JOSS WHEDON LEAVES ‘BATGIRL’ AND MAN, THE DCEU IS IN TROUBLE
My God. Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) just cannot get out of their own way. Just now, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Joss Whedon is stepping down from the Batgirl project he’d been working to write and direct for the Hollywood studio. This bombshell is just the latest round of bad publicity that continues to rock the DCEU at regular intervals. But this time, it might be a mortal blow.
If you aren’t fully invested in following the gossip of Hollywood, you probably have no idea how bad things have been behind the scenes at Warner Bros. In an attempt to play catch-up with Marvel, the executive suite has thrown money at their films to fast track them. But setting release dates without even having a script or director does not engender fan confidence. To whit, some of the lowlights from the film side of the DCEU:
- Man Of Steel grossed $668 million worldwide on a budget of $225 million. If you go by the old adage of halving the budget to include marketing and promotions, plus removing whatever ticket revenue goes to the movie theaters then Man of Steel was a moderate success, but not exactly pulling Franchise Kick-Off™ numbers.
- Man of Steel was mired in controversy as many (myself included) believed it was tone-deaf. Superman doesn’t watch his dad die to save his secret identity, and he certainly wouldn’t snap the neck of his enemies. Superman is the Boy Scout, FFS. These concerns about the grimdark adaptation would continue to haunt the DCEU.
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was lambasted for being, at the very least, a disjointed film that veered between theme and tone like a hyperactive toddler.
- Suicide Squad writer/director David Ayers was only given SIX WEEKS to write the script.
- Suicide Squad controversy about their take on the Joker, as well as actor Jared Leto’s antics on set, caused a bit of backlash.
- Suicide Squad went back in for reshoots to make the film match the more upbeat tone of the films’ trailer and help counteract audience fatigue about the grimdark portrayal of the DCEU.
- Justice League was a hot mess. We now know Zack Snyder was fired from the film, confirming rumors that circulated within the film community for months.
- Joss Whedon was brought in to add some levity to the film, ending with another disjointed mess due to massive amounts of reshoots. Reshoots that didn’t help as the film ultimately cratered, with Justice League making less than any other DCEU film to date: a mere $657 million worldwide.
- The upcoming Flash movie can’t hold onto a director save its life.
- Now Whedon has left the Batgirl project.
The only DCEU film that hasn’t stumbled along the way so far has been Wonder Woman. Aquaman wrapped filming last year and, according to Zachary Levi’s Instagram account, Shazam! is currently in production. Beyond that? The DCEU is on life support. The kind of diminishing returns being generated does not embolden shareholders to keep shoveling money into the furnace, no matter how badly they want to keep up with Marvel.
No matter how you feel about Joss Whedon a director or a person, he is one of the leading men in the field for superhero films. The fact that he is jumping ship because “he didn’t have a story” speaks volumes. If Warner Bros. is the coal mine, Whedon is the canary and he just keeled over dead. The cinematic universe may limp across the finish line with the two films they have in the can, but if I were a betting gal, I’d put my money on the Batgirl movie being entirely scrapped and The Flash film hitting the reset button…hard. For the DCEU to live, it has to die.
Except for Wonder Woman. She can go to the new multiverse. Maybe Aquaman. That’s it.
