fujishig

Superman and Batman have had a ton of movies and media about them. Flash has had several TV shows. Aquabro might as well be a completely new character. If they didn't ruin the setup with MoS, then ruin the "surprise" of having the big three on film together with BvS, and finally just make it almost impossible to advertise Superman being a big part of this movie at all by killing him, I think they would have done better. It still boggles my mind that we finally get Superman and Batman together on the big screen and it's just a dour mess where they fight each other. I had been waiting all my life for this moment and I can't even let my kids watch it.

The problem with Superman Returns was, well, there are many problems with Superman returns, including the voyeur Superman and the whole time gap. But trying to shoehorn it into strict continuity with older movies, while retconning the last two, how could anyone not see that as a mistake? But the reason it failed wasn't because we failed to see Krypton get destroyed for the five hundredth time.

nando820

fumanstan

Batman is my favorite superhero and i'm a huge fan of The Dark Knight, but i've seen so many interpretations of the character or actors playing him that seeing a new one didn't bother me. But still, I don't think we needed 1-2 movies to build up a Batman and Superman face off but that's just my opinion since like I said, I thought the initial premise was fine. It's things like Lex's role, the resolution to their conflict, and introduction of Doomsday that sunk the quality of the movie for me.

nando820

Agree we definitely did not needed a new Batman film coming right after The Nolan Trilogy. Introducing Batman in another superhero movie was the right call. Making the conflict so dumb was the problem. On Miller's novel it is established that Superman had been the governments pet for years, doing their dirty jobs in the name of the "greater good of the country". Whereas Batman had been working as a vigilante imposing justice wherever he sees fit. So there is a very important ideological difference that is established there. They were also friends at one point so they know each other and what they stand for
In Batman V Superman the "heroes" get into a fist fight for what they think they represent without really trying to delve deeper into their actions. So it weakens the characters because it makes them dumb

Mike86

brayzie

I would have preferred they give us a break from Batman overall.

Maybe. It did work for Mavel's introduction of their Spider-man in Civil War.

Yeah, had they just introduced Batman in a more natural way, it might have been better.
Instead it was promoted like this big fight between these two bigger than life characters, and it's hard to sandwich in all that stuff you mentioned, including the beginning and end, into one film.

Giantrobo

Maaaan, when ya'll decide you want to miss a point...

Batman was essentially pulling a Lex Luther. He was truly deep down scared of the powerful Alien who came to Earth and, in his view and in the view of the real world critics of Snyder's so called "MoS destruction porn", destroyed lives. That point is made over and over in BvS. Warner/DC incorporated that harsh criticism into BvS;and it was truly clever even if it was "poorly executed" in the minds of critics and others alike. The conflict made total sense especially if you come from a knowledge of Batman's feelings about Superman in general.

Its not as if Batman and Superman didn't have "issues" on their first meeting in other media before this.

I guess DC "World Building" would have made the BvS fight ok like it did for the Thor and Iron Man fight on first meeting as in The Avengers.

Obi-Wanma

The concept of Justice League was always that it was these great heroes coming together to fight a bigger threat, the same as Avengers. In order to sell that concept, you need the audience that you're trying to sell it to to care about those characters. The best way to do that is to make movies before they come together. Can you do it without all of the origin movies? Sure you can, but it better be damn well made and marketed (like, say, Guardians) if you're expecting to make Avengers type box office, and WB didn't do that either. They just wanted to throw all these characters together in a movie and expected us to show up to see it. Clearly there was a market that wanted to see Batman and Superman together, based on the initial box office returns for BvS, but audiences soured on it after seeing the bloated, messy finished product, so that goodwill was largely burned. If it was done well, it could have been a great jumping off point to start the DCEU, but it wasn't. It also featured the only 2 characters who didn't really need any build up to sell Justice League.

Then you have 3 characters that most people either don't know well or have negative preconceptions about in Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. Flash probably has the highest profile of the three with his CW series, but the audience that watches that is minuscule compared to the audience that you're trying to sell this movie to. Interest among general audiences (ie. people who don't read comics or watch CW) is probably only marginally above where Iron Man was prior to 2008, and the most common reaction among fans of the TV Series was "Why aren't they using Grant Gustin?" Aquaman was fighting negative connotations from the get go, and a movie like the Aquaman that we got last month could have only helped the box office of Justice League. And Cyborg is still nobody in terms of general audience recognition. He does nothing to sell the movie. He's basically Hawkeye.

Really Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman was the only character that appeared in Justice League that had any goodwill among general audiences at the time Justice League came out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people that loved Wonder Woman were dying to see her team up with the other 5 guys. In fact, they already saw her team up with the big 2, and that exactly didn't go swimmingly.

So in summary, you could have sold the Justice League movie without the individual movies to build it up, but you burned the Superman and Batman card already, and there was no desire among general audiences to to see the other heroes team up with them after that. Something like Guardians (in addition to being well made and well marketed) actually benefits from the audience having no preconceived notions about any of the characters, which was never going to be the case with Justice League.

brayzie

And having Lex Luthor pulling a Lex Luthor would have been a much better introduction for that character. Instead of the wacky real estate-obsessed villain we got in the Donner films and in Superman Returns, we could have got a more three dimensional villain.
Instead of the scene where Bruce Wayne rescues the little girl during the destruction of Metropolis which starts his fear and hate of Superman, that should have been Lex Luthor. With that motivation and better casting, we could have gotten a much better Lex Luthor and arch villain for Superman.

I get WHY Batman was against Superman in the film, but it just felt forced.

I agree with you on that. I like how they put criticism of Man of Steel into BvS. Works for the film and at a meta level.

That's the thing, there's different versions of Batman and Superman's relationship.
For the longest time they were friends. Batman's going to his house and buying him an exotic flower for his birthday. They're BFFs.
Then Frank Miller does The Dark Knight Rises and eventually pits Batman vs Superman, after he sets up Superman as being a lackey for Ronald Reagan. But that was an alternate future.
It wasn't until I think the late 90s or maybe 2000s that they played up their ideological differences and even it didn't seem like it was that big a deal.
In the Dini-verse cartoons, I don't know how they were portrayed.
There's the Lex Luthor: Man of Steel mini-series that came out in 2005, which seems to have inspired aspects of BvS. Was that one even in continuity or well-known enough outside of comic fans? I never read it myself.

1) I thought that scene was kind of dumb. It reminded me of how in old Marvel comics when the good guys first meet, it always begins with a fight over a misunderstanding.
2) Avengers wasn't advertised as Iron Man v Thor, nor was the focus on those two characters' differences.

brayzie

The good thing about world building before Avengers, is that because of the success of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, the studio knows that audiences already respond to the portrayals by the respective actors.
With Justice League, they're gambling on Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. Aquaman looked cool from the very first time Momoa was shown in promo art as Aquaman.
The movie portrayal of Flash seems to have been met with mixed reactions.
Cyborg has always been boring to me, and I haven't heard anything good or bad about the film portrayal.
They also gambled on Wonder Woman in BvS, and yet she was the best thing about that movie.

Michael Corvin

Marvel HAD to do some world building because they DIDN'T have any major characters like Spider-man or the X-men in their pocket. People didn't know who Iron Man, Cap, or Thor were. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have stood on their own for 5-7 decades. Those three carried BvS & Justice League and the other three got the character development.

Really?

Marvel movies that performed worse than Aquaman on our shores:

MCU
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Dr. Strange
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Thor: The Dark World
Thor
Ant-Man
Captain America: First Avenger
Incredible Hulk

Other
Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2
Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse
X-Men (entire franchise including Wolverine films & Logan)
Big Hero 6

Overseas it looks like all these Marvel films did less than half of what they do here. Aquaman has managed to pull in 2.5x what it's done here. That's a lot of disappointing box office from Marvel. They ought to close up shop at this point.

brayzie

That's good point about Marvel Studios not having the rights to their A-listers in the beginning.

However, it seemed to me that Batman was carrying BvS. Before that it was supposed to be Man of Steel II. MoS underperformed and WB/DC decided that they needed some comic star power to give this sequel some legs, and they probably figured that the Nolan Batman series had been such a great success and had such a solid reputation among audiences, that that would carry over into BvS, even if it was with a different actor playing Batman. In fact, wasn't it because of the success of the Dark Knight trilogy that WB wanted the eventual Man of Steel film to be grim and dark?

And prior to BvS, WB/DC didn't want to put out a solo Wonder Woman film. Despite the iconic status of WW, it seems like the studio was still testing the waters with the character, which is she was introduced in the MoS sequel and not in her own film.

fujishig

I'm pretty sure the success of WW (or at least the level of success it had) surprised most people. Wasn't that the first major movie starring a female superhero since, I dunno, Supergirl (note that I completely ignored Catwoman)? Even Marvel hasn't had a superheroine-led movie until CM comes out.

There was no way they were going to release a Cyborg movie before JL; GL already crashed and burned or that would have been an option. And as well as Aquaman did, I'm not sure it would've done as well had they done it before JL (nor do I think the direction would have been that great before the studio pivoted).

I would've happily watched a Flash movie, though.

robin2099

BVS was never supposed to be Man of Steel 2. Snyder already said in an interview that Warner Brothers told him they wanted him to pitch them on a Justice League movie. Snyder told them that he had a four part movie plan: Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, Justice League Part 1, and Justice League Part 2. The story was supposed to go Man of Steel, then what happened in Batman V Superman, then Steppenwolf comes to earth and is defeated, and then Darkseid shows up at the end of Justice League part 1. I also believe that Superman is resurrected in Part 1 but I don't remember if he suits up in part 1 or part 2. Then from there, he decided on letting other directors do single character movies after they were introduced in Justice League.

So whether you like him or not, with Wonder Woman and doing well, and Aquaman making over a billion worldwide, you could seriously look at it from the perspective that Justice League set these other characters up to be successful in their solo movies.

fujishig

Didn't WW come out before JL?

robin2099

Yes Wonder Woman came out before Justice League. I should have said that Gadot's appearance in Batman V Superman helped to make her movie a success since audiences were already exposed to her(and BVS was a big hit. People just forget that because of the RT score, and the fact that in week 2 it dropped close to 70%.

Obi-Wanma

You also forgot Elektra (though not without good reason )

brayzie

That's weird because even in the quote by Zach Snyder I posted earlier, he says that he was contemplating who Superman should face in the next movie, and he said he eventually came up with Batman. That implies to me that it was supposed to be a Man of Steel sequel initially. And days before MoS was even released, WB officially announced a sequel in the works. Then, a month after it was released, they said that Batman would be in the "follow up" to MoS.

Plus, weren't they also in a rush to film MoS because the rights to Superman were in question and had some deadline looming?

fumanstan

And the Halle Berry Catwoman!

robin2099

Yes MOS was fast tracked because WB was in a lawsuit over the Superman rights with the errors of the creators(I believe it was Siegel's but I don't remember) and they had to get it done by a certain date or possibly have to pay them more money.

And BVS was always in development and was never intended to be MOS 2. Snyder has been REALLY active on Vero posting stuff about Justice League(to the point that it makes you wonder if he will ever work at WB again with all he's saying/impying) and he confirmed that WB wanted him to pitch them on a Justice League movie and he came up with the four movie structure( MOS, BVS JL, JL2) and then stand alone after JL. But Wonder Woman got fast tracked and Snyder was involved with it by producing it and coming up with the story for it. He's also been posting deleted scenes, indirectly mentioning that the Snyder cut does exist, indirectly confirming where Justice League 2 was going to go, and indirectly confirming that WB fired him from the movie because the movie wasn't light enough.

Brack

Finally got around to watching it today. It was fine. The plot didn’t make much sense, and was bloated, as many have already stated. The cast was good, the dialogue was beyond silly at times.. I’m glad it’s doing well and making up for Justice League. I didn’t want DC to disappear. It seems like they might be getting their act together. A bumpy way to do it.

DJariya

How soon until WB greenlights an Aquaman 2?

Hopefully they can get one out for 2021. Maybe for the same time period Holiday season.

Obi-Wanma

He mentioned leaving out Catwoman. Is there another Catwoman film besides the Halle Berry one?

Shannon Nutt

No way you're getting one in 2021. Principal photography on THIS Aquaman was finished six months before JL hit theaters - that's how long those VFX and post-production took. The earliest you'll see a sequel is Christmas 2022 (MAYBE Summer 2022, but I bet WB sticks with a Christmas release, given their success here). I'm sure they're fast at work on a script and getting the pieces in place, but there's no way filming begins before 2020.

fumanstan

Oh, oops I missed that!