The Quickening: DC Extended Universe

The recent premiere of Wonder Woman has suprised both fans and haters. It’s something nobody ever expect was going to happen. This makes me wonder: Have DC and Warner finally learn their lesson and find the formula of success or this is just a lucky shot in the dark? Let’s take a look at the history of the DC Extended Universe. Grab a snack and a drink, because this is going to be long.

I don’t want to be weary, but there’s no way to ignore it: Warner wants to follow the trail of Marvel Studios, as, literally, all the big producers. Logical. The box office data is scandalous, the strange thing would be that the rest wouldn’t want to have those numbers too. Of course, it’s advisable to have a license that lends itself to a shared universe (what Sony intended with Ghostbusters was ridiculous, for example), and DC is perfect for it. After decades without daring to take the step, Warner has launched of head. But I think they are being somewhat reckless. They have announced a good number of projects before seeing how things go with their first films. And here’s where you should observe the steps of the model of success, Marvel.

How they did it? How is it possible that an Avengers movie, a team that no one cared about, interest people in such a wild way that it has allowed the studio to do what it has wanted to do from there, also with excellent results? Let us forget for a moment that the films molar, although it is, undoubtedly, the main reason. What interests us here is the machinery of hype: Iron Man.

When it first came out, for the general public meant nothing. But from the first moment, with a film of unexpected success and that liked a lot, they marked a purpose, one that would meticulously develop in the next 4 films. Let's be clear, from his first batch of films, only the first Iron Man movie enthused. People didn’t go en masse to see Hulk, Thor and Captain America. And the opinions weren’t enthusiastic either. To say that Marvel triumphed from the beginning would be to deceive. Nobody cared about the characters they adapted and they were seen as simple additions acceptable in the fever of comic adaptations. BUT. There was the key factor: curiosity. Yes, Tony Stark comes out in Hulk saying something about put a team together (in the same year as Iron Man). And in Thor Coulson appears. And in Captain America there are references to basically ALL previously established and ends with a teaser of The Avengers. You see what am I going? movie after movie, they were implanting an idea: "They all live in the same world and they are going to reunite in The Avengers, MAY 4, 2012 IN CINEMA, DON’T MISS IT!" And well, maybe people just liked Iron Man, but after so many preliminaries they had to finish the job. It was a concept that had never been exploited in superhero movies and after 5 films of clues and winks, "will have to see". Forget about trailers or positive reviews: the best marketing was the movies themselves. But the thing didn’t end there. Come on, cool, the movie has been an absolute pass, the experiment has worked. That was just it, right? No, there’s more. There was a purple-faced guy with an expression that said "you haven’t seen anything". And the hype machine reboots. There is no escape. And here we are. Do you announce like 10 projects in one sitting? You can afford it. Come on. What's up, go ahead. If we are going to see them. "We'll have to see how the move ends."

Now let's watch Warner, who was late for sheer clumsiness and lack of vision. He always had the rights of all the characters. The first encounter between Batman and Superman, in a fair world, should happen in the 90’s. But this is what there is. In 2013 came Man of Steel, following the wake of Nolan’s Batman, of course (not so successfully). It was not a good start, things as they are. It was a success, no doubt, but not as much as Warner would have wanted (this marked the future of the franchise, as we will see). Nor did it get the unanimous approval of Iron Man, being a very divisive film that brings it closer to being a cult movie than a blockbuster for all audiences. That’s not bad in itself, but that doesn’t help either. Everything is based on expectations. If you want a blockbuster, win the boy, the teenager and the adult ... of both sexes, if possible. And James Cameron would tell you the old men too. A cult movie doesn’t achieve that.

Man of Steel did more than Iron Man, which would be fine ... if Warner had not put much more faith in it than Marvel put in his Iron Man. In that case, the approach was "come on, let's do the films of the B-class characters ourselves, we'll see if it's going to be better for us, and to raise the hype, we'll bet on the shared universe, In the other was "let's do what we did with our super-successful Batman but with Superman." And that's how 668 million shots are right. But on the other hand, there is an important factor: Warner was still not clear about the shared universe, so there are no relevant clues to his existence (the reference to Wayne Companies is more veiled than the innocuous mention of Metropolis in Batman Forever, for example). I know, in Iron Man there’s nothing too explicit, but we are in a post-Avengers era, and maybe we should show more from the beginning. Even so, I understand that MoS was in development before knowing the success of The Avengers, so there was not much to do. The big mistake came later. When they did nothing for 3 long years.

By early 2016, the general public should already be aware that there will be a team called the Justice League, that it will arrive imminently, and it should know in depth several of its members, if not all. But for Warner this was not an option, and I understand and share the reason: the Marvel Cinematic Universe already exists, its success is based on the calculated formula of self-marketing that I have explained, and cannot engage the public with the same. People are thrilled to swallow ‘X’ movie over and over, but they won’t swallow it with something that is "like X". Diet marks are rejected. There were diet marks of Jaws (Orca), Star Wars (Willow), The Lord of the Rings (Narnia, Eragon), Harry Potter (Percy Jackson, Terabithia), Twilight (Fifty Shades of Gray, Beautiful Creatures), The Hunger Games (Divergent, Maze Runner), the list goes on (I even wanted a Diet Transformers movie with buildings and monuments back in the day). All those "imitations" (maybe they were not, but the public felt them) fell into oblivion. Warner doesn’t want DC to be another white label (nobody wants). Marvel's hype machine cann’t be the same for Warner. The problem, the big problem, is that Warner knows it cann’t be and still wants it. So apply another formula but try to get the same result. And there’s no way. At least... with the formula that they have decided to apply, a sea of ​​contradictions that I do‘nt know how can be sustained.

Batman v Superman is the key. Although MoS got a lukewarm response being generous and of course very polarized, and it wasn’t the hit they wanted, Warner decided to re-trust Zack Snyder, gave him more freedom and left behind the shadow of Nolan. The result is a personal film, different and obviously not for everyone. In fact, it doesn’t seem to try to convince the general public, openly renouncing the child sector, for example. What I think of this approach and the film itself is irrelevant: it’s clear that this is a risky film... in intention. Because the Warner that gives the green light to this rarity is the same one that, compensating for the absence of settlement of the universe in MoS and the 3 years of emptiness, put the turbo and waited 1000 million at the box office and hook the people facing the League Of Justice. So he sent Snyder and Co., put a climax that is not more than a trailer for the Justice League and do everything Marvel carried out over 4 years in a single film. And people didn’t find out. It is impossible to generalize, of course. Acceptable. The strange vision, we suppose, induced by an unrecognizable Flash? Total confusion. The video clips? Unknown powers apparently nothing more. Friends: there are people, more than you can imagine, who sees silly that Batman and Superman share peli. Really. After all, they know them very well... always separately. There have never been any obvious signs of coexistence in the cinema. For these people it is as if Tarzan met Sherlock Holmes. "Hollywood no longer knows what to invent." It seems incredible to us, but I have lived it. After a movie that was nothing more than "a new version of Superman", have gotten to sack concepts that the general public hasn’t had time to assimilate and with those who haven’t been able to seduce towards the final meeting. The film of the League could fix everything in the same way that The Avengers left satisfied those who maybe even lost some individual films out of pure disinterest, but then I comment because I see it very difficult.

Following with BvS, for the strange, cruel and deliberately depressed (and depressing) that is those $873 million are an outrage. However, it's little for what's under the film itself, for Warner's plans. Little to be about the two most popular and mythical superheroes in the world, together on screen for the first time (a very intentional hook). Little for a movie so expensive (250 million budget + God knows how much in 3 years of intensive marketing). Little for a movie that should have shot the hype for what's to come. Warner, in a way, had all that and more, with a bomb, in short, in a tape in which they let do whatever they wanted to someone as private as Snyder, whose vision has thrown back many, Very many, even among the geeks. I would have made the film directly Justice League, and so at least you care about the future. But instead we have a film only suitable for a few, promising something sudden, uncertain and not too striking for the general public, whose cliffhanger doesn’t seem to interest anyone, with questionable economic success (I insist, the figures are good, but this goes of the expectations for the future) and that in addition, although this is the less important thing, was a disaster at critical level. At this point, with these factors, the future is a clear question: do people want to see more of this?

It’s tricky, because we’re in an era of overexposure. That's what I said about diet marks is already happening in the genre, simply because a considerable number of supers films are released and CONSTANTLY speaking of all of them. Normal, casual viewers entertain the genre, but a time has come when they go from going to see all, either because they seem many or because social networks have created a feeling of exhaustion. People are going to choose, and logically choose either something new and striking (Deadpool) or something that keeps good memories and whose characters identify (Marvel movies with Iron Man and Co.). Forget about "Marvel vs. DC". They don’t care. Many doesn’t even know there’s a distinction. This is based on "oh, I know who he is and I like that character, and the last one was cool, let's see it," or "this superhero movie does not look like superheroes, see what."

In short: between the not-so-friendly Snyder label and the confused winks to what is to come, coupled with a certain exhaustion, I don’t think there are many normal people who want to see Justice League, if they know its existence. And when they see the poster in multiplexes, the most normal, according to what I have been able to know, is that they think "uf, those are cool". But there are ways to straighten the boat and either impose measures to follow the wake of Marvel and make good entertainments for all audiences, or give up being a mass success, reduce budgets, leave each director to his air and be satisfied with the figures that come. Problem: no time. They told her everything would go like silk and they hurried into the assembly line. Before hearing the answer to BvS, Wonder Woman was already half-cooked and Justice League started shooting, again with Zack Snyder, a decision that no doubt regret. Careful, the problem with the calendar, the train that there’s no time to stop, also hit Marvel in its Phase 1. The difference is that they invested less money and made sure that in the worst case, people were curious about to see The Avengers, as I explained. With Warner the films are more expensive and ambitious, the response of the audience is, being soft, divided, and the curiosity to see them all together is much smaller, either because of poor hype management, because the crosover's 2012, or because in BvS we have already seen half of them, important fact. Then, with this uncertainty pulling the pessimism...

...Suicide Squad arrives, which has been able to condemn the DC Extended Universe as we know it until now and at the same time to save the economic expectations of Warner. I explain.

Suicide Squad arrived late. It's as if between Iron Man 2 and Thor Marvel had put Guardians of the Galaxy. In order to be building the way for the great film coral is a blunder. It distracts and interrupts the low rate of hype. Above, and this is already the film itself, continues to hurt the expectations of those who realize that this is related to BvS (I think in that sense the links are quite solid), because we are in the same: another director very his at who rushed and told that he was in his own air to try to turn the movie into a clone of Guardians of the Galaxy, and more horrible reviews. In addition, unlike BvS, SS is more unanimously considered a shit (I liked it, but still), I would say that people seem bad in a more obvious way. Hence the sentence. And yet... its $745 million are fine, and I don’t think Warner expected more of this license. How is it possible after the poor feelings left by BvS? I got it! "This superhero movie doesn’t look like superheroes, let’s see how it works." That’s the key. It’s possible that most came out snorting, but they went to see it with desire in spite of past experiences, because it seemed (and is, although not in quality) another roll. Above, Joker and to a lesser extent Harley Quinn are icons and stars Will Smith, who makes everything look. SS is a success, there is no doubt. But the question of whether people would come back for more is still valid. There are three factors that make me think that maybe yes: the notion that this is part of the world of Batman, Will Smith and Harley Quinn. Hence the economic salvation. Then I go back on this.

Unfortunately, Wonder Woman, as a brand, has no relevance to the majority public, and the character didn’t have as much impact on BvS. I insist, no matter how much cool she was, many won’t know who sheit is and for the premiere of his movie the same until they have forgotten. Add to that we add the persistent shadow of maleness between the public and the horrible history of superheroine films . It should also be noted that the trailers (the first quite good and the second regular) have not explained in the least "who" Wonder Woman is. It was simple statistics. And against all odds and possibilities, it succeeds. But that’s only one good film against three mediocre-to-bad- Then what’s next?

With this in mind, we planted in 'Justice League', which already makes us think that it will not convince. Between the “Martha” incident, the proper presentation of Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman, and the resurrection of Superman, already seems to be as overloaded or even more so than BvS, and given that the same people are in charge expected to be just as confusing to the normal viewer. I don’t pretend to be a hater or anything, is that... people: with everything explained... HOW will it be the monumental success of critics and box office that Warner needs? Hype scarce for non-geeks, feeling for them, that it is a copy of The Avengers, a market saturated, few chances to be good both by approach and by team behind the cameras... surely, despite everything , Make good box office, but it doesn’t have to be better than the BvS. And at this point, Warner will have to ask...

Shall we continue?

Flash doesn’t find a director, and most other projects don’t seem to make sense if people don’t connect with the franchise. The lockers will inevitably get worse, and fast. Even a sure trick like Affleck's Batman (seriously, that one has all the ballots to go well), doesn’t have much projection of future. When the film is released, Affleck will be about 46 years old. How many deliveries will you hold in such a physical role (not Iron Man, in case you think of Robert Downey Jr.)? A trilogy I suppose so, but that’s it. I mean, Hugh Jackman has already leave Wolverine after 17 years of playing as him.

For the rest, to succeed would have to remodel everything and try to do as if the Snyder era in this universe would never have existed, as far as possible without reboot. The leadership of the sensational Geoff Johns is a good step. Another success would be to exploit what works best, and that will be the world of Batman. I wouldn’t count on seeing much Superman, Wonder Woman and company. Yes, now they say they have plans for them, but it's not going to be viable. At most we will see Aquaman because they are already running without any setbacks, but neither do I take it for granted. They're going to have to take the brake and focus on what they sell. Batman sell (as always). Will Smith's Deadshot sells. Harley Quinn sells, and if she’s accompanied by Poison Ivy and Catwoman, then better than better... but they go and hire David Ayer AGAIN. If SS didn’t like, Gotham City Sirens suddenly switched from smart project to proof that Warner isn’t thinking clearly. It's absurd, ridiculous.

Anyway. The current road has no future. And I don’t know if they understand the measures that have to be taken to correct the course. But I know one thing: half of the films announced or rumored won’t be released. And maybe that’s the best for all.

This masterpiece is getting closer and closer to become real. And that is both fascinating and scary.