There has been a disturbance in the DC Cinematic Universe. Have you felt it?
Seth Grahame-Smith is no longer directing the Ezra Miller Flash movie, reportedly due to the old familiar chestnut known as “creative differences.” However, they’ll apparently still use the script he wrote. Now the regular superhero movie rumor sites are coming at us with insider reports of turmoil:
BirthMoviesDeath’s sources are saying director James Wan is now considering leaving Aquaman, mostly because he doesn’t need this particular project as much as it needs him and it might not be worth the hassle. Moreover, WB is apparently having lots of fights with Zack Snyder over Justice League right now, even as it moves further into its shooting schedule in London.
HeroicHollywood has heard WB is granting Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns complete creative control over the forthcoming solo Batman movie which still has no official release date, but granting complete creative control is what got us into this mess in the first place, i.e., Zack Snyder turning Batman and Superman into “The Martha Boys.” Sure, you’re likely better off putting your trust in the guy who made Argo than the guy who made Sucker Punch, but Geoff Johns is reportedly just as stunned by the negative reaction to BvS as Snyder and WB higher-ups. Now he gets to do what he wants on a Batman movie?
On the more purely positive side of things, George Miller is being eyed to direct Green Lantern Corps, so says HeroicHollywood (and now just about every other pop site out there).
This is all in addition to the earlier BirthMoviesDeath report of WB ordering re-shoots on the Suicide Squad to add more humor in the wake of the negative reaction to Batman v Superman‘s grimdark march. Of course, that rumor has now been directly refuted by both the director, one of the actors and possibly even WB’s marketing department, which rushed out a new trailer showcasing plenty of new footage and jokes.
It’s similarly possible that James Wan will soon step forward to squash the rumor of him essentially looking for the out clause in his Aquaman contract. Maybe BvS‘s unprecedented box office plunge (as I wrote about in depth here) has signaled blood in the water to the rumor sites, and they’re running with anything they can because the emerging narrative of a behind the scenes trainwreck at WB is too compelling for readers to resist.
But when I step back from this I see a writer in Seth Grahame-Smith who had never directed anything before and was likely pushed off of The Flash because WB is either suddenly far more risk-averse or the tone they initially agreed on is no longer acceptable after the mass rejection of BvS beyond its first 3 days. After all, ever since BvS came out Zack Snyder’s own wife, producer Deborah Snyder, has been promising The Flash will help make Justice League funnier and since he’s such a lovable character “the tone of [his solo] film will be very different than the rest of them.” Is that in line with what they always planned? Or are we looking at transparent damage control?
Somewhat similarly, when I see James Wan rumored to want out I think back to the clear damage control he was doing in the press in the immediate aftermath of BvS, promising his Aquaman would be largely free of Zack Snyder’s influence. I also recall how Midnight Special‘s Jeff Nichols, a supremely talented filmmaker, candidly admitted why he turned down Aquaman before the job ever came to Wan:
With the DC universe, so many parts of it had been activated and so many decisions had already been made that it felt more and more — and Warner Bros. agreed — that it was me trying to jump on a moving train. That’s not so much what I’m good at. I’m more of a ground up kinda guy.
Of course, that’s but an individual example of a director deciding that for his own personal needs and preferences a trip into the DC universe simply wouldn’t work. However, we likely all remember The Hollywood Reporter’s April 2015 article detailing how WB’s disorganized approach to its DC universe was leaving talent reps for writers, writers and directors frustrated and pessimistic, describing the studio as mostly throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. It just contributes to a long history of disrupted deals and whispers of doom.
After BvS, multiple industry trades have reported that WB will be taking a more hands-on approach going forward, but I just have a sense that we’ve barely scratched the surface of how weird and rumor-plagued things are about to get with the DC Cinematic Universe. What’s real and what’s not, which movies are actually going to happen and which are but pipe dreams at this point – that all remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure – I’ve said it before, but Suicide Squad really, really better not suck.
