DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (Page 15 of 19)

I don’t believe James Gunn is a pedophile. I believe he was raped when he was a boy by a teacher and his tweets and the costume party and such were a troubled attempt to deny his trauma.

That said, I also didn’t believe Bryan Singer to be a rapist only for many Hollywood actors (Evan Rachel Wood, Jessica Chastain) to describe it as an open secret...

Gunn attended Catholic school in Manchester, Missouri and the school pastor was Russell J. Obmann. In a tweet, Gunn named this man and described him as giving him meals and an education. "Simultaneously, he fucked us." On his personal blog, Gunn described Obmann as a child molester and how he reported this to his parents but was ignored.

This combined with that awful party where Gunn dressed as a pedophile priest suggest to me that Gunn was dressing as his rapist in an attempt to reappropriate the likeness of his monster as something he could control, mock and dismiss. It didn't work, he spiraled deeper into those horrible essays and tweets. I've also heard that Gunn had a penchant for roleplay where he asked adult women to pretend to be teenaged girls when they had sex together. After a time, I believe Gunn climbed out of that darkness, those dark days remained online and destroyed his career at Marvel.

It's interesting that you mention Salva. Gunn did a book reading at a 2011 event where he recognized Salva in attendance -- and Gunn expressed outrage at Salva and called him a pedophile.

**

When Bryan Singer was first accused of raping Michael Egan, I did not find Egan credible as he accused Singer of raping him in Hawaii during a period when friends of mine knew for a fact that Singer was basically on lockdown in Toronto, desperately assembling the first X-MEN movie. Financial records and studio documentation would eventually confirm that Singer was in Toronto during the period Egan claimed that Singer had raped him.

Since then, I have heard other stories -- from the same people who told me that Allison Mack was in a sex trafficking cult and had manuevered Kristen Kreuk into a threesome with the cult leader. I didn't take these tales seriously, but ever since Mack was arrested for sex trafficking, I have been forced to reconsider. I've heard stories of a law firm taking on a fraudulent rape case where the lawyers knew the so-called victim was making it all up, but also knew that his lies going public would draw out genuine victims of a prominent film director with rock-solid evidence which the lawyers would use, not in court, but to make this film director pay out massive financial settlements, in perpetuity and outside the legal system -- a far more lucrative proposition than a conviction for sex crimes.

I don't know that any of that is true. Maybe none of it is true.

**

Recently, I was struck by Singer's interview on TMZ. Singer was all charm and grace, speaking warmly of a director who'd replaced him on a FOX project from which Singer had been fired, generously answering any and all questions, declining to be angry at FOX for firing him. When the interviewer asked Singer if he would ever work with Kevin Spacey again. Singer said it'd depend on the project. Asked if he thought Spacey would ever work again, Singer said that Spacey would always be able to work, it was merely a question of whether there'd be an audience for that work.

Singer's gentleness and kindness were sweet and touching -- except he was speaking of Spacey, a pedophile, a harasser, likely a rapist -- and there wasn't a flicker of condemnation, outrage, anger or hurt. Singer described himself as having helped launch Spacey's career and there wasn't a hint of guilt or shame at having enabled Spacey to acquire a career that allowed him to assault others with the immunity of power and influence. Unlike Gunn, Singer didn't seem to be troubled at having been in the presence of a known sex criminal.

... it scared me and I am no longer able to give Singer the benefit of the doubt.

Singer has never given his side of the story, only blanket denials. I don't have any real facts to offer, but in that TMZ interview, Singer did not condemn Kevin Spacey, a known and self-confessed child molester who assaulted Anthony Rapp. Singer did not rule out working with Spacey. Singer did not express any shame or regret for, as he said, having helped launch Spacey to stardom. Singer did not show any sign of anger or outrage towards a child abuser. And what I didn't see there really disturbed me.

Another word about Gunn -- I see see his 'jokes,' 'joke' essays and 'party costume' as his trauma. His tweets included: "I like it when little boys touch me in my silly place. Shhh!" "Wondering which Disneyland character would be the worst to get raped by. I think it's Goofy. But Sleepy would suck too." "The best thing about being raped is when you're done being raped it's like, 'Whew, this feels great, not being raped!'"

Even before reading Gunn's scant remarks about his school priest, I felt Gunn's words were clearly the thoughts of an child assault victim, later a twisted adult bleakly voicing his boyhood grief and theorizing as to the mindset of his rapist.

The 'humour' of these words and dressing like the priest who abused him is an attempt to talk about what he endured while hiding behind the guise of 'jokes' to avoid an outright public revelation, something he clearly wasn't (and isn't) ready to do.

When fired, he *could* have said, "I was raped. Those 'jokes' were me trying to talk about what happened to me. It was disgusting, I was wrong, I'm so sorry." I think Disney was right to fire him and declare they found his views unacceptable. That way, Disney didn't come off as attempting a cover up.

I think Gunn was right to issue a statement in which he accepted and understood Disney's decision. That way, he wasn't presenting himself as the victim (of Disney). He didn't try to justify his actions. Which is why I (currently) feel confident that James Gunn is not Bryan Singer.

Yeah but if you're going to pick a series, wouldn't it be the one about the bad guys?  They aren't giving him Superman or even something like Shazam.  We're talking about a franchise where one of the leads has killed tons of children...

I still think his vision fits.  If he's a criminal, he shouldn't direct it.  If he's just making jokes, I think he can make a great Suicide Squad movie.

It seems to me like WB is keeping DC films in development without actually proceeding to make any they can't back out of aside from WONDER WOMAN II, AQUAMAN, SHAZAM and the JOKER movie. There's a lot of scripting and considering for BIRDS OF PREY, BATGIRL, NIGHTWING, THE FLASH, THE BATMAN (which may or may not have Affleck) -- but what it comes down to is that WB is unwilling to attempt a TRANSFORMERS-level superhero project after JUSTICE LEAGUE crashed so hard even Informant wouldn't defend the financials. Superhero movies that earn 600 million dollars at box office should be made for no more than 100 million dollar budgets and preferably half that.

In terms of what makes financial sense, WB are waiting, I think. They're going to wait for WONDER WOMAN II, AQUAMAN and SHAZAM's performances before engaging in anything beyond non-committal development. Given how badly JUSTICE LEAGUE did, I wonder if the DCEU is simply going to be waiting until enough time has passed to start over. They may make a third WONDER WOMAN, a second AQUAMAN, another SHAZAM -- building on what's already been built without throwing too much more money after what's been lost. I doubt they'll want to make THE BATMAN or MAN OF STEEL II on the blockbuster level that Affleck and Cavill level salaries would demand. The DCEU with regards to Superman and Batman seems to be going the way of the SUPERMAN RETURNS sequel -- it's just not enough of an earner to press forward on this sort of financial scale.

When the LOST IN SPACE 1998 movie failed, there were no sequels, but because there was going to be some time between the next iteration, there were some novels set after the film -- just to keep the copyright going and to earn some revenue. I don't see WB demoting the DCEU to novels, but it's going to be some sort of scaled back exploitation that won't be the bold, continuing adventures of Superman and Batman.

I imagine the DCEU closing out with a final WONDER WOMAN film before making a new attempt at a live action DC Universe. I wonder if it would spin out of the Arrowverse, but the Arrowverse probably has only another 4 - 5 years left before it too is laid to rest with a good finale.

The future may be in the DC streaming service -- TV level productions that, like DOCTOR WHO, eventually make the leap to the big screen. Thirteen episode shows at 1 - 2 million dollars an episode before a $30 million feature film emerging from the shows that can make 200 - 500 million dollars at box office and be considered a strong return on investment. Perhaps in 2022, when enough time has passed, a new Superman and Batman will debut on the small screen and lay groundwork for leaping to the large.

Well one thing that Marvel does better than DC (and "better" is subjective) is hype.  Marvel builds hype to the next movie, to the next trailer, to the next *title*.  They have sold-out halls to announce future titles, and they have the internet going insane over speculation on what the next Avengers movie will even be titled.  They do fun little videos with the characters, and they're setting up to do more TV-style projects with some of the lesser Avengers.  Yes, it's corporate, and yes, it's ultimately pointless.  But everything Marvel does is streamlined, and I think that's to their benefit.

At DC, it just seems more like the Wild West.  Some movies are in-continuity, some aren't.  Some have stars attached but no script.  Some have a script but no cast and no director.  You've got Superman and Batman in various stages of being involved and not being involved that seems to change by the day. 

And as far as hype goes, I don't think it's consistent enough.  With Justice League, you had a trailer well over a year before the movie came out, a huge space, and then the hype got bigger.  Aquaman was radio silent for a really long time, then a big rush for the trailer, then radio silence again.  It's a movie that I really want to see, but I constantly forget that it's coming.  Same with Shazam.

It sorta goes the same thing with their streaming services.  DC has a DC-only streaming service, and they came out with a Teen Titans show.  Marvel is going to have a Loki show and a Scarlet Witch show and a Bucky/Falcon show and a Hawkeye show.  All things that are definitely in-universe and driving people towards the streaming service.  You can argue for or against their way of doing things, but it all has a singular goal and it generates profit.

DC could've done any one of their couple dozen works and made it for their streaming service.  Do Batgirl there.  Or Nightwing.  Can't get a Flash or Cyborg movie going?  Do a show.  Or Supergirl.  If it interferes with the Arrowverse, either don't worry about it or pull the plug on it.  There's a million different heroes that they could introduce on a show and cycle in and out of movies.  But all they did was Titans.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is coming to theaters on February 7, 2020.

Long title. Kinda seems like a joke based off of one of those Harry Potter movies. I expect that we will be getting more info as filming begins, and of course a teaser at Comic Con.

Sorry for forgetting that BIRDS OF PREY was likely to go ahead. It slipped my mind. Weird, because I love the TV show.

Snyder is playing the Justice League thing totally right. He keeps releasing little nuggets about his cut, making the Snyder Cut a thing of legend. Warner Bros has to eventually release it, like the Donner Cut of Superman II.

Hard to say. Filming was completed, and all Joss oversaw was reshoots and editing. So it would depend on how much he actually wanted to reshoot, as opposed to what the studio and Joss wanted. There is a version of his film out there, just not his final version.

I watched JUSTICE LEAGUE again on the weekend and... I am astonished at how the general viewing audience really hates this movie. I'm baffled by the criticism that Whedon and Snyder don't fit well together because I felt the visual style and writing in this movie was the perfect synthesis of Snyder's dour, visceral intensity and Whedon's earnest, charming, disarming self-awareness. Barry Allen's starstruck crush on Wonder Woman is hilarious. Commissioner Gordon addressing Batman, Cyborg, Wonder Woman and the Flash and turning away briefly and discovering that everyone except the Flash has left the scene -- hilarious. Barry nervously confessing to Batman that he's never been in a fight -- hilarious. There is a perfect moment where Batman tells Barry not to fight, not to think, simply to get in, save one person and he'll know what to do next. There is another perfect moment where Wonder Woman loses her weapon and dives off a scaffold to retrieve her sword and the Flash superspeeds in front of the blade and passes his kinetic energy into the blade to send it right into Wonder Woman's grip.

There is another perfect moment where the Flash dives into Wonder Woman to rescue her from a collapsing structure and ends up with his face in her breasts. There is another perfect moment where a resurrected and angry Superman has Cyborg and Wonder Woman and Aquaman on the defensive and the Flash speeds towards Superman, confidently sure he can land a knockout punch before Superman can blink -- only for the seemingly in slow motion Superman to turn towards the superspeeding Flash and Ezra Miller gives Barry the perfect look of hapless terror. There is another perfect moment where Aquaman inexplicably starts babbling about his fear of dying and how he never chose Atlantis or humanity and how Wonder Woman is beautiful and then realizes he was sitting on Wonder Woman's lasso. There is another perfect moment where Superman returns and declares, "Well, I believe in truth and I'm also a big fan o'justice." There is another perfect moment where Superman abandons the battle to save civilians.

I just don't understand why people hate this movie so much. I'm not saying it isn't flawed -- Steppenwolf is a terrible villain who is never a convincing threat; he gets the third Mother Box because the heroes forget about it and leave it on the roof of a car; Henry Cavill's face looks bizarre in the opening scene -- but I just wouldn't trade these moments even for a more narratively coherent film. I love JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Justice League is a solid movie. It's fun, and I don't have a problem with Steppenwolf. I think the movie could have used more time to flesh out some of the characters and stories, but that's about it. Bits and pieces here and there weren't great, but not enough to go into.

That said, I do have some problems with what went on behind the scenes, and how that spilled over into the movie. The Superman material isn't bad, but the execution is sloppy. Unnecessarily sloppy, due to poor directing of the reshoots. I don't like that Snyder was messed with the way he was (and at a very bad time, when he probably didn't care enough to fight any of it). I don't like that huge chunks of the larger plan for what was going on were thrown out the window, making it look like sloppy writing/directing, when it was really the studio's fault that things went off track and character arcs weren't properly executed.

So much of the bad taste that the film left in the mouths of audience members was because the studio itself seemed to be sabotaging the movie.

Again, I like the movie. However, I can't watch it without wondering what the real version of this story was supposed to be. At points, it's like looking at a construction site and trying to picture what the place is supposed to look like when it's finished... but it's never finished.

Snyder had a plan for a second movie, and because of that, he started to set up where this whole thing would go in previous movies. Without a payoff, the Batman dream stuff in BvS looks weird. The Lex Luthor stuff at the end of Justice League sets up a plot that we probably won't see on screen. Darkseid was supposed to appear at some point, but probably won't. But even just things like Clark's character arc, where we see his journey toward this whole person, won't be properly realized because we won't get the final chapter of that arc. We saw a glimpse of it, or some version of it, but it wasn't the way it was supposed to play out, and that bugs me.

Like I said, it isn't so much about what's on screen. I'm fine with most of the material that we have on screen. It's just the behind the scenes stuff, and wondering what Snyder's vision for the movie was. And it annoys me that the studio kicked him when he was down. It was such a low thing to do, because it really does seem like Joss was brought in to reconstruct the plot in a way that was sold as "Snyder has other things to deal with, so we're going to complete his vision as a team", but which was really "We want Snyder out, so we're going to take this opportunity to undermine his vision."

It doesn't seem like there was much love lost between Joss and certain members of the team who worked closely with Snyder. It does seem like Snyder is playing into the idea that his vision was different than what ultimately made it to screen, but he's not directly badmouthing anyone. There's a lot being said between the lines amongst people who worked on the movie.

I think that we'd be having some different conversations if the essay from Joss' ex hadn't come out. I think he was probably let go from the DCEU long before he was officially released, because he had no support to offer the JL when it was being released, aside from pointing out that he was responsible for a song that people liked.

The whole thing feels very "Sliders, season 3", only I do ultimately like the Justice League movie that was released. The movie gets a 74% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes an a 6.5/10 on IMDB. I think some fans probably lower its score because they want the Snyder cut, but I'm not sure how to account for that in these numbers. It's not a bad movie at all. It's mostly Snyder's style, which I like. I think it's just tarnished by a series of unfortunate events, which makes it hard to see the movie without seeing the behind the scenes drama playing out. I can ignore Superman's face in those few scenes where the mustache was evident, as far as the movie itself is concerned, but it highlights other issues.

Yeah. The studio also should have listened to the audience feedback of BvS, rather than the critic feedback. The audience never had a problem with length, and the Ultimate Edition of BvS usually gets pretty high grades amongst fans. Most criticism comes from what the studio meddled with. The lesson is to let Snyder make his movies. The strength of the DCEU is directors with vision, making the movies that they want to make. The more the studio tries to make everything like the Marvel machine, the less it works.

I wonder if WB actually kicked Snyder when he was down. From what I can tell, Snyder left JUSTICE LEAGUE. He had to. Nobody should be editing and directing a major motion picture (or Season 3 of SLIDERS) under such circumstances. His daughter killed herself, a horrific, traumatizing event that put Snyder in a terrible place.

When David Peckinpah's son, Garrett, suddenly died of meningistis, Peckinpah didn't take the time to heal or mourn; he accepted stewardship of SLIDERS in Season 3 and never recovered from his torment. He dulled it with rage, affairs, heroin and cocaine. His grief never went away, he never learned to live with it or past it and in the end, it killed him.

Snyder decided to leave. When Whedon took over, he was in an impossible situation. Asked to complete a film he didn't really agree with. I think Informant himself would note: it’s not about how choice A is right and choice B is wrong: it's instead about committing to the choices one makes with style, craft, grace and conviction. Except in Whedon's case, many of these choices had been made and he was being asked to change some but not others.

I think it is very difficult for another creator to come in and complete someone else's vision when they have a completely oppositional style, and to complete it with pieces that have already been produced. If WB didn't want Whedon to be Whedon, they should have hired someone else, gotten Adam Kane or Greg Beeman or Allan Arkush (HEROES) or promoted Snyder's director of photography -- but it's clear that they wanted the AVENGERS director to make a Snyder movie more a Whedon movie and Whedon did what he was paid to do.

From what I can tell, the parademons feeding on fear was not part of the original storyline. Instead, the plot was that the parademons could consume and assimilate human beings and turn them into parademons.

This is just conjecture based on bits and pieces of what's been leaked. I think that that in the Snyder version, Superman, still unsteady after his resurrection, would be attacked by Steppenwolf's hordes and nearly corrupted into an agent of Apokolips. But during the process, Superman would have a vision of the Knightmare future -- Lois dead, the world a devastated wasteland, Batman fighting a losing rebellion, Superman under the control of the anti-life equation -- and Superman's horror would allow him to cast off the parademon infection. Superman would defeat Steppenwolf but now be struck by a new vision of the future -- the coming of Darkseid, the fear that the anti-life equation is suppressed but not gone and could turn him into a soldier for the other side in the war to be fought in JUSTICE LEAGUE II.

But Snyder left JUSTICE LEAGUE and it became clear that he needed a clean break with the DCEU and would never direct JUSTICE LEAGUE II. Whedon was instructed to conclude without a cliffhanger within the footage Snyder had shot with limited resources for reshoots.

The best Whedon could do: he shot a new opening in the film to indicate that the parademons feed on fear, something that was not a part of the original story. Whedon wrote in a line of dialogue for Steppenwolf saying his demons were hungering to feed on the humans and their fear. Then Whedon shot the end sequence where Steppenwolf, now frightened, is attacked by his own minions and in his defeat is suddenly removed from Earth.

The parademons feeding on fear -- it's not sufficiently maintained throughout the film, existing only in the opening, one line of dialogue and then the ending. The failure to address the Knightmare sequence in the previous film is peculiar. The third Mother Box being forgotten on the roof of a car is an awkward 'fix' where the original course of events couldn't be maintained. But there's other stuff I'd defend: Bruce using the same logic he had for killing Superman to argue in favour of resurrecting him is a beautiful moment of character development.

As for the DCEU, there clearly wasn't a lot of planning. MAN OF STEEL was intended as the start to a Superman film series, not a DC universe. But it was a respectable hit instead of a global blockbuster. The thinking was adding Batman and Wonder Woman could raise earnings. The results have been mixed.

Just as JUSTICE LEAGUE fails to entirely match BVS, WONDER WOMAN is also at odds with it. BVS shows Wonder Woman claiming she walked away from humanity, but WONDER WOMAN had her inspired by it; Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins, developing the character in their film, found they had moved in a different direction in BVS, meaning BVS had introduced Diana without a clear direction in mind. JUSTICE LEAGUE attempts to rationalize the discrepency saying Wonder Woman never abandoned humanity but avoided leadership and notoriety.

At every point in the DCEU, films have been made in an extremely improvisational fashion. BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN was re-edited to shrink Superman's role; JUSTICE LEAGUE was reworked from what was clearly a superhero horror film with jokes into more of an AVENGERS movie.

i believe it had more to do with very late in production reshoots, after, joss took over and the studio wanted a lighter tone, wb needed the shots, paramount didnt, it was either wb take away mustache or paramount superimpose it back in

Ha besides the fact that Cavill is 6'1 and Cruise is 5'7?

And mild spoilers for Mission Impossible in this DC Movie Universe thread:

What's crazy is that the mustache works for a villainous character.  And I remember reading early on that Cavill had been hired to play the villain in the movie, or at the very least, in connection to his roles in each film during the mustache debate.  And yet, in the movie, he's revealed to be a villain about 2/3 of the way out.  It's a twist in the film that he's a bad guy.  So I thought it was odd that it was mentioned so much, and it sorta threw off my watching of the movie because I knew he was a bad guy the whole time.  There were times, of course, that I thought maybe I'd misread something.  But while those movies aren't incredibly subtle with their telegraphing of twists like that, I just found the whole situation bizarre.

And I get that it's a business and I understand that Cavill is signing on to do a different movie for a different studio.  Honestly, I don't blame anyone for any of it.  I just find the whole thing a bit bizarre.  Reshoots happen all the time for movies like Justice League, and for Cavill to think that he was done and grow a huge mustache just seems odd to me.  You'd think that someone at WB would be keeping up with the major star in their billion-dollar franchise to make sure he would be ready in case they needed him back.  Particularly when this movie was such a big deal for the studio.

And after this thing and the bizarre wig that Kate Mara wore in Fantastic Four reshoots, I wonder if studios need to insure themselves against stuff like that for when inevitable reshoots happen.  Maybe a "you can do this next movie but don't change your appearance until X date" clause.  Or even go back to some sort of exclusivity deal where you can only make movies for the one studio while you're headlining a multi-billion dollar franchise.

The funny thing is that this actually almost happened at Marvel first during their big team-up movie.  Chris Evans had a big beard when they shot the last-minute shwarma post-credits scene for the Avengers.  It's why Cap is covering his face with his glove.  We've probably brought this up before, but I just think it's funny to think about.

Hey, Slider_Quinn21 -- since you've seen FALLOUT now -- what do you think of seeing Ethan Hunt in this movie as an image of what Quinn Mallory would be in his forties? Posts below:

http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?pid=7578#p7578
http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?pid=7645#p7645

I suspect that when you think of Quinn, you think of him in from ages 20 - 24: the brilliant but shy scientist of Season 1, the driven but inexperienced genius adventurer of Season 2, the unconvincing action hero of Season 3 or the emotionless weirdo of Season 4 -- whereas these days, when I think of Quinn, I think of the 45 year-old version in my fanfics and while you script-edited the last one, it's unreasonable to expect you to go to that as your default for Quinn.

But another area where I think of Quinn as sort of the dollar store version of Ethan (or rather, a more dysfunctional, far more imperfect version) -- I don't consider my Quinn (or any Quinn) the leader of the team. The Professor is the leader whereas I can't really see any version of Tom Cruise's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE where he isn't in charge (regardless of whether he answers to Anthony Hopkins or Laurence Fishburne or Alec Baldwin).

I'd like to move back on topic, but I didn't get around to seeing AQUAMAN.

I was planning to see Aquaman when it came out, but I got sick and didn't want to be the annoying guy in the theater, coughing through the whole movie. Now I'm just too busy to get to a theater.

I really do want to see it though. I've heard all good things... but that usually doesn't mean much. Most people consider Wonder Woman to be the best DC movie so far, and it seemed like the weakest to me.

https://comicbook.com/dc/2019/01/30/zac … vin-smith/

Reports of Snyder’s ouster appear to have been exaggerated - he’s still got his fingers in there:

https://comicbook.com/dc/2019/01/31/sui … ck-snyder/

And The Batman is reported to focus more on the detective aspect of the character.  So we’ve had Nolan’s ninja Batman (with a dash of detective); we’ve had Snyder’s military Batman (with a dash of detective); so what does a primary detective Batman look like?  The word noir is also being thrown around, so I would suspect that even characters we know to be “good” may have a cloud of suspicion over them.

This is the kind of story Harvey Dent / Two-Face was made for, but I doubt they would dip into that well again so soon.  Looking to villains we haven’t seen yet on the big screen, an obvious candidate would be Clayface (who could in fact be anybody and everybody - only a detective could figure it out).

Batman is supposed to be the smartest guy in the room, but most often we’ve seen him playing catch-up or getting blind-sided and surprised.  It would be refreshing to see a Batman who had it all figured out ahead of time and was moving people around like chess pieces so that he could obtain the evidence to convict the criminal.  Clayface would be a monster once he’s cornered, though; and that brings out the super-hero aspect.

Given the brutality of Snyder’s run, I think they would have taken another page from the New 52 introduction of the Justice League.  In the comic, there was a panic pile on where the heroes ended up stabbing out both of Darkseid’s eyes leaving him blind.  The animated adaptation presented it like this:

https://youtu.be/2FbcRoZk5zs

It’s just not the Justice League I know, but it would feature things Snyder likes.

One of my favourite YouTube videos from which I clearly stole the iPad/Android comparison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snYH1wtu4tQ

If you don't want to watch it, the upshot of the video is that a YouTube technology vlogger, Nate Burr, once made a web article called, "How to install Android on an iPad," and it consisted nothing but a photo of an iPad. On the iPad screen was an image of Data from STAR TREK. Burr was later alarmed to discover that this post was constantly drawing traffic from people using search engines to seek out instructions for how to install Android on an iPad. He proceeded to make a video, remarking:

The entire situation makes me think of SLIDERS (and I know you can all barely contain your amazement). I think we can agree that Kevin Feige and Zack Snyder have very different styles. And I think we can agree that Feige had the support of the studio while Snyder didn't. Warner Bros.'s development strategy: they approved a project's direction and destination, but from BVS onward, they sought to change course AFTER the train had left the station. It's self-destructive and self-defeating, much like Season 5 of SLIDERS.

The Season 5 team bought a script about an interdimensional library under Kromagg attack, and cut the interdimensional library and the Kromaggs. They bought a script about telepathically-piloted Kromagg warships and cut the warships at war. They bought a script about Rembrandt being imprisoned for creating music and cut Rembrandt's arrest. They bought an interdimensional version of CASABLANCA and then decided that they didn't like CASABLANCA.  They tied up their budget renting a giant hotel set and spent many episodes trying to make it something other than a hotel.

Every movie studio (except Paramount?) does this. Sony approved the twenty-fourth Bond film with a script where the villain is Bond's foster brother -- but then, in the middle of filming, they demanded that the foster brother be the 60s Bond villian Blofeld. This resulted in clumsy revisions that couldn't reconcile the villain being both Bond's brother executing a personal vendetta AND the mastermind of the Connery films. Bond's brother and Blofeld should have been two separate villains in two separate films.

Sony approved AMAZING SPIDER-MAN II with a script in which Peter explores the legacy of his dead father and discovers his father is still alive. During filming, Sony complained that this didn't set up a SINISTER SIX movie and ordered it removed, leading to a depressing film where Peter never finds his dad.

At one point, Sony's then-chairwoman declared she would never again greenlight a film without settling all script issues with the director. It's beyond me why she needed to blow hundreds of millions to learn this and it was also beyond her managers as she's not the chairwoman any more.

Why did they buy these scripts? Why did they film them? Why did FOX hire a dark, grounded filmmaker to make a big budget FANTASTIC FOUR movie and then cut the budget while complaining it was too dark and grounded?

Sometimes, studios HAVE to start filming because they can't change release dates or delay airdates. FOX, in particular, needed to produce an FF movie or lose the rights as they lost DAREDEVIL. They can't push pause, so they decide to modify what they have en route. And it doesn't work; even if the result is something as fun as JUSTICE LEAGUE, the publicity is toxic. Studios need to accept that once filming's started, what they've approved is what's being made.

You can't re-edit a film about Peter Parker searching for his father into a launch for SINISTER SIX and expect coherence. You can't have a different director reshoot every scene of Superman in a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie and think your audience won't notice. Whedon would have been better off focusing on his own projects instead of Snyder's and after Snyder left, WB should have assembled their cut with the footage they had.

Or WB could have done what Disney did with the SOLO movie. Disney had most of it filmed with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, but weren't happy with the results, so they hired Ron Howard to reshoot the entire movie and treated the Lord/Miller material as second unit B-roll. But WB was too close to the JUSTICE LEAGUE release date for Whedon to reshoot it wholly.

I'm not saying films can't or shouldn't evolve as they're filmed, but the way Warner Bros. and FOX and Sony have tried is not the way to do it. Again, with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: the last three M:I films did *not* have completed scripts when they started filming. With the fifth and sixth films, McQuarrie was often improvising scenes, but he made sure that the mission briefing scenes would be shot on isolated soundstages with only one actor and McQuarrie voicing the briefings. This way, they could be refilmed at any point to wrangle the plot into shape. The evolution came from within the films rather than being dictated to the filmmakers.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE IV is also an interesting case: III had married Ethan Hunt off, but everyone involved agreed that Ethan couldn't stay married. However, the storyline of IV, directed by Brad Bird, had Julia assassinated off-camera and led to extremely depressing scenes. Julia's death was at odds with Bird's lighthearted take.

Christopher McQuarrie, brought in for rewrites on IV in mid-filming, suggested a few lines of dialogue and a new end-scene to make it so that Julia was alive. Julia's survival, now implied throughout the film and confirmed at the end, allowed the audience to enjoy Brad Bird's escapist spy thrills. Paramount and McQuarrie helped Bird make the thrilling spy adventure he set out to make and set aside the guilt-and-revenge movie that he didn't want at all.

In contrast, Warner Bros., Sony, FOX, Keith Damron and Bill Dial seemed to be in a constant state of buyer's remorse and sunk cost fallacies, buying material they didn't want to film, refusing to let go of what they regretted having bought, and trying to change it as they filmed it.

Man, do you have to bring everything back to SLIDERS? ;-)

**

Anyway, some more thoughts on studio tinkering which may or may not relate to what happened with JUSTICE LEAGUE: I was reading one of the many drafts of SPECTRE, the last James Bond movie. SPECTRE is a note-perfect example of how the studio process of tinkering with a script as it's being filmed is not constructive.

The SPECTRE released to theatres starts well: Bond's investigating a mysterious organization, Spectre, that may have compromised his organization. There's a gripping sequence where Bond infiltrates a Spectre meeting and the mysterious leader knows of him already, identifies him on sight and greets him by name. Bond barely escapes.

Then there's a confusing revelation where Bond finds a ring worn by members of this organization. This ring indicates through confusing exposition that the villains of the previous three films were part of this organization -- a strange retcon as none of these past villains wore these rings.

There's a limp romance with a doctor whose father worked for Spectre, then a middle-of-the-story confrontation where Bond gets to Spectre's secret base and confronts the Spectre leader, Blofeld, who is (a) a new version of the 60s Bond villain and (b) Bond's foster brother in this continuity.

Blofeld takes credit for the previous three movies' villains, but it's unclear how those films tied into Blofeld's goals of infiltrating all government intelligence assets. At no point does the film use Bond and Blofeld's shared past and history for conflict or drama. It's so inessential; it might as well not be there.

Blofeld straps Bond into a torture chair that Bond escapes through means I don't understand. Bond blows up the entire secret base through a method that I don't understand. I've watched this sequence 10 - 15 times. There's then a lifeless climax in London where Blofeld attacks Bond's headquarters and escapes in a helicopter and Bond, pursuing the helicopter on a boat, shoots down the distant helicopter with a pistol (?!?!?) and arrests Blofeld before walking away with his boring girlfriend.

It's very odd. Reading an earlier SPECTRE shooting script, however, explains a lot of what the hell is going on here (at least creatively if not within the story of the movie). As originally written, the Blofeld character wasn't Blofeld; he was Franz Oberhauser (which Blofeld uses as an alias in the final film). Sony wasn't happy with this.

Looking at the changes, it seems they stipulated that Oberhauser be rewritten into the Blofeld, the world domination pursuing mastermind of the 60s movies with Sean Connery. Sony had only recently acquired the rights to use the Blofeld and Spectre concepts. Spectre was already in the script, but Sony wanted Blofeld too.

Sony could have simply renamed the Oberhauser character as Blofeld. But Sony also wanted Oberhauser's villainy to reflect the extravagant, exaggerated aspects of the 60s Blofeld and these additions don't mesh well with the script around them.

In the script, all the connections to the previous films were much more low-key. The script indicates that Oberhauser employed the villains of previous Bond films on his own projects for financial management, for acquiring resources, for technical design -- but the final film overinflates this to Oberhauser nonsensically claiming responsibility for every evil plot in the last three Bond films. It's not supported by the previous films and it falls flat. The story was better when the connections were low key.

The script also has a very tight focus on the Bond/Oberhauser conflict as foster brothers. Oberhauser and Bond were both adopted; Oberhauser was jealous that Bond seemed to monopolize their foster father's love. Oberhauser has spent his life watching Bond from a distance, spying on our master spy, obsessing over Bond. Oberhauser represents all of Bond's sociopathy and cruelty at a permanent extreme point.

This also ties into the Bond girl of this movie, Madelaine. The script has a few extra lines about how she rejected her father for his disregard for human life; it's why she became a doctor, it's why she rejects Bond. And the script has Bond defeating Oberhauser and in doing so, conquering his own demons and winning Madelaine's confidence.

As scripted, the first confrontation between Bond and Oberhauser has them playing cards for each other's lives and recalling their childhood rivalry, presenting Oberhauser as a jealous, murderous evil twin. Sony replaced this with Bond in the torture chair because the 60s Blofeld used deathtraps.

The torture chair scene also replaces the scripted sequence where Bond spots all the gas lines in the secret base and works out how to trigger a chain reaction to blow it up. In the finished film, Bond seems to fire his gun randomly and the base obediently explodes for him.

The finished film doesn't show Blofeld's lifelong jealousy of Bond, doesn't show how Blofeld has modelled himself on Bond. It was all in the script. It didn't make it to screen.

I can sort of understand why Sony didn't think this was a big deal. They were simply giving their villain a different name and tweaking the sequence of tormenting Bond. They were making their film more reminiscent of the source material. But the underlying theme of the script as written: Oberhauser was a dark mirror image of Bond.

The 60s Blofeld character is an evil genius manipulator, aloof and distant from the action, a contrast to Bond as a man of action. This character is not a mirror image of Bond. By making Oberhauser more like the 60s Blofeld, Sony obliterated his relevance to Bond and also removed Madelaine's purpose as representing the humanity that both Bond and his brother had discarded. That's why the Bond/Madelaine onscreen romance had no heat, no tension and no passion. It was on the page, but Sony mislaid it.

The final act of SPECTRE as released, despite being mostly unchanged from the script, feels completely detached from the rest of the movie. It worked in the script. But in the movie, Blofeld's attack on Bond's headquarters no longer relates to their relationship as brothers.

There are little revisions which aren't a big deal. Some of Bond's scripted action scenes have been redistributed to Moneypenny and M and Q. The sequence of Bond shooting down Blofeld's helicopter with a pistol, as presented on paper, has Bond discovering he only has three bullets and he has to aim carefully and make it count, which at least acknowledges the unlikelihood on display.

Throughout SPECTRE, Sony kept tweaking the Blofeld character to make him bigger and more important to reflect the source material. Sony executives were up in arms over Blofeld/Oberhauser not being evil enough, his plan not being epic enough. They were concerned that the Oberhauser villain didn't live up to the Blofeld name. But their revisions didn't make Oberhauser/Blofeld a stronger villain; they only diluted the arc they already had.

The third act of SPECTRE that Sony kept trying to 'fix' went from being taut and tense to laboured on the page to disconnected and perfunctory because the conflict between brothers was no longer in the movie.

SPECTRE needed to either be the story of Bond facing his evil twin or Bond facing a master manipulator. Sony had the first one. They tried to hammer it into being the second and the result was a confused mess. Sony should have commissioned a new script written from the start to feature the 60s evil genius instead of the evil twin version. But filming had started and Sony couldn't stop.

In that case, Sony should have left the SPECTRE script alone and let the filmmakers elevate the story above any of its flaws through performance, visual spectacle, editing and pacing. Instead, they kept trying to retrofit Oberhauser's personal, intimate villainy into the classic Blofeld, but Oberhauser didn't need to be the classic Blofeld to be an effective character. They kept trying to fix what wasn't broken and they broke it.

Spoilery speculation

When FAST AND FURIOUS actor Paul Walker died, production went to Walker's previous F&F films to complete his final movie. They lifted his face and grafted it onto body doubles. TERMINATORs SALVATION and GENYSIS also did this with Arnold Schwartzenager, the former because he wasn't available and the latter so that Arnold could fight himself.

If SHAZAM needs one shot of Cavill in costume, it can't be that hard to use his likeness via an outtake from JUSTICE LEAGUE. It also can't be that hard to have Cavill perform an hour of filming. Kevin Sorbo had to do a lot of one-hour for one shot shooting days on HERCULES after his stroke.

If WB wants a cameo but can't agree to terms with Cavill, then then I suspect the issue is financial. MAN OF STEEL would have paid Cavill a low six figures, but subsequent films would have raised his salary and profit participation in anticipation of TRANSFORMERS level earnings. Those earnings haven't materialized -- but Cavill's contract would stipulate that WB would have to keep paying him a TRANSFORMERS model salary when that's a model they've abandoned.

Paramount is in the same situation with Chris Pine for a fourth STAR TREK movie as their contract requires that Paramount pay him on the scale of a $300 million budget when their earnings only justify a $100 million budget.

I wonder if WB employing Cavill for a cameo or for effects work would trigger an extension on his existing contract when they may prefer to do what they did with Brandon Routh -- they want to wait until it expires and either re-negotiate with Cavill or recast him. And if they did want to renegotiate -- well, Cavill doesn't strike me as someone who would accept a paycut; he's flat out declared that he plays Superman for the money.

Tom Welling took the role of Clark because he couldn't stand modelling and could either return to being a janitor or become an actor. Welling received a massive increase on SMALLVILLE's last three seasons, but he also took on much more work as he was effectively the showrunner as well as the star. Welling also gave up his salary for the finale to pay Michael Rosenbaum. While we all criticize Welling's refusal to wear the Superman suit for his last hour of the show, we can't question his commitment to the character. Cavill, however, doesn't see himself as the custodian of the character the way Welling or Routh did.

Cavill's a great actor and a great Superman, but I don't think he loves Superman to the point of accepting a pay cut. And I can't fault him for that. If Cavill isn't coming back, I'd like WB to cast an unknown to replace him. I'd like the same for Affleck's replacement.

Remember, I'm only speculating, but my guess is that it's less about the money he'd be paid for an hour on set or for the use of his likeness and more that if WB exercises their option on his contract for his image or for cameos, that extends the contract further -- perhaps a year, maybe less, maybe more. And if their wish is to allow the contract to expire (as they did with Brandon Routh), then they don't want to use Cavill unless they have a new contract with a paycut (which I doubt Cavill would accept). WB has a contract with Cavill; he is obligated to work for them if they exercise their option. They have chosen not to use it for now and may choose not to use it at all.

I'm wondering if the reason it took so long for Affleck's departure to be announced is because WB was also waiting for his contract to expire. Please remember that this is purely hypothetical and this would be a very good time for Informant to come in and tell us all that we don't really know what the investment-to-earnings ratio even really is.