Warner Bros Has Completely Botched The Past Decade Of DC Movies
Some pretty rough headlines at the moment for Warner Bros. Discovery. Ever since the massive merger was completed and new CEO David Zaslav started making cutthroat business decisions on the creative side of things, there's been a lot of bad press.
But The Flash's flameout at the box office is a microcosm of the past 10 years of WB's DC superhero movies, beginning with 2013's Man of Steel. It's a fitting nail in the coffin to an era of mixed/problematic messaging, too many cooks in the kitchen, turbulent leadership, and a catastrophic failure to give filmmakers enough artistic license to fully execute their unique visions for these iconic characters.
It feels like every single call made by Warner Bros. on their DC film slate since Man of Steel was reactionary, reflexive and a poor attempt to somehow replicate the towering achievements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They initially tried to take Henry Cavill's Supes in a darker, grittier direction — a la Christopher Nolan's take on Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy. People forget Nolan has a story and producer credit on MoS. That pic still turned a healthy profit at the box office, even if it wasn't the raging success WB was hoping for. There was plenty of positive audience reaction despite a mixed critical reception.
Funnily enough, the plot of The Flash revolves heavily around the climax of Man of Steel, wherein General Zod and his band of radicalized Kryptonians invade Earth. Said sequence was so polarizing in the first place. Creating an alternate version of it in a barren, deserted wasteland was...a choice?
Instead of doubling down on Cavill's solid start in Man of Steel and fleshing out his Clark Kent/Superman with a standalone follow-up, WB demanded that Zack Snyder set up a full-blown Justice League in the next movie, and also introduce Ben Affleck's new Batman. What Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio accomplished in the "Ultimate Edition" of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is pretty staggering. Unfortunately, the studio decided to hack out 30 minutes of key plot elements and character development so that the movie could secure more movie theater showtimes. The result was something of a muddled mess. BvS STILL made a reported net profit of $105.7 million!! On the streaming service HBO Max, they don't even put up the theatrical cut of the movie. Only Snyder's initially intended three-hour version.
So on the heels of all that, with the understanding that Snyder was doing something right to churn out two profitable blockbusters even with all the studio meddling, he was overwhelmed with mandated, jarring tonal shifts and a personal tragedy on Justice League. We saw what happened thereafter. Joss Whedon took the reins, tried to make Avengers Lite, ran a toxic set, and the result was a net $60 million loss.
Had WB just let Snyder carry out his full story, there'd at least be consistency and a stark difference to Marvel. Probably better for business too. Instead, DC has gone on a scattershot run with few hits and didn't deliver a single superior sequel upon their first wide releases.
…Which is why it's almost impossible to believe that Warner Bros. started our big obsession with superheroes in the first place with a TEN-SEASON TV show titled Smallville.
You could argue that Marvel technically kicked things off with Blade in 1998, but first of all, Warner Bros. co-distributed that movie. Secondly, the whole vampire angle is pretty much guaranteed to turn out an audience. Then, X-Men in 2000 was more of an ensemble, infighting sort of deal with 20th Century Fox backing it. We weren't yet in the era of Marvel Studios or the MCU, which began with Iron Man in 2008.
Smallville was actually conceived to be a young Bruce Wayne story in the first place. WB wasn't jazzed about this concept. However, we saw that not too long ago with the Gotham show. Once that idea was shot down, the focus shifted to Clark Kent's teenage years, following him all the way up to when he becomes Superman.
Never mind that this was way before prestige TV dramas and all the streaming series. Nobody believed that a deep-dive character study on the widely-perceived "boring" Superman would work. Co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had a hardline "no tights, no flights" rule about what Smallville would be.
Although Gough and Millar left following the seventh season, what they achieved in that span is nothing short of legendary. I can confirm, having just binged the hell out of all 10 seasons on Hulu recently WITH ADS, mind you!!
