in marketing costs, the theatre's cut, percentages for Affleck, Snyder, and possibly Cavill and the movie needs to make, what, $900 million before the studio sees a dime of profit? Probably more, realistically. The addition of Batman, as embodied by Ben Affleck and about which much raging internet bullshit has been spewed, is another mistake. Affleck is a good actor in the right role, physically very right for the character, but he's been something of a joke in public perception for nearly a decade. The guy isn't a movie star anymore, but he's both very expensive and high-profile enough to incite hatred. This isn't a good combination. I can somewhat understand the casting, if they've done it with an eye towards securing him as a director for future films, but Christopher Nolan et al should've wooed him as a filmmaker and nothing else.
While we're on the subject of casting…. Gal Gadot is a beautiful woman and a perfect mixture of tough, sexy, and intelligent onscreen to be cast as Wonder Woman. She also shouldn't be in the fucking movie. Instead of overloading the film with characters that the target audience doesn't know well and couldn't care less about, DC needs to focus on creating emotional connections with its property. Origin stories (see Captain America, Thor, etc etc) are effective because we watch the maturation of our heroes from adolescent to adult. The process is identifiable. We recognize in it the same emotional struggle that we ourselves experience daily. If someone, such as an older, grizzled Batman for example, shows up on our screen fully formed, we have no hook into his world. Wonder Woman is, as depicted in the comics, basically a Goddess. Why do we care about her? About any of them? DC needs to answer this question above any other if the franchise has a hope of succeeding.
So, I've just spilled a lot of pixels criticizing. Now to offer my small proposal. Let's go step by step….
1. Remove Wonder Woman from the movie. Save it for Justice League. Work on establishing indellible, beloved characters first, and throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks second.
2. Understand that Superman and Batman are different characters and deserve different approaches. De-Nolan-ize it. Many people see Zack Snyder as a figurehead for Christopher Nolan, who they think is directing these movies from behind the scenes. That's overstating the issue, but there's little denying that MOS shares many stylistic cues with Nolan's Batman trilogy. Thing is, the big Boy Scout is a simpler, more idealistic character. Much of the thematic muddling in MOS comes from trying to apply the "gritty" perspective that everyone seems to assume audiences want to what is a fundamentally uncomplicated, tension-free character. There's no moral ambiguity to Superman, never has been, and that's something DC should embrace.
3. Oh yeah, the tv shows…. I never, ever thought I'd cop to watching a CW television program. But, well, Arrow is really fucking good. Stylish, intelligently plotted, well acted, crisply shot and with the best fight sequences this side of pay cable. On roughly a quarter of the budget, this is everything the excruciating Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to be when it grows up. Stephen Ammell is not very far away from becoming a really, really big movie star. So ask yourself, DC, do you want it to be in someone else's action franchise, or yours? If you want an easy way to build an interconnected world, use the one you've already got. Throw money at the CW (don't worry, you've got way more than they do), and rent the services of Green Arrow and the Flash for 4 months every couple of years. And guess what? You've just cast two vital roles with excellent actors, avoided the confusion and dilution that comes with parallel versions of the same character on big and small screens, and given yourselves tha best marketing campaign money can buy. Your franchise will remain in the public eye because it will be on air all the goddamn time. And, unlike Marvel, your tv show is worth watching. It isn't a dimunition of your brand, but a logical and worthy extension of it. Use that fact. Stop overthinking. Make lots of money. Go home, be happy. You're welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment