Joss Whedon: So Cancelled His Thread Got a Sequel

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

If the family tragedy had not taken place, if the film had been completed by Snyder himself, it probably wouldn't have been regarded as much better than the version we ended up with

This statement is based on what exactly?

[Fez]

26 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

This statement is based on what exactly?

Well the Rotten Tomato scores for movies he's directed throughout his pre-Justice League career are: 75%, 61%, 65%, 52%, 22%, 56%, and 29%. He generally hasn't lit the world on fire with the quality of his movies. And while his 4-hour cut of Justice League is the best reviews he's gotten since Dawn of the Dead, he also had a degree of freedom that he never would've had in 2016/17. Working within the usual confines of blockbuster movies, it's been a long time since he's made a good movie (and personally, I hated Watchmen too; 300 was some dumb fun though).

[Heartofice]

31 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

This statement is based on what exactly?

I think it’s probably true, he wouldn’t have been able to cut down his 4 hour cut to a reasonable 2.5 hours. Doing so would always end up with a  choppy , uneven experience.

Maybe if he’d done the 2 film split he mentioned then it would have worked out 

[RumHam]

52 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Maybe if he’d done the 2 film split he mentioned then it would have worked out 

Only if he'd planned it ahead of time. I don't think you can take the Snyder Cut break it into two halves that work on their own. 

As was said in the last thread what they really needed was a flash/cyborg movie introducing those characters before Justice League.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Well the Rotten Tomato scores for movies he's directed throughout his pre-Justice League career are: 75%, 61%, 65%, 52%, 22%, 56%, and 29%. He generally hasn't lit the world on fire with the quality of his movies. And while his 4-hour cut of Justice League is the best reviews he's gotten since Dawn of the Dead, he also had a degree of freedom that he never would've had in 2016/17. Working within the usual confines of blockbuster movies, it's been a long time since he's made a good movie (and personally, I hated Watchmen too; 300 was some dumb fun though).

Agreed on all of this. If he had released a 2 hour cut, it would have been an even worse disaster than the original theatrical cut. A 2.5 hour film would have done worse than BvS, which had like a 70% drop (a huge drop by Hollywood standards) in its second week and which set the stage for people just not wanting more of the same except some small hard core. The Snyderverse was officially box office poison unless something radical happened. Hence why the 2 hour mandate came down: they wanted to maximize first week ticket sales because they expected a huge second week drop along the lines of BvS. In fact, by that measure, the theatrical definitely softened the blow with just a 60% drop in the 2nd week.

Furthermore, one of the things that has been made clear in the reporting on the viewership of the Snyder Cut is that the majority of people who start it don't finish it -- last I saw, it was estimated only 36% of viewers end up seeing the whole thing -- and that its viewership numbers are under those of Godzilla vs. Kong  and Wonder Woman 1984. It's just not that big of a deal outside of his ardent supporters. 

If he wants to auteur his way through a superhero universe, he should buy up rights to something or create something original. But I'm guessing he'd sooner make The Fountainhead than revisit superhero stories.

 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Films, especially superhero films, are generally about 2 hours long. You can maybe push that to 2 hour 30 if you're a prestige film-maker like Nolan or you've built up to that length through a series of successful previous hits (which Snyder in his mind clearly thought he had). You can maybe go to 3 hours if you're adapting the biggest novel of all time, or your name is James Cameron, or you're making the 23rd film in a hugely successful series that has made over ten billion dollars.

Not one of the Avengers films or Captain America: Civil War was under 140 minutes. How many feature film directing credits did Whedon have under his belt before he did Avengers? Serenity? A pretty good film but a box office failure. Yet Avengers was able to run 141 minutes with no character development. The Russo Brothers had  exactly -zero- feature film directing credits before doing Captain America: Winter Soldier and yet Disney mercifully gave them 136 minutes to tell that story.  So, no.

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Well the Rotten Tomato scores for movies he's directed throughout his pre-Justice League career are: 75%, 61%, 65%, 52%, 22%, 56%, and 29%. He generally hasn't lit the world on fire with the quality of his movies. And while his 4-hour cut of Justice League is the best reviews he's gotten since Dawn of the Dead, he also had a degree of freedom that he never would've had in 2016/17. Working within the usual confines of blockbuster movies, it's been a long time since he's made a good movie (and personally, I hated Watchmen too; 300 was some dumb fun though).

People still care about Rotten Tomatoes?

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

People still care about Rotten Tomatoes?

Fight the power!

[RumHam]

45 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Not one of the Avengers films or Captain America: Civil War was under 140 minutes. How many feature film directing credits did Whedon have under his belt before he did Avengers? Serenity? A pretty good film but a box office failure. Yet Avengers was able to run 141 minutes with no character development. The Russo Brothers had  exactly -zero- feature film directing credits before doing Captain America: Winter Soldier and yet Disney mercifully gave them 136 minutes to tell that story.  So, no.

People still care about Rotten Tomatoes?

The marvel movies are tightly controlled though. It's not like the directors have free reign. It makes more sense to take a chance on an unproven director when you've got Kevin Fiege or someone else from marvel on set to make sure Spider-Man doesn't end up with face tattoos. 

 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

Only if he'd planned it ahead of time. I don't think you can take the Snyder Cut break it into two halves that work on their own. 

Yeah I was thinking about how they could've broke it up after I watched it, and it's tough.  My first intuition would be right before or after they bring back Superman, but that's pretty late and doesn't give much for part 2.  Timewise, the natural split would be at the end of "Chapter 3."  That's a pretty underwhelming part 1.  Not sure where else to do it.

59 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Not one of the Avengers films or Captain America: Civil War was under 140 minutes. How many feature film directing credits did Whedon have under his belt before he did Avengers? Serenity? A pretty good film but a box office failure. Yet Avengers was able to run 141 minutes with no character development. The Russo Brothers had  exactly -zero- feature film directing credits before doing Captain America: Winter Soldier and yet Disney mercifully gave them 136 minutes to tell that story.  So, no.

To me, all this comparison does is emphasize why Kevin Feige has never shown interest in Zach Snyder helming a MCU project.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

17 minutes ago, RumHam said:

The marvel movies are tightly controlled though. It's not like the directors have free reign. It makes more sense to take a chance on an unproven director when you've got Kevin Fiege or someone else from marvel on set to make sure Spider-Man doesn't end up with face tattoos. 

 

"BABY GOATS!!!"

[Frey family reunion]

I'm shocked there were so many people excited to see a four hour movie by the director who brought us Superman vs Batman and the Watchmen.  To each their own I guess.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah I was thinking about how they could've broke it up after I watched it, and it's tough.  My first intuition would be right before or after they bring back Superman, but that's pretty late and doesn't give much for part 2.  Timewise, the natural split would be at the end of "Chapter 3."  That's a pretty underwhelming part 1.  Not sure where else to do it.

I think the break point would be their escaping the confrontation with Steppenwolf, with Aquaman joining them, and then end with Steppenwolf discovering that the Anti-Life Equation is on Earth. That's around the 2 hour mark in the Snyder cut. 

But the thing is, it's too damned long and slow. You'd end up with a sub-2 hour film if you edited it properly. It'd be 90 minutes -- less, really -- and that's actually unheard of for big-budget blockbuster films this decade. Which is great for viewings, but would receive backlash from people wondering why they're paying so much for such a short "blockbuster" that's only half a movie, and then you expect them to do the same for the second half. 

 

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think the break point would be their escaping the confrontation with Steppenwolf, with Aquaman joining them, and then end with Steppenwolf discovering that the Anti-Life Equation is on Earth. That's around the 2 hour mark in the Snyder cut. 

Yeah that's shortly after the end of Chapter 3 IIRC, so that'd make sense.  Still think it'd be an underwhelming part 1.

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

You'd end up with a sub-2 hour film if you edited it properly. It'd be 90 minutes -- less, really -- and that's actually unheard of for big-budget blockbuster films this decade. Which is great for viewings, but would receive backlash from people wondering why they're paying so much for such a short "blockbuster" that's only half a movie, and then you expect them to do the same for the second half. 

Right, this is the fundamental problem with it.  There's not enough actual content/story to carry two separate films.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

29 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

To me, all this comparison does is emphasize why Kevin Feige has never shown interest in Zach Snyder helming a MCU project.

Well that would be the brass ring, I guess. Kevin Feige is our lord and savior after all.

This is still a Joss Whedon thread, isn't it?

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Not one of the Avengers films or Captain America: Civil War was under 140 minutes. How many feature film directing credits did Whedon have under his belt before he did Avengers? Serenity? A pretty good film but a box office failure. Yet Avengers was able to run 141 minutes with no character development. The Russo Brothers had  exactly -zero- feature film directing credits before doing Captain America: Winter Soldier and yet Disney mercifully gave them 136 minutes to tell that story.  So, no.

The Avengers was the sixth film in the series. It's true Whedon didn't have a huge amount of feature experience, but he did have an absolute ton of writing and directing experience in television, much of it highly acclaimed (at that point, anyway). They did take a bit of a punt on it (the pre-Avengers box office for the series had been reasonably solid but not fantastic) but it panned out.

Not sure what you mean by "no character development." It didn't have to introduce characters because they'd had five films previously to do that. In terms of character development in the film, there was tons for Hulk, Black Widow, Tony, Cap, even Hawkeye, whom no-one gave a shit about. None of it is particularly original but in terms of basic arcs it was all reasonably effective, and it resulted in a critically-acclaimed, very high-grossing film.

The Russo Brothers had enormous experience in television, and were hugely respected for their work on Arrested Development, LAX and Community before they transferred to the MCU. Also, The Winter Soldier was their fourth feature film so no idea what you're on about there (Pieces was very obscure, but Welcome to Collinwood created some noise and You, Me and Dupree a lot more).

Snyder had directed five films before Man of Steel, two of the last three of which had bombed at the box office (Sucker Punch and Watchmen) and the third (Legend of the Guardians) had only just broken even, so he was trading a lot on the huge success of Dawn of the Dead and 300.

[Lord Varys]

Bah, Sucker Punch was a Snyder movie. I rewatched that thing just recently after seeing it once after its release, and weirdly enough remembering it as a good movie ... which it most definitely isn't. Yes, it was a decade and all, but how could I possibly delude myself into believing this was good?

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Yes, it was a decade and all, but how could I possibly delude myself into believing this was good?

Sounds like you got suckered into it.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Sounds like you got suckered into it.

Beat me to the punch.

[sifth]

I honestly think the Dawn of the Dead remake is the only Zack Snyder film, I can honestly say I enjoyed. I mean I know it was written by James Gunn, so I'm sure that helped make it less miserable and nihilistic

[Lord Varys]

19 hours ago, DMC said:

Sounds like you got suckered into it.

I guess so, and it truly sucked ;-). I liked the cool dream sequences and all ... but the final message of the movie couldn't have been worse.

(Re)watching the MCU movies right now, and Avengers is the next one. So far, the first Iron Man was pretty good, Hulk pretty much stupid, Iron Man 2 without a proper plot but the hero in an interesting personal dilemma, Thor and Captain America both pretty good.

I don't remember Avengers as a good movie, but we'll see.