Sure, there were some ridiculous plot twists that tend to happen when a show that averages ~22 episodes per season runs for that long. It's easy to fall into the trap of the "freak of the week" trope, where Clark has to fight off a villain who won't be sticking around beyond that 40-minute-ish chunk of TV time. Where Smallville succeeds is still building their main characters so well even if there's a "freak of the week" or a repetitive beat you've seen before. The show manages to keep you pulled in as Tom Welling's Clark and his parents, played excellently by John Schneider and Annette O'Toole, try to keep his evolving superpowers a secret.
The acting across the board in Smallville is pretty damn impressive. Schneider and O'Toole play Jonathan and Martha Kent with such gravitas and help ground the often fantastical story. Kristin Kreuk's Lana Lang goes on an insane journey of innocent girl next door to, uh, sometimes a villain!? Welling is fantastic as Clark and just keeps improving and getting more comfortable as the show goes along. And yes, Allison Mack had some freaky-ass things she was involved in and is serving time for her actions, but she delivers as Clark's best friend Chloe Sullivan across all 10 seasons.
For all those anchors of positivity and hope, you need some worthy antagonists. Smallville gives us the best live-action version of Lex Luthor and it's not particularly close. Michael Rosenbaum owns the role, and has a phenomenal dynamic with his father Lionel, played by John Glover. I can't say enough about how strong their strained father-son relationship is, the overall arc both of them go on, and just how flat-out excellent they are as actors in those parts.
Rosenbaum and Welling have actually started the Talk Ville Podcast, which has over 113K subscribers.
If you're interested in taking on the task of watching Smallville, they're breaking down every single episode and just finished up the Season 2 finale. The video above covers the brilliant pilot episode.
A couple more things on Smallville, though, that I can't neglect to mention. Erica Durance joins the core cast as Lois Lane (won't say exactly when) and couldn't have been better. Watching where her relationship with Clark begins to where it ends up is so satisfying. Plus, there's the perpetual dangling carrot of when she'll find out about his powers that always keeps things interesting.
Slight spoiler alert for the other thing…
They actually lay the foundation of the Justice League in Smallville! Crossovers from movies to TV are becoming more feasible by the day, yet back in the early-mid aughts, that was out of the question. To this day WB refuses to lend out Batman to the small screen. Instead of Batsy being the Justice League's chief strategist with no superpowers, it was another character who wound up launching the next big era of DC superhero TV on The CW. That'd be none other than Justin Hartley as Green Arrow/Oliver Queen!
So yeah, Smallville laid out the blueprint for TV success and helped birth the Arrowverse, which just wrapped up with a nine-season run of Grant Gustin's Flash. Yup. The movie version of Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) was announced right around when Gustin made his debut in The Flash. All nine seasons of the show were completed and aired before the character's long-awaited theatrical flop.
Moral of the story: Gough and Millar were basically given free rein — albeit with certain Batman restrictions and so forth — to make the show they wanted to make. You see the result. An enduring legacy and a six-figure podcast subscriber base for a show that started in 2001.
I can't believe how badly WB botched their DC movie slate in recent years when they had the smash hit of Smallville as an ideal blueprint for how to be methodical about building out an interconnected world of characters. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy popped off right in the middle of it all as well. They were actually way ahead of Marvel for the better part of the first decade of this millennium.
Instead of mining the lessons of the effective, singular superhero deep dive that Smallville was, WB jumped the gun and tried to match Marvel once The Avengers changed the entire comic book movie genre. They failed to realize that Iron Man (and its sequel), Thor and the first Captain America stood on their own merits and made audiences care about those Avengers heroes before they teamed up.
The $1.1 billion promotional cost of DC's 2023 movie slate already has two busts on its hands in the Shazam sequel and The Flash. Doesn't bode well for Blue Beetle and the next Aquaman outing.
Nothing WBD can do now except pick up the pieces and hope co-DC Studio heads James Gunn and Peter Safran fire on all cylinders with their ambitious plans to save the company's superhero properties. I'm bullish on what Gunn can do with Superman: Legacy at the very least. That said, you can see by the bottom-line nature of Warner Bros. Discovery's woes that they have a long, arduous journey ahead to win audiences over again.
Thank you. Enjoy your weekend. AND STREAM SMALLVILLE ON HULU!! And check out My Mom's Basement for a dandy, detailed review of The Flash!!
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok