Visual bread and circuses

In the world of geek culture, online pop culture conventions are providing at least some people with a distraction from constant worry about the Coronavirus. This weekend, Warner Bros Pictures held its DC Fandome event, showing full or teaser trailers for upcoming films including The Batman, Black Adam, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman 1984, and Zack Snyder's Justice League. 

Over the next couple of years, a slate of blockbuster films like this will be just the thing to entice audiences back to cinemas when the current pandemic has subsided. I am more excited about any of these films than I am for pretty much all of the rival Marvel Cinematic Universe. Those films are entertaining and well made, but I don't have any connection with the characters. 

https://www.ign.com/articles/dc-fandome-the-biggest-and-best-announcements-and-reveals

Fair play to the man

Far be it for me for to post a link from Triple J, a radio station which targets the 25-39 demographic, and whose playlist does not appeal to my musical tastes. I digress. One of its website columnists responded to the news that Warner Bros Studios will be releasing director Zack Snyder's version of the maligned 2017 Justice League film. 

Snyder was the original director, but after he had to step down from the film after a family tragedy, the studio brought in Joss Whedon to rework the project, which was massively different to Snyder's version. The end product was a dog's breakfast, and a missed opportunity to make an epic on the scale of Marvel Studios Avengers franchise. In 2021, fans will get to see Snyder's version, and if it will be superior to the theatrical version, which frankly, wouldn't be too hard. 

This is in response to a long running fan campaign, which I was a part of through social media. The writer of this article claims that this campaign had an air of "entitled toxicity." As one who closely followed and participated in this campaign, I did not see any toxicity. If there was, I would have unfollowed it. It makes for a good story, but it's not true. From what I saw the tone of the campaign was passionate, but respectful. That's why Snyder and some of the cast supported it. If it was toxic, they would not have risked their reputations by associating with it. 

https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/the-latest/releasing-zack-snyder-cut-of-justice-league-toxic-fandom/12277808

Lighten up

IGN reports that Warner Bros is restructuring its DC Comics film department after the disappointing box office reception of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. DC Comics chief creative officer Geoff Johns will work alongside Warner Bros Pictures executive Vice President Jon Berg to run the newly created DC Films.

I really liked Man of Steel. It blew me away. While Batman v Superman wasn't a bad movie, it was excessively dark and intense, almost to the point of being depressing, almost like a Spotify playlist consisting solely of emo music.

Moving forward, I hope that future movies on the DC Comics slate will find a way to be serious, but also fun to watch in the same way that most Marvel Studios movies are. The two need not be mutually exclusive.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/18/warner-bros-shakeup-sees-geoff-johns-assume-key-dc-movies-role