I think there’s been enough time spent looking back at Justice League‘s underwhelming box office, when the only thing that matters now is what comes next. Warner Bros. has a decision on their hands, and it’s whether to move forward with the whole DC Films experiment or blow everything up and start over. The latter decision seems very unlikely, but a surprising number actually think it could happen. Well, if that’s the case nobody told Shazam director David F. Sandberg or Aquaman‘s Jason Momoa.
A regular user on Reddit has claimed sources within Warner Bros. have told him their plan to shut down production on any and all comic book movies for a period of five years. That will, presumably, give them time to reevaluate their next move. I’d call it implausible but I wouldn’t put anything past any studio at this point, especially with money on the line.
One guy who doesn’t believe it is Sandberg, a frequent Reddit user himself, who replied with “Nobody told me. Can I take the day off tomorrow then? I really want to sleep in.”
Yeah, the DCEU isn’t going anywhere. Too much is already set in motion. Shazam has Sandberg, who has already assembled a cast led by Zachary Levi and young Asher Angel, with Dwayne Johnson starring in a film based on Shazam’s nemesis, Black Adam.
But next out of the gate is Aquaman, and Momoa, who played the hero in Justice League, isn’t listening to all of the negative buzz from critics. He tells EW…
“I try to stay the f— away from what people say. Some of my friends said, ‘Justice League isn’t doing well’ and it kind of bummed me out. But I didn’t want to look it up. I don’t want to look up the bad and the negativity. I don’t think that’s useful; it doesn’t help.
I’ve seen [Justice League] twice. I loved it the second time even more. I’m actually going to watch it again with my kids and my godchild. I’m going to see it with the perfect crowd of people — a regular crowd instead of at a premiere. So I’m excited. You can’t get into the whole ‘why this, why that.’ I went to [Wizard World Austin fan convention] this weekend and got great praise. Now obviously, that’s a positive place, and I’m not only interested in the positive. But if people love what we did with Aquaman, it’s all [director Zack Snyder] — it’s his brainchild. He came in with, ‘I’m going to make Aquaman a badass and I’m going to change stuff, and change the myths about this guy.’ And I busted my ass.”
He adds that a lot of Aquaman’s scenes were cut from the final version, which pretty much confirms that Zack Snyder had a much longer film in mind before Warner Bros. mandated it be only two hours…
“The challenging part is [the ‘Justice League’ story] is only about a weekend in Author Curry’s life,” “[Fans] might be like, ‘Why is he that grumpy? Why’s he hiding up there?’ We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it’s not my movie. It’s a huge movie introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there we just couldn’t get in. It could have been two movies. We had some stuff with Willem Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it because you’re going to see it in ‘Aquaman.’ It’s not an Aquaman movie, it’s a Justice League movie.”
And if there was so much that got cut, maybe there is a director’s cut out there somewhere? Fans are already petitioning to see his version of Justice League which, really, shouldn’t exist since it was never finished. But now cinematographer Fabian Wagner, who only worked on Snyder’s production but not Joss Whedon’s, says there is a lot that got left out and he would like to see it.
“This one was even shorter than I expected, so there are scenes that aren’t in there. I really hope we get to see a director’s cut, which will give us everything that we shot that didn’t make it in. What I love about his [Snyder’s] director’s cuts is they are long, but he takes his time to tell the story. I’ve never watched any of his directors cut and thought ‘This is long.” Whether they are three hours long, or three hours and ten minutes, they always seemed to go quick.”
I know there are some who disagree but I do think Snyder’s Ultimate Cut of Batman v Superman was superior to the theatrical one. Whether that could be repeated with Justice League, I don’t know, but I do know it wouldn’t change the predicament Warner Bros. finds itself in. [CBM/THR]
