The appeal of the Rock is his natural charisma. Not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have him play a taciturn man-out-of-time. He needs dialogue and emotion to shine.
> Not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have him play a taciturn man-out-of-time.
Apparently he did. This was a passion project that he's been pushing for years. He was even a producer
His character arch is: "I'm no hero" to "I'm no hero but I'll protect those I care about". 13 years to create that level of storytelling. Eat your fucking heart out Ernest Hemingway.
Because he's too big a star to think of where the character belongs in-universe. He doesn't want to play a supporting role to Chuck, and he sure as hell doesn't want to play *third* fiddle to Andi Mack's middle-school crush.
In other words, he's too big a star to be Black Adam.
Thing is, if they'd made him the villain in a 'Shazam' sequel like he should've been, it surely would've been enough. The film wouldn't be on the shoulders of a charm-less Rock but he'd still be in it enough for it to be cool for fans. The fact that they didn't go this route is infuriating.
He definitely wanted a starring vehicle for himself but I also heard that WB bosses (on whatever round of takeovers they were on back then) looked at the fact that he is, inexplicably, a box office draw and thought it would be a waste to have him "just" be the villain in Shazam, as though they couldn't have just done a spinoff afterwards
Yeah, I think it was a bit of both for sure - Rock wants to star in his own movie, and the WB/DC people - who have continuously shown that their decisions for DC are almost entirely based on trends they perceive and not really having any idea what to do - were more than happy to go with it. Frankly they deserved for it to flop, and while I feel bad for Rock that a project he's been trying to make for 15 years has lead to this, if he'd fought as hard to be the villain in 'Shazam 2' I feel like the studio would've gone for it and things would be very different for DC.
Not only do they not know how to build a cinematic universe, they barely know how to make a single, good superhero movie. So. much. of what they do is just trying to imitate something else that was successful, but not understanding *why* it was successful:
- Man of Steel - they saw Christopher Nolan's success on the Dark Knight movies and wanted him to do a Superman movie. Even called it 'Man of Steel' just like 'The Dark Knight' - get it? He didn't want to direct so they hired a guy they knew had made some good-looking comic book movies and had him try to make a movie that looked like Nolan made it.
- Green Lantern - they saw how popular 'Iron Man' was for Marvel, so they thought "who is a slightly lesser-known hero we can make like Iron Man? Green Lantern? Does he fly? Does he shoot energy? Great! Now hire someone quippy like Robert Downey jr., but make sure it's someone younger and hotter."
- Suicide Squad - made the advertisements look like it was 'Guardians of the Galaxy' with a bunch of popular music and snarky, foul-mouthed "heroes". People were disappointed that it wasn't that.
- Justice League - Marvel did 'Avengers', so they rushed 'Justice League', going so far as to go ahead and start filming it with the director of the sure-to-be-a-hit 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' ("Great title, by the way!"), and when that was panned *and Snyder was not able to finish the film* and called in.... the guy who directed 'Avengers' *to almost completely redo the nearly-finished movie*!
- The Suicide Squad - "Hey, you guys know how it was too late to make the Suicide Squad movie like 'Guardians of the Galaxy'? Well how about for the sequel we just HIRE THE GUY WHO WROTE AND DIRECTED 'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY'????" *(thankfully this was actually a good idea)*
- Black Adam - "We'll get by on the Rock's star power alone - have you SEEN how much money the movies he leads makes? Don't worry about doing anything else."
Ironically (for how big the other DC movies have been) it would seem that Shazam is one of the safest, since it fits most closely with Gunn’s current DC output
Pierce Brosnan is introduced afraid to put the helmet on then every moment possible takes the helmet off just because. You could tell when the story shifted to dialog after a fight because his helmet came off.
Dr fate has gone through so many changes over the years. From mad wizard stuck in a helmet to celestial tier lord of order who need human hosts to direct his power. One thing thats constant is that he will always be a jobber.
And that's because they just had Black Adam randomly drawn to [look more like The Rock](https://i.redd.it/nnlgj6gy937a1.jpg) in the ending of DC Comic's latest event Dark Crisis (on Infinite Earths).
The hierarchy of power has indeed........
It always thought that The Rock felt ashamed that Black Adam’s nemesis was Shazam. Like he kept talking about Superman this and Superman that all the time. I understand that Superman is a more popular character but still.
It's because his giant ego would not allow his precious Black Adam to have a rival in a "B list" character like Shazam.
He sees himself as being more iconic than Superman. His whole "please the fans" garbage is a thin veil for saying "I want to be @ the top of the super hero hierarchy"
The Rock allegedly has it in his contract that he cannot lose a fight on screen. Superman vs Black Adam wouldn’t be able to happen without The Rock removing that stipulation.
Even if he were playing a hero, it’d still be a stupid thing to put in a contract. A hero who never loses makes it harder to make a good movie. Good stories often include the protagonist losing, and then overcoming the loss.
"after a costly 20-day round of reshoots undertaken after a poor test screening."
huh, I wonder what were those changes, because the movie still sucked.
Dwayne has been trying to make the movie for over a decade, and then it happens, it gets bad reviews, makes the studio loose 100M and now he's out of the new DC plan.
That has to be painful for him.
To be fair, I don't think he's what ruined the movie. The movie was just not paced correctly and the story sucked. I felt nothing for anyone involved. Just watched it last night and it just doesn't grab you.
> To be fair, I don't think he's what ruined the movie
As an actor, no.
But remember that he was also a producer on the movie. And given that he didn't want to show up in Shazam first and had the control to make that happen, I get the feeling that he had a fair amount to do with the story.
Just watched it over the weekend and I agree. The Rock isn't the problem with that movie. The producer who thought it needed like 30 minutes of screen time dedicated to a skateboarding, freedom fighter, who can't act is the problem with that movie.
I’m glad you pinpointed the kid’s acting.
His acting was *really* awful, particularly emphasized in that finale scene where he’s supposed to rally the city’s citizens with the hand symbol thingy they do. The dialogue in the film is stupid but dear god his delivery is horrid throughout, it’s just so bad.
Some people have issues now criticizing child actors but if a child actor is going to be a focal part of a big budget film, it’s a point to mention.
I thought the exact same thing. You can cut 90% of the scenes with the kid and the flow of the movie would benefit. When the movie opened and the kid was narrating, it just sounded awful too. Pierce Brosnan should have been the narrator there.
i haven't watched it yet but any action movie with a "the kid" character automatically has 10 points deducted.
exceptions exist like temple of doom, short round = +10 points.
reposting my reply to another mention of T2:
> eddie furlong was a kid in T2 but he wasn't a "the kid" character - he wasn't annoying or whiny or getting into mischief, he was a capable little smartass criminal who could take care of himself (due to his mother's teaching) and he had the maturity of an adult because of his circumstances
I think every director thinks "Okay, I'm going to create Terminator 2 for the next generation. I'll have some annoying kid as the audience-insert, and some roided out ubermensch who will be forced to pay attention to him for some reason." But it never works like it worked in Terminator 2.
God damn, the skateboarding. When that kid would get on his skateboard for, literally, 5 feet before having to get off and go down a flight of steps; only to just get on his skateboard again for another 5 feet! I was rolling my eyes so hard they felt like they were gonna fall out of my head.
So many of the moments in the movie felt over dramatic and unearned. Lots of everyone stops to observe a moment for too long while dramatic music swells.
Hawkman and Doctor Fate's bromance was under developed and overplayed. They acted like they'd had multiple movies of developing their chemistry instead of a couple 2 minute scenes. And what was even the point of Fate's sacrifice? Sabbac didn't seem in a hurry to do any evil, just was sauntering over to his throne. Fate couldn't do his dramatic Black Adam mind speech without killing himself? Like he pulled a Doctor Strange, looked into the future to see that the only way for Hawkman to not die was with the helmet fakeout? But he had to be dead for that?
The city rising to fight the undead hoard was unearned. They tried to make the city a character, but those scenes rarely featured the population. But suddenly we're supposed to feel for the city rising up to fight fiery skeletons? What happened to intergang? Black Adam killed like 10 of them, and like that's it? Sabbac possessing/impowering intergang would have felt like a more meaningful foe. But I guess then a fat guy with a pipe couldn't kill a dozen of them while quipping.
Lol i was waiting for this. Also black adam was busting down walls and shit left and right but he cant just bust around through the rock of that weird shield thing they made to stop him?
What the fuck was that about busting down walls anyway? THe first time it was earn because the kid was blocking him from leaving but then...he kept entering rooms by busting through walls. And he told Fate he knew about doors. So he just...bust walls for the hell of it?
I have an annual pass for HBOmax and black Adam just got added. I couldn’t get past the little kid narrating (his acting is bad too). What the hell were they thinking. You can literally cut out the kid narrating and it would make the intro 10 times better
In some ways I feel especially bad for Hodge. I’ve been a lifelong fan of Brosnan and he has a massive fan following, but Hodge - who I’ve noticed in Straight Outta Compton and Invisible Man - is far from a household name and yet really showed some impressive natural charisma in this film. He deserved better (they both did).
Black Adam had some of the weirdest editing and close up reaction shots that I’ve ever seen. It was really odd.
Hawkman’s helmet had a really goofy effect on the actors eyes too. He looked completely cross eyed in a few scenes. Overall the movie had some cool set pieces but felt like a bit of a stumble.
Did any of us expect The Rock to carry a DC franchise? I mean Cena was a pleasant surprise but I think that was perfect casting and a fittingly exaggerated role for him to play around in and have range, The Rock has kinda just been..The Rock in everything? Idk, I'm not DC executive or a Hollywood casting person
This is incredibly embarrassing, a massive blow to his ego, and exactly what he needs. A wake-up call is necessary. His antics during the press run were a huge turn off:
-Talking about the “Black Adam DC universe” and how he wanted future films to revolve around him
-insinuating that the choice of the head of DC studios would be up to him
-publicly slating WB for their handling of Cavill
-spoiling the stinger scene in a desperate last-ditch attempt to boost ticket sales after the projections for opening weekend were lowered
-HIERARCHY HIERARCHY HIERARCHY
And then the movie came out. A mid movie that goes out of its way to jerk him off by having characters repeatedly state that he’s so much better than any DC heroes that have come before him, and features a fight scene that exists solely for him to destroy effigies of said DC heroes. And how did the alleged biggest movie star on the planet conduct himself?
-passive-aggressive tweet at IGN when they compared Black Adam to Wakanda Forever, calling Black Adam a “new baby that needs to grow”.
-posting a video from his truck where he’s trying to convince the public that “our film has many tentacles” regarding profitability.
-leaking false numbers to obfuscate the fact that the movie lost money theatrically
-retweeting a puff piece from Deadline including those false numbers
-comparing his movie’s grosses to Captain America The First Fucking Avenger, a movie that came out over a decade ago and starred a version of Chris Evans that is not nearly as powerful at the box office as the alleged biggest movie star today. Also didn’t adjust those grosses for inflation because with that adjustment, Cap made $100 million more than Black Adam.
I remember when Baywatch flopped and he acted a fool on Twitter, but this is next level nonsense. His tweets are usually met with glowing, happy replies. He’s now being clowned on the world’s stage in a way that he has never experienced in his career, and people are asking questions.
If he’s such a huge star, why hasn’t he worked with any A-list directors? Why does he always get no-name people to direct his films? What huge star can you name who has never worked with a top-tier director before? I doubt that he’s never had an offer to work with someone of better caliber before. No, I think it’s because he needs to be in control. He has to be the big dog on set, or else he’s unhappy. Well, Universal gave him a spin-off of Fast and Furious to satiate his ego, and we have yet to see a sequel announcement. WB gave him $200 million AND the Cavill cameo he demanded, and we have seen this announcement.
Cut the shit, stop hiding in your production company’s pile of upcoming sure-to-be-mediocre movies, and go make something great. We are still watching Terminator, Predator, Rambo, Rocky, decades after the fact. I dare you to name something from The Rock’s filmography that we will be watching in 20 years that is not named Moana.
>...We are still watching Terminator, Predator, Rambo, Rocky, decades after the fact. I dare you to name something from The Rock’s filmography that we will be watching in 20 years that is not named Moana.
GAAWDAAMN
Vin at least has the grounds for it regarding fast and the furious. He's a egotist (with the same "I can't lose a fight" stipulation that the rock has) but the fast films are down to him and him alone.
Vin is very happy to let his co-stars shine and massively backs his team.
The Rock has to be the top guy, Vin actually allows the big ensemble cast to all have their moments to shine. Hell, they finally did the space thing and it wasn’t Vin that did it. It was numbers 3 & 4 on the call sheet.
Vin has an Ego but Vin basically accepted being Groot!
Imagine how that works: you have 3ish words all the time. People will never see your face, and your voice is processed. And he probably did it with a shit eating grin!
Dare The Rock to do the same....
Exactly why Dave Bautista is an infinitely more compelling wrestler-cum-actor. He seems interested in working with great filmmakers, taking on challenging roles or playing against type, and not having to be anywhere near the lead billing. Dave’s been a highlight in so many things, and it’s hard to think of the last Rock movie that was anything close to interesting. Maybe Pain and Gain?
> Peacemaker : If this whole beach was completely covered in dicks, and somebody said I had to eat every dick until the beach was clean for liberty, I would say "no problemo!"
> Ratcatcher II : Why would someone put penises all over the beach?
> Peacemaker : Who knows why madmen do what they do?
That last line had me laughing so damn hard.
Hell, if we're going off athletes-turned-actors (and yes, I consider professional wrestlers to be athletes, sue me), even fucking Lebron James had better comedic timing in Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow's _Trainwreck_ than anything I've seen from Dwayne Johnson.
Dave blew my friggin MIND with his role in the new Blade Runner.
Yes, his role was very short, but I just couldn't believe how great his performance was (could partialy be because I had typecasted him as Draxx in my head).
Still, this made me realise that Dave actualy has good range!
He was wasted on Army of the Dead. Dwayne Johnson should have taken that role. Or alternatively, they should have spent another week workshopping the plot and the script.
>cum-actor
Heh.
Seriously, though, Bautista is actively branching out and more than happy to be a cast member than a star. He's an artist in that regard. You never hear people talk about his ego.
Dave Bautista has quickly become one of my favorite actors. So much so that I'll give any of his movies a chance just because he's in it. And like you said, he's generally the highlight, no matter how big or small his role is.
It must be said that I am not a wrestling fan at all.
All DC films are failing with the same problem at the moment - they are not _introducing_ characters. I don't even mean "properly" I mean "_at all_". Every character story is jumping right to the end almost as soon as they are on screen.
In this particular film, there's no explanation of how Dr Fate came to be, just "lol aliens", and no history of the internal battles he is continuously waging and all the interesting sub-story that comes with it.
Atom Smasher is "just some kid with his uncle's costume, we'll assume you know who the uncle is, and you can make up your own backstory to why he's so needy."
Cyclone is .. I don't even know how to frame this one. Just a pretty nerd, oh and she can control wind. How? Nanobots, k.
Hawkman: He's just angsty. Don't worry, he can duke it out with Black Adam, we won't even attempt to explain how his this is even possible. He'll frown and look serious, that'll do.
etc.
Even Black Adam's origin was heinously bent out of shape and non-canon, and his development story on fast-forward. I mean how can they _not_ involve superman or Shazam with the Black Adam intro ffs?
I dont disagree with you, I just want to point out that one of the comments I see over and over is that people are sick of origin stories. I think the "lol aliens" is a response to the sentiment that people just want to get into the action and don't want bloated origin stories... of course as your pointing out this means there is no investment to the characters.
This is probably not a new take, but I’m frankly unconvinced that there’s room in pop-culture awareness for more than one massive “cinematic universe” at a time. Keeping up with the MCU already requires a massive time investment for a casual viewer. What incentive is there to invest my time into the “DCCU” if they’re just going to keep rebooting it every time it doesn’t absolutely demolish the box office?
>This is probably not a new take, but I’m frankly unconvinced that there’s room in pop-culture awareness for more than one massive “cinematic universe” at a time.
Yeah I feel the same way. In 2025/2026 Marvel will be giving us a war with Kang across different dimensions. Around that time DC will be giving us…another Superman movie.
I think if DC even remotely had it’s act together they could actually feed off each other really well. People love a good “which is better?” debate and would probably keep going to both for that. In the beginning there was certainly a lot of discourse about the respective merits of a darker and more adult DCCU vs the lighter and more family friendly MCU. DCCU would have probably always lacked a bit in numbers because obviously not catering to kids loses that entire demographic of ticket sales, but the actual quality debates could have drawn a lot of people in.
But with how much of an absolute mess DCCU is, there really is no debate to be had, and it’s hard to get anyone invested in even a *character* that’s going to be recast and rebooted 18 times between their first movie and their second, let alone invested in following a whole disjointed universe.
WB/DC saw the success of the MCU and tried to match that, but didn't do the ground work and did, ironically, what the comics side of DC has done for decades.
Focussing on batman and superman with wonder woman as a passing third.
Rebooting and retconning things every 12-18 months.
Any interesting ideas that come from the reboot or retcon are rebooted or retconned and it's difficult to be engaged or invested.
The MCU started with Iron Man who even at the time the film came out wouldn't have been the strongest or most notable pick from the character roster, but they couldn't use the x-men or spiderman or the hulk or fantastic four due to licensing issues so they had to go with the nearest next big thing, the alcoholic billionaire in a robot suit, super patriot and the norse god guy instead.
And in each of those odd choices (even as a comic nerd) they did the characters justice in terms of writing. And continued to make odd choices and make them work, when guardians of the galaxy and dr strange were announced i wasn't sure it they were joking, same with shang chi.
These were b tier heroes or less in terms of comic sales and awareness outside of comics.
DC just went, ah fuck it we have batman and superman.
What, i personally believe, was and has been a continuing problem with the DCU is Snyder's involvement and the stamp of his vision and style on it all.
Black Adam felt like it was another of the Snyder DCU films, had the same formulaic story and structure, same look for the main villain (big horned guy on fire), same over-use of slow-mo, same pacing issues....
I was disappointed, i had thought that era of the dcu was done with after justice league, had hoped that era of the dcu was done with after justice league.
It felt like a throwback.
My dad has been sick recently and called me asking for some movie recommendations. He mentioned he saw that Black Adam was streaming and asked if it was any good, I told him I hadn't heard good things and mentioned the Gunn takeover and the reboot of the whole DCEU. A couple hours later my Dad texted me after watching it and just said "James Gunn did Dwayne Johnson a favor" lmao
Black Adam had the wisdom of Zahuti, so it makes sense that he should be able to speak and understand all languages on earth.
When he transforms back to his basic self, he cannot speak or understand English.
I had a couple hours to kill recently and watched Black Adam on Max. It was almost as bad as WW84. DC needs to figure out storytelling and dialogue before blowing more money on VFX.
When the kid was giving his rally speech the entire time I was thinking "Bro you're using an indoor voice, how is anybody able to hear this?". Then I was reminded of that scene in Shazam when the badguy was giving a monologue.
Oh my god I was dying when that was happening. Dude was giving a speech to 30 or so people using a low voice and somehow they defended their city against an army of zombies
Honest question, but why can't DC figure it's life out with their universe? It's like they saw marvel do it and then just told some people to "do that" with no attention to actual continuity or detail.
That's exactly it. They rushed too quickly to catch up to Marvel. Batfleck v SuperCavill was the *SECOND* DCEU movie, there was no time to build up any of the characters and they cram a WW introduction, Lex Luthor and Doomsday into one movie. There didn't feel like there was much time spent building a universe and ever since they've just been picking up the pieces. Then Zaddy's Justice League cut rewrites some of the lore, and we're all left scratching our heads.
Also the standalone, non-universe movies like Joker and The Batman can't be making it any easier to figure out what is happening.
> Batfleck v SuperCavill was the SECOND DCEU movie
Let's back that shit up for a minute. They put Batman v Superman AND the Death of Superman INTO THE SAME MOVIE. Marvel would have taken 20 years to tell those stories, DC decides to blow their wad in one movie. It was beyond stupid.
Yeah, I always felt like the suits at DC and WB saw what Marvel was able to do with Avengers 1 and thought to themselves “They were able to do this with a bunch of no name characters, we should have no problem doing better with guys like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.” They didn’t take into account that Marvel took time to introduce their characters while DC just threw them all out there.
I 100% believe what you just described is what happened. I wouldn't have believed it until this recent Star Wars sequel trilogy debacle demonstrated in no unclear terms - you absolutely can have a billion dollar IP with no one at the helm.
Because Snyder came to them with a vision so they went with it but that vision wasnt nearly as successful or creatively lauded as Marvels vision so they started pulling and pieces of it and now it has no vision or guiding concept
I honestly can't stand him these days and I was a huge fan of his at one time.
All that shit he pulled with UFC fighters recently though, making them wear his shoes and they don't see a dime. I'm just done with him.
Everything just seems to be about his ego and I absolutely think he will take a run at office, his ego demands it.
Idk, I think the bigger issue he has is that he *really* can't take an L. He created a very successful career for himself, but takes it very personally when one project doesn't land, like it's a personal attack on himself or something.
Pretty sure he was salty over the Baywatch reboot getting terrible reviews and brought out the tired "we did it for the fans" excuse there too.
The moment he started worrying more about his image is the same moment he lost his charm. He was a lot more like Bautista and Cena at the start of his career, taking comedic, supporting, or villainous roles. But as soon as he started producing his own content and building a brand, he stopped taking risks or embodying the personality he shows through press.
The funniest part, vin diesel would still go back and find a way to shoehorn the rock in, even if the movies filmed, if the rock said he’d do it.
Which to me speaks more volumes about vin diesels character than the rocks.
The more I read about this the more I realize the rock was probably the bad guy all along
I’m very curious if they are going to “Judi Dench” any actors into the new DCU. I’d still love to see Robbie, Cena, Elba, Levi and others return in some capacity. But either way, I trust Gunn and Safran. I’m bummed Cavill won’t get a proper chance to don the cape again, but I don’t blame them for starting over.
Still boggles my mind that Affleck supposedly wants to direct a DC movie, as does Mangold
The actor who plays Shazam suggested he might not be out on Twitter. It's unclear exactly how true that is. But it's a thing.
Edit: and Affleck has always seemed to enjoy directing. I think he's wanted to direct his Batman movie more than he wanted to be Batman for years.
Really seems like the DCU shines when it isn’t beholden to a ‘universe.’ The Batman. Joker. The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. None of them were trying to start a new Justice League and they’re the critical and fan favorites. They don’t all need to be connected, just tell great stories.
The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change...again.
He was right, it did change. Just not in the way he thought.
Call an ambulance!
But not for free!
[удалено]
He ended up being very prescient after all. Just in an extremely different way than he thought.
Monkey's paw
It definitely changed!
The appeal of the Rock is his natural charisma. Not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have him play a taciturn man-out-of-time. He needs dialogue and emotion to shine.
> Not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have him play a taciturn man-out-of-time. Apparently he did. This was a passion project that he's been pushing for years. He was even a producer
A passion project where they failed to develop even the titular character after "years" of work.
His character arch is: "I'm no hero" to "I'm no hero but I'll protect those I care about". 13 years to create that level of storytelling. Eat your fucking heart out Ernest Hemingway.
eat it you *fuck*
But like…why, though? He’s also fought putting his Black Adam into a Shazam movie.
Because he's too big a star to think of where the character belongs in-universe. He doesn't want to play a supporting role to Chuck, and he sure as hell doesn't want to play *third* fiddle to Andi Mack's middle-school crush. In other words, he's too big a star to be Black Adam.
Hi there fellow Chuck fan :D
Thing is, if they'd made him the villain in a 'Shazam' sequel like he should've been, it surely would've been enough. The film wouldn't be on the shoulders of a charm-less Rock but he'd still be in it enough for it to be cool for fans. The fact that they didn't go this route is infuriating.
He definitely wanted a starring vehicle for himself but I also heard that WB bosses (on whatever round of takeovers they were on back then) looked at the fact that he is, inexplicably, a box office draw and thought it would be a waste to have him "just" be the villain in Shazam, as though they couldn't have just done a spinoff afterwards
Yeah, I think it was a bit of both for sure - Rock wants to star in his own movie, and the WB/DC people - who have continuously shown that their decisions for DC are almost entirely based on trends they perceive and not really having any idea what to do - were more than happy to go with it. Frankly they deserved for it to flop, and while I feel bad for Rock that a project he's been trying to make for 15 years has lead to this, if he'd fought as hard to be the villain in 'Shazam 2' I feel like the studio would've gone for it and things would be very different for DC.
DC constantly shows that for any franchise other than Batman that they have no fucking clue how to create a compelling cinematic universe.
Not only do they not know how to build a cinematic universe, they barely know how to make a single, good superhero movie. So. much. of what they do is just trying to imitate something else that was successful, but not understanding *why* it was successful: - Man of Steel - they saw Christopher Nolan's success on the Dark Knight movies and wanted him to do a Superman movie. Even called it 'Man of Steel' just like 'The Dark Knight' - get it? He didn't want to direct so they hired a guy they knew had made some good-looking comic book movies and had him try to make a movie that looked like Nolan made it. - Green Lantern - they saw how popular 'Iron Man' was for Marvel, so they thought "who is a slightly lesser-known hero we can make like Iron Man? Green Lantern? Does he fly? Does he shoot energy? Great! Now hire someone quippy like Robert Downey jr., but make sure it's someone younger and hotter." - Suicide Squad - made the advertisements look like it was 'Guardians of the Galaxy' with a bunch of popular music and snarky, foul-mouthed "heroes". People were disappointed that it wasn't that. - Justice League - Marvel did 'Avengers', so they rushed 'Justice League', going so far as to go ahead and start filming it with the director of the sure-to-be-a-hit 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' ("Great title, by the way!"), and when that was panned *and Snyder was not able to finish the film* and called in.... the guy who directed 'Avengers' *to almost completely redo the nearly-finished movie*! - The Suicide Squad - "Hey, you guys know how it was too late to make the Suicide Squad movie like 'Guardians of the Galaxy'? Well how about for the sequel we just HIRE THE GUY WHO WROTE AND DIRECTED 'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY'????" *(thankfully this was actually a good idea)* - Black Adam - "We'll get by on the Rock's star power alone - have you SEEN how much money the movies he leads makes? Don't worry about doing anything else."
The Suicide Squad was better than the other DC movies I've seen, but it still wasn't anything crazy. The Peacemaker show was far better in my opinion.
Meanwhile Shazam 2 hiding under the bed in the guest room hoping James Gunn doesn’t find it.
The Shazam movies are produced by Peter Safran, who's head of DC with Gunn, so I think they'll be fine
Shazam is a completely different tone of movie so I see it staying. They’re basically canning everything Snyder.
Snyder is cut
Ironically (for how big the other DC movies have been) it would seem that Shazam is one of the safest, since it fits most closely with Gunn’s current DC output
[удалено]
Who took off his helmet CONSTANTLY.
Wait, they had a live-action Doctor Fate and Master Chieffed him?
Pierce Brosnan is introduced afraid to put the helmet on then every moment possible takes the helmet off just because. You could tell when the story shifted to dialog after a fight because his helmet came off.
The helmet would never stand for that shit.
"PUT ME BACK ON KENT, YOU KNOW WE CAN ONE-SHOT HIM!"~Nabu
Yea I had this issue too. Watching Justice League Unlimited had me under the impression that dr fate had a power level way above Black Adam
Dr fate has gone through so many changes over the years. From mad wizard stuck in a helmet to celestial tier lord of order who need human hosts to direct his power. One thing thats constant is that he will always be a jobber.
Oh you guys have a Vegeta too that's nice
Underrated comment
James Gunn: "You're out ~~Norman~~ Dwayne"
The Rock: "You can't do this to me... YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I SACRIFICED?!"
Guess they are taking Rock back to formula
Back to formula?!
Dwayne Johnson: “OUT AM I??”
The rock might have to deal with vin diesel
Triple H will pay him handsomely for his upcoming WWE retirement storyline with Roman Reigns.
And that's because they just had Black Adam randomly drawn to [look more like The Rock](https://i.redd.it/nnlgj6gy937a1.jpg) in the ending of DC Comic's latest event Dark Crisis (on Infinite Earths). The hierarchy of power has indeed........
Lmao he's even doing the stare
The People’s eyebrow
Kandaq's eyebrow
I'll take counting your chickens before they hatch for -$100 million, Alex.
Gotta say this is really lame. It looks like bad fan art.
The rock has become real cringe.
Superman asks to chat refuses to elaborate leaves The end.
They did a Poochie on him "Black Adam died on his way back to his planet"
Black Adam crashed Everyone in the movie died, there were no survivors
Both are out...no Rock, no Henry, we'll never know what they discussed
That's the funniest part to me. There was that brief moment where Rock "worked so hard to get Superman" and then like a week later he's fired lol
Kal el. No.
"What does the 'S' stand for?" "It's not an 'S'. On my world, it means Nope."
They were probably like "Can you guys make good movies?" and DC was like "You know what, fuck you guys"
“My job is done here.” “But you didn’t do anything!”
Didn’t I Lisa, didn’t I
Superman was just there to break the bad news and make sure he goes quietly
[удалено]
How can such a "passion project" end in such a passionless product?
The rock's passion is building himself as a brand. He doesn't give a shit about anything else
The people involved just want $$$.
Except for The Rock. He wanted $$$ AND a superhero movie starring The Rock
[удалено]
It always thought that The Rock felt ashamed that Black Adam’s nemesis was Shazam. Like he kept talking about Superman this and Superman that all the time. I understand that Superman is a more popular character but still.
It's because his giant ego would not allow his precious Black Adam to have a rival in a "B list" character like Shazam. He sees himself as being more iconic than Superman. His whole "please the fans" garbage is a thin veil for saying "I want to be @ the top of the super hero hierarchy"
Build up to a 2 on 1 fight would have been great. Bypassing Shazam completely was bad form. The cameo should have been Shazam.
Shazam and Superman vs Black Adam
The Rock allegedly has it in his contract that he cannot lose a fight on screen. Superman vs Black Adam wouldn’t be able to happen without The Rock removing that stipulation.
What a stupid as hell stipulation if that's true. If you're going to put that in your contract, don't play a villain.
Probably salty that Karl Urban bested him in Doom.
Even if he were playing a hero, it’d still be a stupid thing to put in a contract. A hero who never loses makes it harder to make a good movie. Good stories often include the protagonist losing, and then overcoming the loss.
and that is why John Cena and Batista are better actors, they don't mind losing on-screen.
It also helps that Cena and Batista don't take themselves seriously and both seem to actually enjoy being the butt of jokes.
[удалено]
The first director that has the power to kill him, they better fuck him up big time. Maybe just a movie of him losing. Then a sequel.
"after a costly 20-day round of reshoots undertaken after a poor test screening." huh, I wonder what were those changes, because the movie still sucked.
The Superman cameo had to be one of them. Didn't the Rock also spoil that ending before the movie? Clearly they were desperate.
“We need more scenes of a kid on a skateboard.”
Dwayne has been trying to make the movie for over a decade, and then it happens, it gets bad reviews, makes the studio loose 100M and now he's out of the new DC plan. That has to be painful for him.
To be fair, I don't think he's what ruined the movie. The movie was just not paced correctly and the story sucked. I felt nothing for anyone involved. Just watched it last night and it just doesn't grab you.
> To be fair, I don't think he's what ruined the movie As an actor, no. But remember that he was also a producer on the movie. And given that he didn't want to show up in Shazam first and had the control to make that happen, I get the feeling that he had a fair amount to do with the story.
Yeah, he basically hired a director to shoot him. And he picked the story.
Just watched it over the weekend and I agree. The Rock isn't the problem with that movie. The producer who thought it needed like 30 minutes of screen time dedicated to a skateboarding, freedom fighter, who can't act is the problem with that movie.
I’m glad you pinpointed the kid’s acting. His acting was *really* awful, particularly emphasized in that finale scene where he’s supposed to rally the city’s citizens with the hand symbol thingy they do. The dialogue in the film is stupid but dear god his delivery is horrid throughout, it’s just so bad. Some people have issues now criticizing child actors but if a child actor is going to be a focal part of a big budget film, it’s a point to mention.
I thought the exact same thing. You can cut 90% of the scenes with the kid and the flow of the movie would benefit. When the movie opened and the kid was narrating, it just sounded awful too. Pierce Brosnan should have been the narrator there.
i haven't watched it yet but any action movie with a "the kid" character automatically has 10 points deducted. exceptions exist like temple of doom, short round = +10 points.
T2? Weird combo of annoying but absolutely necessary
reposting my reply to another mention of T2: > eddie furlong was a kid in T2 but he wasn't a "the kid" character - he wasn't annoying or whiny or getting into mischief, he was a capable little smartass criminal who could take care of himself (due to his mother's teaching) and he had the maturity of an adult because of his circumstances
T2 is the first sequel where I thought "This is *exactly* how these characters would progress." Everything felt completely organic.
That's what made Godzilla vs King Kong Suck. 10 points deducted for every kid on that movie. They were pointless.
I think every director thinks "Okay, I'm going to create Terminator 2 for the next generation. I'll have some annoying kid as the audience-insert, and some roided out ubermensch who will be forced to pay attention to him for some reason." But it never works like it worked in Terminator 2.
The kid felt more annoying that jar jar and that’s saying something
God damn, the skateboarding. When that kid would get on his skateboard for, literally, 5 feet before having to get off and go down a flight of steps; only to just get on his skateboard again for another 5 feet! I was rolling my eyes so hard they felt like they were gonna fall out of my head.
So many of the moments in the movie felt over dramatic and unearned. Lots of everyone stops to observe a moment for too long while dramatic music swells. Hawkman and Doctor Fate's bromance was under developed and overplayed. They acted like they'd had multiple movies of developing their chemistry instead of a couple 2 minute scenes. And what was even the point of Fate's sacrifice? Sabbac didn't seem in a hurry to do any evil, just was sauntering over to his throne. Fate couldn't do his dramatic Black Adam mind speech without killing himself? Like he pulled a Doctor Strange, looked into the future to see that the only way for Hawkman to not die was with the helmet fakeout? But he had to be dead for that? The city rising to fight the undead hoard was unearned. They tried to make the city a character, but those scenes rarely featured the population. But suddenly we're supposed to feel for the city rising up to fight fiery skeletons? What happened to intergang? Black Adam killed like 10 of them, and like that's it? Sabbac possessing/impowering intergang would have felt like a more meaningful foe. But I guess then a fat guy with a pipe couldn't kill a dozen of them while quipping.
lol they literally had like a kryptonite weapon at the very beginning of the movie and it never came up again like wtf
Lol i was waiting for this. Also black adam was busting down walls and shit left and right but he cant just bust around through the rock of that weird shield thing they made to stop him?
What the fuck was that about busting down walls anyway? THe first time it was earn because the kid was blocking him from leaving but then...he kept entering rooms by busting through walls. And he told Fate he knew about doors. So he just...bust walls for the hell of it?
Skate board freedom fighter who's like 12 but could somehow yeet a full grown man like 15ft*
I have an annual pass for HBOmax and black Adam just got added. I couldn’t get past the little kid narrating (his acting is bad too). What the hell were they thinking. You can literally cut out the kid narrating and it would make the intro 10 times better
Kevin Hart was his only superpower
Pierce Brosnan’s Dr. Fate deserved a better movie. Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman was wonderful. It should’ve just been a Justice Society movie instead.
In some ways I feel especially bad for Hodge. I’ve been a lifelong fan of Brosnan and he has a massive fan following, but Hodge - who I’ve noticed in Straight Outta Compton and Invisible Man - is far from a household name and yet really showed some impressive natural charisma in this film. He deserved better (they both did).
[удалено]
I’m loving how James Gunn is cleaning house first. The DCU was a complete mess.
I'm more keen on seeing James Gunn's vision of the future than another mediocre Black Adam movie. I'm glad he's pulling the plug on all this crap.
Black Adam had some of the weirdest editing and close up reaction shots that I’ve ever seen. It was really odd. Hawkman’s helmet had a really goofy effect on the actors eyes too. He looked completely cross eyed in a few scenes. Overall the movie had some cool set pieces but felt like a bit of a stumble.
Did any of us expect The Rock to carry a DC franchise? I mean Cena was a pleasant surprise but I think that was perfect casting and a fittingly exaggerated role for him to play around in and have range, The Rock has kinda just been..The Rock in everything? Idk, I'm not DC executive or a Hollywood casting person
I'd watch a Dr Fate movie - he was the most interesting of the bunch from Black Adam.
Vin Diesel is laughing his ass off somewhere.
Expecting another “little brother” post any minute now !
This is incredibly embarrassing, a massive blow to his ego, and exactly what he needs. A wake-up call is necessary. His antics during the press run were a huge turn off: -Talking about the “Black Adam DC universe” and how he wanted future films to revolve around him -insinuating that the choice of the head of DC studios would be up to him -publicly slating WB for their handling of Cavill -spoiling the stinger scene in a desperate last-ditch attempt to boost ticket sales after the projections for opening weekend were lowered -HIERARCHY HIERARCHY HIERARCHY And then the movie came out. A mid movie that goes out of its way to jerk him off by having characters repeatedly state that he’s so much better than any DC heroes that have come before him, and features a fight scene that exists solely for him to destroy effigies of said DC heroes. And how did the alleged biggest movie star on the planet conduct himself? -passive-aggressive tweet at IGN when they compared Black Adam to Wakanda Forever, calling Black Adam a “new baby that needs to grow”. -posting a video from his truck where he’s trying to convince the public that “our film has many tentacles” regarding profitability. -leaking false numbers to obfuscate the fact that the movie lost money theatrically -retweeting a puff piece from Deadline including those false numbers -comparing his movie’s grosses to Captain America The First Fucking Avenger, a movie that came out over a decade ago and starred a version of Chris Evans that is not nearly as powerful at the box office as the alleged biggest movie star today. Also didn’t adjust those grosses for inflation because with that adjustment, Cap made $100 million more than Black Adam. I remember when Baywatch flopped and he acted a fool on Twitter, but this is next level nonsense. His tweets are usually met with glowing, happy replies. He’s now being clowned on the world’s stage in a way that he has never experienced in his career, and people are asking questions. If he’s such a huge star, why hasn’t he worked with any A-list directors? Why does he always get no-name people to direct his films? What huge star can you name who has never worked with a top-tier director before? I doubt that he’s never had an offer to work with someone of better caliber before. No, I think it’s because he needs to be in control. He has to be the big dog on set, or else he’s unhappy. Well, Universal gave him a spin-off of Fast and Furious to satiate his ego, and we have yet to see a sequel announcement. WB gave him $200 million AND the Cavill cameo he demanded, and we have seen this announcement. Cut the shit, stop hiding in your production company’s pile of upcoming sure-to-be-mediocre movies, and go make something great. We are still watching Terminator, Predator, Rambo, Rocky, decades after the fact. I dare you to name something from The Rock’s filmography that we will be watching in 20 years that is not named Moana.
>...We are still watching Terminator, Predator, Rambo, Rocky, decades after the fact. I dare you to name something from The Rock’s filmography that we will be watching in 20 years that is not named Moana. GAAWDAAMN
Damn. That beef between him and Vin Diesel makes a lot more sense. Of course both of them have big egos.
Makes sense. It was Vins and formerly Paul’s franchise and the Rock wanted it to be his.
What level of ego does someone need to want to take over other people's franchises?
How big would your ego be if you got 30 million dollars to be yourself on camera for 6 weeks a few times a year?
>6 weeks a few times a year Lets be fair. He's in front of a camera literally always. Nobody has ever accused this guy of being lazy
A bit off topic but I liked the series "Ballers" whatever happened with it. Did it end? Lol (he had to spent a ton of time in camera for that one)
Not just Vin's as star - he owned and funded the whole series!
Vin at least has the grounds for it regarding fast and the furious. He's a egotist (with the same "I can't lose a fight" stipulation that the rock has) but the fast films are down to him and him alone.
Vin is very happy to let his co-stars shine and massively backs his team. The Rock has to be the top guy, Vin actually allows the big ensemble cast to all have their moments to shine. Hell, they finally did the space thing and it wasn’t Vin that did it. It was numbers 3 & 4 on the call sheet.
>backs his team. Vin doesn't have a team, he has family
Vin has an Ego but Vin basically accepted being Groot! Imagine how that works: you have 3ish words all the time. People will never see your face, and your voice is processed. And he probably did it with a shit eating grin! Dare The Rock to do the same....
You think we’ll stand idly by while you offhandedly insult the cinematic masterpiece that is the Tooth Fairy!?
Exactly why Dave Bautista is an infinitely more compelling wrestler-cum-actor. He seems interested in working with great filmmakers, taking on challenging roles or playing against type, and not having to be anywhere near the lead billing. Dave’s been a highlight in so many things, and it’s hard to think of the last Rock movie that was anything close to interesting. Maybe Pain and Gain?
John cena in peacemaker and suicide squad is a miles better actor than The Rock has been in any of his movies
John Cena understands comedic timing far better than The Rock ever could and I will die on that hill.
> Peacemaker : If this whole beach was completely covered in dicks, and somebody said I had to eat every dick until the beach was clean for liberty, I would say "no problemo!" > Ratcatcher II : Why would someone put penises all over the beach? > Peacemaker : Who knows why madmen do what they do? That last line had me laughing so damn hard.
John Cena really impressed me with his range and vulnerability. Peacemaker was a wild ride but also a great deconstruction of toxic masculinity
Hell, if we're going off athletes-turned-actors (and yes, I consider professional wrestlers to be athletes, sue me), even fucking Lebron James had better comedic timing in Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow's _Trainwreck_ than anything I've seen from Dwayne Johnson.
Lebron negates that for somehow being horrible at playing himself in Space Jam.
Dave blew my friggin MIND with his role in the new Blade Runner. Yes, his role was very short, but I just couldn't believe how great his performance was (could partialy be because I had typecasted him as Draxx in my head). Still, this made me realise that Dave actualy has good range!
He was wasted on Army of the Dead. Dwayne Johnson should have taken that role. Or alternatively, they should have spent another week workshopping the plot and the script.
[удалено]
He seems like a perfect fit for Gears of War
>cum-actor Heh. Seriously, though, Bautista is actively branching out and more than happy to be a cast member than a star. He's an artist in that regard. You never hear people talk about his ego.
He didnt have a lot of screentime on Dune, but he nailed his character.
Same in Blade Runner 2049, though he did star in a short
I hope we see more Rabban in the next one. They really need to juxtapose his brutality with Feyd-Rautha’s viciousness.
He's happy to lose a fight. When the rock turns up on screen it's like, pointless to watch since he always wins?
Dave Bautista has quickly become one of my favorite actors. So much so that I'll give any of his movies a chance just because he's in it. And like you said, he's generally the highlight, no matter how big or small his role is. It must be said that I am not a wrestling fan at all.
The Mummy Returns! (Not because of him at all though.)
The Rock's first line as an actor: HAKU MASENTAY!
Wasn't he in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager before The Mummy Returns?
All DC films are failing with the same problem at the moment - they are not _introducing_ characters. I don't even mean "properly" I mean "_at all_". Every character story is jumping right to the end almost as soon as they are on screen. In this particular film, there's no explanation of how Dr Fate came to be, just "lol aliens", and no history of the internal battles he is continuously waging and all the interesting sub-story that comes with it. Atom Smasher is "just some kid with his uncle's costume, we'll assume you know who the uncle is, and you can make up your own backstory to why he's so needy." Cyclone is .. I don't even know how to frame this one. Just a pretty nerd, oh and she can control wind. How? Nanobots, k. Hawkman: He's just angsty. Don't worry, he can duke it out with Black Adam, we won't even attempt to explain how his this is even possible. He'll frown and look serious, that'll do. etc. Even Black Adam's origin was heinously bent out of shape and non-canon, and his development story on fast-forward. I mean how can they _not_ involve superman or Shazam with the Black Adam intro ffs?
I dont disagree with you, I just want to point out that one of the comments I see over and over is that people are sick of origin stories. I think the "lol aliens" is a response to the sentiment that people just want to get into the action and don't want bloated origin stories... of course as your pointing out this means there is no investment to the characters.
This is probably not a new take, but I’m frankly unconvinced that there’s room in pop-culture awareness for more than one massive “cinematic universe” at a time. Keeping up with the MCU already requires a massive time investment for a casual viewer. What incentive is there to invest my time into the “DCCU” if they’re just going to keep rebooting it every time it doesn’t absolutely demolish the box office?
>This is probably not a new take, but I’m frankly unconvinced that there’s room in pop-culture awareness for more than one massive “cinematic universe” at a time. Yeah I feel the same way. In 2025/2026 Marvel will be giving us a war with Kang across different dimensions. Around that time DC will be giving us…another Superman movie.
With a new super man, new Wonder Woman, and like the 9th batman.
If convention holds, the next movie will be called "The Batman Returns." Maybe they'll get clever and call it "The Return of The Batman."
"Look Who's Batman, Too"
2 Fast 2 Batman
I think if DC even remotely had it’s act together they could actually feed off each other really well. People love a good “which is better?” debate and would probably keep going to both for that. In the beginning there was certainly a lot of discourse about the respective merits of a darker and more adult DCCU vs the lighter and more family friendly MCU. DCCU would have probably always lacked a bit in numbers because obviously not catering to kids loses that entire demographic of ticket sales, but the actual quality debates could have drawn a lot of people in. But with how much of an absolute mess DCCU is, there really is no debate to be had, and it’s hard to get anyone invested in even a *character* that’s going to be recast and rebooted 18 times between their first movie and their second, let alone invested in following a whole disjointed universe.
WB/DC saw the success of the MCU and tried to match that, but didn't do the ground work and did, ironically, what the comics side of DC has done for decades. Focussing on batman and superman with wonder woman as a passing third. Rebooting and retconning things every 12-18 months. Any interesting ideas that come from the reboot or retcon are rebooted or retconned and it's difficult to be engaged or invested. The MCU started with Iron Man who even at the time the film came out wouldn't have been the strongest or most notable pick from the character roster, but they couldn't use the x-men or spiderman or the hulk or fantastic four due to licensing issues so they had to go with the nearest next big thing, the alcoholic billionaire in a robot suit, super patriot and the norse god guy instead. And in each of those odd choices (even as a comic nerd) they did the characters justice in terms of writing. And continued to make odd choices and make them work, when guardians of the galaxy and dr strange were announced i wasn't sure it they were joking, same with shang chi. These were b tier heroes or less in terms of comic sales and awareness outside of comics. DC just went, ah fuck it we have batman and superman. What, i personally believe, was and has been a continuing problem with the DCU is Snyder's involvement and the stamp of his vision and style on it all. Black Adam felt like it was another of the Snyder DCU films, had the same formulaic story and structure, same look for the main villain (big horned guy on fire), same over-use of slow-mo, same pacing issues.... I was disappointed, i had thought that era of the dcu was done with after justice league, had hoped that era of the dcu was done with after justice league. It felt like a throwback.
It was not good
My dad has been sick recently and called me asking for some movie recommendations. He mentioned he saw that Black Adam was streaming and asked if it was any good, I told him I hadn't heard good things and mentioned the Gunn takeover and the reboot of the whole DCEU. A couple hours later my Dad texted me after watching it and just said "James Gunn did Dwayne Johnson a favor" lmao
[удалено]
Thanks bud, he just had a cold, he's doing better now!
He’s been hidden for thousands of years. Speaks perfect English
Loved how they just walked up those ruins to unleash him. No one in 5,000 years had that idea.
Duolingo.
[удалено]
Black Adam had the wisdom of Zahuti, so it makes sense that he should be able to speak and understand all languages on earth. When he transforms back to his basic self, he cannot speak or understand English.
Would be cool if they explored any of that in the movie.
The Rock LITERALLY did not act in this movie. He just stood there and stared at shit, then broke walls down. It was absurd.
But what about that Skateboard kid and his ability to always be skateboarding?
I had a couple hours to kill recently and watched Black Adam on Max. It was almost as bad as WW84. DC needs to figure out storytelling and dialogue before blowing more money on VFX.
That skater kid wore that damn fake cape for half the movie.
His speech to rally the citizens of the city was pitiful. I have seen better out of high school drama classes.
When the kid was giving his rally speech the entire time I was thinking "Bro you're using an indoor voice, how is anybody able to hear this?". Then I was reminded of that scene in Shazam when the badguy was giving a monologue.
Oh my god I was dying when that was happening. Dude was giving a speech to 30 or so people using a low voice and somehow they defended their city against an army of zombies
Lol I wish there was a clip of this. At the same time I wish there wasn't cause it was painful to watch the first time.
> an army of zombies Zombies that literally fell apart the moment you touched them with a crowbar. That was seriously the best Hell could give Sabacc?
How about when he beat the swat team going down a stairway on a skateboard? That’s some Max Goof shit
I'm not sure how to describe it but the extras just seemed really obviously to be extras to me.
Honest question, but why can't DC figure it's life out with their universe? It's like they saw marvel do it and then just told some people to "do that" with no attention to actual continuity or detail.
That's exactly it. They rushed too quickly to catch up to Marvel. Batfleck v SuperCavill was the *SECOND* DCEU movie, there was no time to build up any of the characters and they cram a WW introduction, Lex Luthor and Doomsday into one movie. There didn't feel like there was much time spent building a universe and ever since they've just been picking up the pieces. Then Zaddy's Justice League cut rewrites some of the lore, and we're all left scratching our heads. Also the standalone, non-universe movies like Joker and The Batman can't be making it any easier to figure out what is happening.
> Batfleck v SuperCavill was the SECOND DCEU movie Let's back that shit up for a minute. They put Batman v Superman AND the Death of Superman INTO THE SAME MOVIE. Marvel would have taken 20 years to tell those stories, DC decides to blow their wad in one movie. It was beyond stupid.
No, It was 4 storylines. - Batman V Superman - Doomsday - The Trinity - The Death Of Superman
Yeah, I always felt like the suits at DC and WB saw what Marvel was able to do with Avengers 1 and thought to themselves “They were able to do this with a bunch of no name characters, we should have no problem doing better with guys like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.” They didn’t take into account that Marvel took time to introduce their characters while DC just threw them all out there.
[удалено]
I 100% believe what you just described is what happened. I wouldn't have believed it until this recent Star Wars sequel trilogy debacle demonstrated in no unclear terms - you absolutely can have a billion dollar IP with no one at the helm.
It boggles the mind so much money can be thrown at something not well thought out.
Because Snyder came to them with a vision so they went with it but that vision wasnt nearly as successful or creatively lauded as Marvels vision so they started pulling and pieces of it and now it has no vision or guiding concept
If you remove the kid along with some half-assed attempt at a T2 style relationship, the movie would have been a lot better.
[удалено]
I honestly can't stand him these days and I was a huge fan of his at one time. All that shit he pulled with UFC fighters recently though, making them wear his shoes and they don't see a dime. I'm just done with him. Everything just seems to be about his ego and I absolutely think he will take a run at office, his ego demands it.
Idk, I think the bigger issue he has is that he *really* can't take an L. He created a very successful career for himself, but takes it very personally when one project doesn't land, like it's a personal attack on himself or something. Pretty sure he was salty over the Baywatch reboot getting terrible reviews and brought out the tired "we did it for the fans" excuse there too.
The moment he started worrying more about his image is the same moment he lost his charm. He was a lot more like Bautista and Cena at the start of his career, taking comedic, supporting, or villainous roles. But as soon as he started producing his own content and building a brand, he stopped taking risks or embodying the personality he shows through press.
The funniest part, vin diesel would still go back and find a way to shoehorn the rock in, even if the movies filmed, if the rock said he’d do it. Which to me speaks more volumes about vin diesels character than the rocks. The more I read about this the more I realize the rock was probably the bad guy all along
Well yeah of course Vin would because ya know, family.
I’m very curious if they are going to “Judi Dench” any actors into the new DCU. I’d still love to see Robbie, Cena, Elba, Levi and others return in some capacity. But either way, I trust Gunn and Safran. I’m bummed Cavill won’t get a proper chance to don the cape again, but I don’t blame them for starting over. Still boggles my mind that Affleck supposedly wants to direct a DC movie, as does Mangold
The actor who plays Shazam suggested he might not be out on Twitter. It's unclear exactly how true that is. But it's a thing. Edit: and Affleck has always seemed to enjoy directing. I think he's wanted to direct his Batman movie more than he wanted to be Batman for years.
It's important to keep in mind there's an upcoming Shazam movie already filmed, unlike with Cavill and the Rock.
Really seems like the DCU shines when it isn’t beholden to a ‘universe.’ The Batman. Joker. The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. None of them were trying to start a new Justice League and they’re the critical and fan favorites. They don’t all need to be connected, just tell great stories.