The Reel Rejects - MOVIE NEWS: DCEU To Go Through MASSIVE CHANGES...And We're A Little Worried

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Greg & John sit down to discuss the latest reports that the DC Extended Universe will undergo a massive overhaul as Warner Bros. & Discovery prepare to merge. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is reportedly looking for a creative & business-savvy czar to head up the DC Universe (a la Kevin Feige) & improve the overall creative brand strategy. What does this mean for the future of DC onscreen?? Here's our two cents... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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because it's his own thing what is up there reject nation Greg and John here today we are going to talk about some water brothers DC you changes the company that just can't seem to find a direction to stick through. They'll get there someday. Despite the fact that they've been doing pretty all right lately. You know, like the Batman was a pretty good hit. The Suicide Squad, while not a big box office, it supposedly did all right on streaming. It was really well received by audiences and critics.

Plus, you got a peacemaker? The Peacemaker Show I was getting there. Just wait for me. Guys, leave a like if you can. That would mean a lot. I don't know if you guys know about this. Recently, Discovery and Warner Brothers, they made a deal. It's now called W.B. Discovery.

I believe the deal was made for $1 trillion. They're just throwing money at this thing. $43 billion. I didn't really follow the lead up to this merger because the only thing I ever heard about it was, does this mean the Snyderverse will be restored? Is it finally about to happen? The Snyderverse restored, kids?

They all say that David Zazlov loves that Snyderberg. Variety put his article yesterday morning from the time that we're uploading this, but I want to do a total overhaul on DC Entertainment. Honestly, going through it, Had me a bit worried about the future. Okay, so the whole article you can find in the description box, but we want to focus on a few key points here, so we want to go through really fast,

and we're going to talk about it afterwards. So the first thing is they want to have, like, a Kevin Faggy-like leader. I don't know if you guys know this, but Warner Brothers has tried to have a Kevin Faggy-like leader for quite some time. Doesn't sound bad in theory, obviously. And like I said, none of this actually sounds necessarily like a terrible idea, which is going off of track record, past experiences,

considering the fact that it seems like anyone who tries to, to be the MCU, they generally fail at doing it. Here's what the article says. Before the merger close, Zazlov, head of discovery now, head of both. Vetted candidates with experience in creating and nurturing blockbuster intellectual property with a goal of potentially finding someone

to serve as a creative and strategic, Cazaar, similar to what Marvel has in Kevin Feige. One insider suggests that Zoslav was less interested in finding a creative guru and more eager to hire someone who had the type of business background needed to keep all the different factions of DC working more harmoniously. That actually makes a little bit of sense if they want to find a Kevin Feigy like leader, but the thing that makes Kevin Feigy so special, not just the fact that

he's a businessman, but also because he really loves Marvel comics. He really knows Marvel, and that's why he has such a good connection with the fans as well. Even when they make changes in the movies, generally speaking, you can tell this guy actually knows what Marvel's really all about. And now that they have all these different other things going in D.C., I get that you would need someone who could also be like, I need to know how to harmoniously bring this all together. You need somebody who's invested in the breadth of characters and the mythology, but who also has a good business sense. I feel like they really need to split the difference. They need a Kevin Faggy-like story person who knows the world, but who also can keep things running chop chop. So they

want to get DCEU back to the point where everything feels more connected, basically. You know, part of me is like part of making the D.C. special to me is the fact of how it doesn't feel anymore like it's so reliant on that, which is allowed for other films that were really filmmaker-driven to really blossom. But we'll die more into that in a second. The article goes on to say, Discovery Insiders believe that although DC has achieved cinematic success with recent films such as Aquaman and the Batman, a coherent, creative, and brand strategy. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. They seem to shift their plans all the time here. Depending on how each one does at the box office. They're very reactionary. Yeah. All the more reason to get some

who has a good business sense about these things. And Discovery believes that several top-shelf characters such as Superman have been left to languish and need to be revitalized. I thought they were revitalizing Superman in terms of whatever that JJ Abrams, Michael B. Jordan one is. We'll see. It's not dead. I mean, I've heard reports lately that they're still trying to figure out the script and maybe having some problems with that.

I feel like that could easily change in a heartbeat if they really find a track that they like. And they want more stuff like Joker. They also believe that projects like Todd Phillips Joker are a shining example of how to build second characters from D.C. library and should be exploited. Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is another example. I'd be down for another birds of prey. Absolutely. Despite the fact that it causes a weird conversation on Twitter, I'd be down for another birds of prey. I quite enjoyed that movie a lot.

And I think Harley Quinn was also awesome in the Suicide Squad. Absolutely. So, yeah, I'd be totally down for that. Weirdly going online, that was the one that seemed to upset people a lot. Who was more of Joker? I'm like, oh, come on, guys. Have you not heard my Scarecrow standalone movie idea? Yes, it almost seems like they could flourish just doing standalone movies and not trying to be Marvel whatsoever.

I'm not against the idea of producers, executive producers, studios having a say in what's happening with the movies. Of course I'm not against. Like, that's fair. They're putting the money in. It's just, you know a movie shit when you feel like this whole movie is just studio notes. A lot of this reads to me, like, I think we'd be going back to everything feeling like. like shoehorn studio notes. I'm not saying that'll be the case.

It just kind of communicates that way to me right now. Whenever a studio, even DC in the past, when they try to emulate more of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they keep writing themselves into this weird corner with their films. It seemed like they've become all about setting up to get to some crossover movie, some buildup that ultimately doesn't end up paying off because their plan getting there was not panning out.

And they've already tried having leaders several times now. Seems like what they've been doing lately has been the best strategy so far, which is let them be more filmmaker-driven films. That's why I think the Batman has such a great response. Like, I'm excited for the Gotham shows that Matt Reeves is working on. He's being like his own little batverse. What I think is really cool about what DCU has on their hands is they're able to build universes within universes really well. With James Gunn doing the suicide squad, he's got his like suicide squad universe happening with the peacemaker series. And both I thought were really great stuff. I'm already under the impression, though, that especially with your flash movie,

do you really need to do this? You're already setting up the multiverse. So one can just assume that they're connected via the multiverse and that if it's not worried about having crossovers, you're being totally connected. Like we have to force Robert Pattinson to now cross over into one of these films. Just establish that, yeah, it exists. It's connected because it's within the DC multiverse itself. What does this mean for current films that they have in plan too? Because I know that's also been put on halt, but I want the Shazam trilogy to finish out. I want the Aquaman trilogy to finish out. Let's see what happens to ever heard. I want to see what else. Everybody wants to see what happens with Aquaman 3 now. See what goes on there. Absolutely. I want them to do it. Yeah, I mean,

it almost seems like they have a perfect opportunity to just sort of let everything be where it is. And yeah, move forward with a better plan, but I don't necessarily think there needs to be a lot of retroactive restructuring. I mean, yes, you have a bit of a disparate universe, but from here, on, especially with the multiverse, I feel like it's not really that famous last words difficult to kind of see the lay of your land and then streamline it moving forward and take the best of what's worked so far and perpetuate that. I mean, that's essentially what Marvel's been doing just with a massive continuity. And maybe they'll find they don't need that massive continuity so much as they need just a universe that feels like it houses all these characters or something.

I'm sure with Marvel, there's constantly conversations I'm sure behind the scenes of we need to re-stratage this. We need to figure. We've seen them shift, like, slots in their films before, and films have been canceled here or there. So, of course, they also will have the discussion of restrategizing. It's a constant part of game planning or mapping something out this massive. It's just when you tell me stuff like they want a Kevin and Fagie-like leader, you've always wanted that. And I feel like a lot of the time, they don't really understand what's made Kevin Fagie so great at what he's done with Marvel. What they're doing right now seems to be doing just fine because of the fact that they have the multiverse at their disposal that they've already established with Crisis on Infinite Earth so that they're only going to solidify more with the Flash movie.

We don't need to try to suddenly go back to we got to make everything heavily interconnected with each other when that's what a lot of this ends up reading to me like, but then also seems a little contradictory when you're saying you have stuff like Todd Phillips's Joker and you want to do more of that. But what makes that movie good is it doesn't feel like it needs to be connected because it's his own thing. So much of the time hearing about WB and now Discovery and all the things they want to do with DC, it really feels like they look at Marvel and they see what they're doing and mostly just shoot for that rather than shooting for why and how that stuff actually works. And I feel like there is a sort of expectation that these things will translate immediately. And I feel like, you know, of course they want a new Kevin Feigian and for a more, you know, vertically structured system, but at the same time, that stuff takes time and a steady hand to build. And I think it's interesting that they still prioritize, at least as of this account, the business

angle of that, because you need the heart and the soul of that. And I get that even Marvel is subject to the business side and, you know, how the market speaks. But they also seem like whenever they reshoot or whenever they restructure, they always make sure to temper the characterizations and the emotional cores and the spirit of those stories and those characters in time with that rather than fully going for the market. So I feel like the biggest question of me now is, what kind of a businessman is David Zosslo? At this moment, it sounds like the same plan they've been shooting for for so long.

But we'll see. Maybe they will restore the Snyderverse. I'd like Superman to come back as well just as much as anyone else. All righty. Well, leave your thoughts down below. Subscribe, click that bell. What do you think about all this? I'm going to talk to you guys soon.