Warner Bros.' DC Properties Continue To Be In A Joker-Like State Of Chaos With More Delays And News On Killed Projects
CBS Photo Archive. Getty Images.There's so much going down at Warner Bros. regarding their DC properties that it's pretty much like Joker strolling onto the Burbank lot and setting fire to whatever the previously planned slate was.
EVERYTHING BURNS.
Marvel is a profit machine. DC can't seem to catch a break. I know there's a huge corporate merger that just happened and Warner Bros. Discovery is pivoting and shifting priorities, but the restructured leadership continues to wreak absolute havoc on new WBD chief David Zaslav's hopes for a unified, DC film/TV universe.
So much has gone down in the past week give or take, it seemed worth aggregating into one blog that'll hopefully be more succinct than I'm accustomed to being.
Secret screenings of 'Batgirl' are happening after footage was wiped from Warner Bros. servers
Regarding the disappearance of Batgirl, via Deadline:
Weeks after HBO Max’s DC movie Batgirl was canceled by the David Zaslav-run Warner Bros Discovery, the film’s directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah said in an interview with French outlet Skript that the studio promptly prevented them from accessing the pic’s footage after unplugging the movie during post-production.
Fallah said, “I went on the server… Everything was gone.”
El Arbi added: “We were like, ‘Fcking sht!’ All the scenes with Batman in them!”
The directors of the Batgirl movie that got shitcanned tried to access the footage they'd shot from WB if only for smartphone-bootlegged safekeeping. They quickly realized the servers had erased any record of the doomed film.
That's brutal. Once they decided they were moving on, WB didn't even give the filmmakers a chance to salvage anything, even for sentimental value! Pure business decision. It seemed as if the cast and crew who toiled away on this highly anticipated production would never get a chance to see it, but I guess Warner Bros. does have a heart somewhere in its hierarchy and decided to hold these sequestered screenings mentioned above. The Hollywood Reporter wrote, in part, "One source described them as 'funeral screenings,' held before the film is sent off to an undisclosed afterlife, with footage locked away in a vault, either physical or digital."
If I were the star Leslie Grace or the co-directors, I'd be tempted to not even pull up for these. All the public comments and statements released by all parties suggest a future collaboration is possible, but it all feels like a pretty hollow gesture given what's happened.
Amazingly, we're only just getting started with the Warner Bros./DC shenanigans of late.
Matt Reeves Signed A First-Look Deal…Yet WBD Axed His HBO Max Batman Show
Why not just let the Lights Camera Barstool folks take this one away?
DC Animation is SICK, particularly on the Batman side of things. Any 90s kid had to have grown up and at least encountered Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond in some form. Kevin Conroy's Batvoice is the stuff of legend. Mark Hamill's Joker? Iconic.
This Caped Crusader series that Matt Reeves executive produced is very likely to get picked up by another streaming service. Given that it was a long-awaited followup to BTAS spearheaded by Bruce Timm, the OG's creator…I just don't get why you wouldn't put this on HBO Max. It's mind-boggling and stupid. You could introduce a whole new generation of children to the most popular superhero ever in a super-accessible way.
The literal next day, Warner Bros. turns around and gives Reeves a first-look deal, which means they have first crack to the rights of any project he directs/writes/produces and so on. I guess he's pretty busy with Colin Farrell's Penguin spin-off, and the good news is, he's already working on The Batman sequel script, so that looks like it'll move forward!
I find the timing of these two bits of news to be so odd. Like even the obvious, excellent move to lock Reeves up for the foreseeable future was preceded with a bummer plot twist. I'm convinced Caped Crusader will be a huge hit somewhere else…and HBO Max won't enjoy the fruits of that from its most bankable character.
'Shazam: Fury of the Gods' changed release dates for the FIFTH TIME
So…Warner Bros. can only afford to release two movies the rest of 2022. That's nutty to me. I know the pandemic is still having lingering effects, and that you have to pay a lot of money to promote and distribute a tentpole superhero movie. However, this is pretty staggering to see.
It's not so much a reflection of the quality of the new Shazam pic, although I don't know what to think anymore. The first one was pretty good and has a big heart. Getting bounced all over the calendar like this wouldn't bode well in a typical climate, yet with all the upheaval at WB right now, I get it.
Jason Momoa’s wild remarks add to 'Aquaman 2' confusion
As you can see from the Deadline tweet before this, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom got pushed off its release date in favor of the Shazam sequel. But here's where shit gets really strange.
Aqauman himself Jason Momoa personally leaked that Ben Affleck was coming back to shoot a cameo for this latest DC film. Rumor had it, he was meant to replace Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne/Batman to make the continuity of DC's overarching story match. That's because The Flash was slated to come out after the second Aquaman movie. Obviously, no longer the case.
So now we might be getting Affleck and Keaton in Aquaman 2? Will they cut the cameo Affleck just shot? Or is Keaton on the chopping block? And this comes after both of them are confirmed to appear in The Flash.
WB has done a lot to distance itself from Zack Snyder's run of DC movies. However, keeping Affleck in play for this long — not to mention Snyder's handpicked heroes Momoa and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman — creates more confusion and will have the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse hive clamoring for DC Films to reverse course back to its original plan.
Highly specific survey suggests Ezra Miller’s conduct may tank 'The Flash'
To their credit, Ezra Miller has stated they are seeking professional help for mental health issues, and given WB's policy to this point, I can't imagine they'll not release The Flash on its scheduled date of June 23, 2023.
Just the fact that this survey exists speaks to how off the rails things have gotten for DC's most important IPs. They're pinning damn near everything on The Flash, hoping that it'll help reset the larger timeline, and be the catalyst to pave the way for a Kevin Feige-style, interconnected cinematic universe.
The Flash has been in development hell forever and it feels like the most cursed production since Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. When you're drawing those kinds of comparisons, you know you're having a creative existential crisis [on infinite earths Flash pun intended].
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald…so…The Batman 2 and Joker: Folie à Deux, anyone?