DC Cinematic Universe: Let the Blames Begin

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

The elusive "inside source" strikes again.

https://www.thewrap.com/dwayne-johnson-black-adam-shazam-dc-universe/

Yeah, I don't buy this.

CBM fans care about the rivalry between Shazam! and Black Adam; the general audience does not. They just want to see a good movie. And I find it unlikely that cameos in each others films or, "the right post credit scene", would have saved them from middling to bad critical reviews, or a rotten tomato-meter score, which still has weight for CBM fans.  

Opening weekend box office is all about anticipation and buzz; and this film had neither. 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[Myrddin]

Zach's response to the story was "The truth shall set you free."

So.... true? -Ish?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I have no doubt that that things were proposed along those lines only to be veto'd by Dwayne Johnson. I just don't think it had a damn thing to do with Shazam! 2!'s box office bomb. 

If Black Adam had been a massive commercial and critical success, they might have a point, maybe. But it wasn't. And couldn't you argue that not including Shazam in a film that was a critical and commercial failure is actually a good thing? 

To be fair, COVID also put the brakes on any franchise momentum the first film generated. If this thing had come out 2 years ago, who knows?   

[DaveSumm]

It’s a sequel to a film that came out 4 years ago, just before Endgame and so nobody watched it … it’s set in a universe that they just very publicly canned, and haven’t been entirely clear on whether Shazam will survive the transition to the Gunniverse. And there’s no indication that it’s required viewing for any other DC films. So I really don’t see the incentive to see this at the cinema, and I say that as someone who quite enjoyed the first one.

Can’t wait for this continuity to be put out of its misery.

Edited March 22, 2023 by DaveSumm

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s a sequel to a film that came out 4 years ago, just before Endgame and so nobody watched it … it’s set in a universe that they just very publicly canned, and haven’t been entirely clear on whether Shazam will survive the transition to the Gunniverse. And there’s no indication that it’s required viewing for any other DC films. So I really don’t see the incentive to see this at the cinema, and I say that as someone who quite enjoyed the first one.

Can’t wait for this continuity to be put out of its misery.

Plus covid + cost of living + cinema costs, people don’t just go to thr cinema on a whim like they used to. Especially for family films.

And most especially when the film is on Disney+/Netflix/Prime/DVD two or three months later anyway.

Hell, I could have rented The Batman from Prime while it was still in the cinema. Watch it in the confort of my own home for £20 on ultraHD TV with either a takeaway or slow-cooked casserole and a bottle of wine, woth in-laws;, or have  to find childcare (in-laws), drive to cinema, pay £10 for ticket and get ripped off for shitty cinema food, and risk covid. And also suffer 30 mins of adverts.….

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s a sequel to a film that came out 4 years ago, just before Endgame and so nobody watched it … it’s set in a universe that they just very publicly canned, and haven’t been entirely clear on whether Shazam will survive the transition to the Gunniverse. And there’s no indication that it’s required viewing for any other DC films. So I really don’t see the incentive to see this at the cinema, and I say that as someone who quite enjoyed the first one.

Can’t wait for this continuity to be put out of its misery.

Don't forget negative-to-meh reviews and a few disappointing recent films. That tomato meter still counts for something and if Black Adam, DC:Pets, and WW84 had been bonafide hits, this would have had more buzz. Again, I haven't seen it yet, so I'm not offering an opinion on the quality of the film. I may well end up disagreeing with the critics.

I read Katie Walsh's review in the L.A. Times. Scathing. 

Quote

The DC movie is exceedingly grating, labored and annoying, and that’s in large part due to star Zachary Levi’s utterly confounding performance as Shazam, the superhero alter ego of teenage Billy Batson (Asher Angel).

Yeah, blame The Rock. 

4 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Plus covid + cost of living + cinema costs, people don’t just go to thr cinema on a whim like they used to. Especially for family films.

And most especially when the film is on Disney+/Netflix/Prime/DVD two or three months later anyway.

Hell, I could have rented The Batman from Prime while it was still in the cinema. Watch it in the confort of my own home for £20 on ultraHD TV with either a takeaway or slow-cooked casserole and a bottle of wine, woth in-laws;, or have  to find childcare (in-laws), drive to cinema, pay £10 for ticket and get ripped off for shitty cinema food, and risk covid. And also suffer 30 mins of adverts.….

My nieces have sneaking vittles into the movies down to a science, man. We had sushi when we went to see Cocaine Bear. That was fun.

But yeah, I suspect most people gave this a miss in lieu of streaming.

[Myrddin]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

My nieces have sneaking vittles into the movies down to a science, man. We had sushi when we went to see Cocaine Bear. That was fun.

But yeah, I suspect most people gave this a miss in lieu of streaming.

At least they weren't sneaking in cocaine and edible gummy bears. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 3/22/2023 at 3:09 PM, Myrddin said:

At least they weren't sneaking in cocaine and edible gummy bears. 

Maybe they did and I just didn't notice. Those Kids are crafty I tell you.

-

So I finally Saw DC: League of Super Pets and I liked it a lot. I don't know what I was expecting but whatever expectations I had, this exceeded them.

It's a shame this film didn't do better because they might have had a pretty good (animated) shared universe on their hands. 

With few exceptions, 2022 was a brutal year for big screen animation at the box office. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Dear god.

https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Shazam-Fury-of-the-Gods-(2022)/Morbius-(2020)#tab=day_by_day_comparison

[SpaceChampion]

 

[Rhom]

23 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

Looks more interesting than anything else from DC in a while. 

[Ran]

Bad trailer for The Blue Beetle, IMO. Hate that style of editing of a trailer.

They're basically just making it look like their take on Spider-Man, which seems awfully unoriginal.

Did like the glimpse of the old school Blue Beetle costume, though, at the end, and the "Batman is a fascist" joke.

[Heartofice]

Maybe kids and the extremely undemanding will enjoy it but that looks like the most tired shit I’ve seen in a long time 

[GallowKnight]

57 minutes ago, Ran said:

Bad trailer for The Blue Beetle, IMO. Hate that style of editing of a trailer.

They're basically just making it look like their take on Spider-Man, which seems awfully unoriginal.

Did like the glimpse of the old school Blue Beetle costume, though, at the end, and the "Batman is a fascist" joke.

It's Spider-Man meets Iron Man.

Which is incidently also MCU's take on Spider-Man.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Keep. Summer. Safe. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Maybe kids and the extremely undemanding will enjoy it but that looks like the most tired shit I’ve seen in a long time 

This was going to be an HBOMax original at one point.

1 hour ago, GallowKnight said:

It's Spider-Man meets Iron Man.

Which is incidently also MCU's take on Spider-Man.

This is the state of the capeshit genre film. At this point, everything you see is going to remind you of one or more things you've already seen.

Someone should do a sizzle reel of CBM action beats that involve city buses. This one isn't as weird as the one in Shazam!, but then I saw Dr Strange cut a bus in half only a few months ago. 

 

[polishgenius]

It's definitely gonna be better than the other recent film featuring blue alien stuff, at least. 

 

 

I'm getting more Ant-man vibes than Spider-man, for some reason. Something about the humour maybe? Or just that his family/friends know immediately? Not quite sure. I don't like those movies though, so hopefully it's a step up on them. 

 

Also we only see a glimpse of the hand-to-hand action so we'll see how it fits, and is edited, in the final film, but the glimpse makes it seem pleasingly solid compared to some examples in this kind of thing. 

[Kalbear]

From the trailer the one vaguely nice thing is that as far as I can tell Blue Beetle is not fighting "hero, but evil" like so many Marvel stories have done. I really wish more superhero origins would mix this up significantly. As it stands we have Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, Shang-Chi, Black Widow (not an origin story but still, same point), Dr. Strange (at least mostly), Venom, Morbius..Give us different powers and styles!

Spider-Man was good about not doing that at least, in basically every movie. Thor also has largely been good about that. GotG had to by default, but that's fine. Captain Marvel also did a decentish job. 

[RumHam]

This is still in the old dying universe, correct? I can't be the only one who feels like "wake me up when the new continuity starts." 

[Heartofice]

It’s the ‘humour’ that really starts me off on a bad foot. Within 5 seconds of the trailer starting it’s trying to scream in my face ‘oooh we said a rude word! Check us out!!’

Then all the kitchen screaming crap.. that stuff is so old. Make it stop!