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Apparently his daughter died (suicide at 20) so he and his wife (who was one of the producers) will be stepping away from the series to deal with that. Joss Whedon will be stepping in for post production and re-shoots on JL.

I think it's good that he's out of the DECU but I feel badly for how it came to happen.

Joss Whedon is a pretty big upgrade imo.

I thought Joss was the Marvel movieverse guy. He's gonna be in charge of both now?

In any case, that's not something one would wish on anyone...

I mean, bad for him, but...

THANK GOD!

Bran Dawri wrote:
I thought Joss was the Marvel movieverse guy. He's gonna be in charge of both now?

In any case, that's not something one would wish on anyone...

He's done a bit for the MCU, but not as much as you'd think. He directed the Thor and Catpain America WS post credit scenes, was an uncredited writer on Captain America TFA and Thor TDW, wrote and directed the two Avengers films and co-wrote and co-produced Agents of Shield. I mean he's done quite a bit, but he's hardly 'in charge'. That's Kevin Feige.

Whedon going over to DCEU will be good for the films he works on, but he said after two Avengers films he was 'exhausted' and wanted to leave the MCU behind. I doubt he will stick with the DCEU for a lengthy period of time, but while he's there it can only help them.

WB/DC need to find their Kevin Feige. Someone with knowledge and respect for the source material and the drive to take the reins and steer the project in the right direction. I really doubt that's what Whedon is going to be doing.

 -Loki- wrote:
WB/DC need to find their Kevin Feige. Someone with knowledge and respect for the source material and the drive to take the reins and steer the project in the right direction. I really doubt that's what Whedon is going to be doing.

Geoff Johns has been in that role for almost a year now, I think. Now, whether or not he's the right person for the job remains to be seen. Zack Snyder also has tons of knowledge and respect for source material...much more than the vast majority of people who complain about him. That particular narrative is completely misguided IMO. If anything, it was probably his Dark Knight Returns fanboyism that helped lead to people's issues with BvS.

Anyway, it sounds like Whedon will only be writing and shooting some reshoots, and handling post. And the scuttlebutt was that Whedon was tired of having the studio looking over his shoulder. Age of Ultron really suffered for it. WB certainly did some studio meddling of their own for a while there, but it seems like they're past it and directors are getting creative control again. Maybe Whedon is seeing WB as a better fit. Putting a bow on JL and making a Batgirl movie doesn't seem like the workload that the Avengers films were either, so that may be part of it too.

Like I said in the WW thread, I have a feeling that what you'll see from WB are more solo films and a looser DCEU with much less interconnectivity than Marvel. They may have decided they just don't do the 'universe' thing as well as Marvel and never will, and if true that'd probably be a good honest assessment on their part.

No BvsS was just... bad.

This change could be good, setting up a better tone. He would be ideal for Flash movie or SSII.

BvS just annoys me. Its source material is full of awesome and should have easily transitioned to film. Honestly I personally think one could turn that comic into a 3 hour movie with little issue. However that didn't happen at all. I still feel like BvS had a ton of cool ideas and some of the scenes even hinted at the possible coolness of it all....but it completely fell flat on its face.

...and yet, I rather enjoyed it!

If anything, it felt a bit rushed - and the ending where Superman died was telegraphed and annoying.

And I hope we're not getting an evil Darkseid controlled resurrected Superman in "Justice League".

But, having said all that, I think Whedon will help here, but we'll probably not really see his 'vision' until later films.

 KingCracker wrote:
BvS just annoys me. Its source material is full of awesome and should have easily transitioned to film. Honestly I personally think one could turn that comic into a 3 hour movie with little issue. However that didn't happen at all. I still feel like BvS had a ton of cool ideas and some of the scenes even hinted at the possible coolness of it all....but it completely fell flat on its face.

What BvS reminded me of was Spidey 3, they just tried to jam in too much, plus Dark Knight was the 'end' of the Batman saga, trying to repurpose it into a JLA pre-origin tale was a strange decision

I also a little wary of Whedon, his bag of tricks is fun enough but I don't think he's the geek god he is regarded as

I'd love to say something mean about Snyder but damn it I'm not that heartless.

I agree with Frazzled and others when saying that BvS was just bad. I can see why people liked it, and there were even parts that I liked, but that film and Suicide Squad were just hot messes. Say what you want about Whedon, but he knows how to bring a project together into something coherent and the DCEU desperately needs that imo.

Yea DC needs all the help they can get. They have some really cool stories and characters but so far youre right, hot messes. Suicide Squad was better IMO but even then it was barely better. I think they made some poor choices on actors rolls and did a poor job getting their points across. Several times in that movie I literally rolled my eyes and did the "uhhhhg" thing.

And personally I think Will Smith was just bad. Bad bad bad bad! Ive liked movies hes been in bit he definitely didnt feel right as Deadshot

His stab at Watchmen was decent, even ignoring the different ending he dropped the ball on some details and it felt more like a fan telling his version than a proper telling of the story.

Squad may be the worst Super movie ever, yes it suffered from script meddling, rewrites, terrible editing, but all that did was set fire to the garbage it was, the whole Joker and Harley nonsense was dreadful fanservice, wearing short shorts isn't the much use for Black Op's

My heart goes out to Zach and his family.

I have major creative differences with the man, but I would not wish this reason to step down on anyone.

Best wishes.

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd love to say something mean about Snyder but damn it I'm not that heartless.

I agree with Frazzled and others when saying that BvS was just bad. I can see why people liked it, and there were even parts that I liked, but that film and Suicide Squad were just hot messes. Say what you want about Whedon, but he knows how to bring a project together into something coherent and the DCEU desperately needs that imo.

Have you guys even tried watching the director's cut of BvS?

I'm telling you... Director's cut BvS is MUCH better than Theatrical BvS.

This is exactly the case of how stupid Movie producers demanding to cut movie times to some arbitrary number, without considering the impact to it's story.

As for Whedon... meh...

I agree with you that it's a better version. And I'll definitely defend Snyder over certain things. But if his story couldn't be realized in less than 3 hours, then that kinda is on him. There were definitely some self-inflicted wounds with BvS.

The placement of the 'Knightmare' and hero files sequences are almost certainly another. Work those in as after-credit sequences, and you'd have a better flow and less baffled general audiences. But let's not rehash all that stuff.

It will be interesting to see how JL turns out. By every account I've read, Whedon's impact will be minimal, so it'll still be very much a Snyder film. WW definitely has positive buzz, and Aquaman feels like it'll be a winner. Everything Wan touches seems to turn to gold. And Reeves' Batman flick will be highly anticipated. Things are looking up for the solo films, but can they get the team-up right?

I like JW - very sad way to get the job, 20 years old is no age.....

BvS could have been a fantastic film if they had cast a decent Lex and written a plot.

I don't understand how the Directors Cut can fix the fundamental miscast that is Lex in that film - he ruined every moment he was on screen with his Loopy Lex Wannabe Joker nonsense.

Angry Batman was great
Sups was fine
Wonder Woman owned every moment on screen and had that Theme Tune.

Suicide Squad was a near miss that faded as it went on - it needed Marvel style pacing and it would have been right up there with the really good Marvel films: Avengers, Iron Man, Cap A 2 and Tor 2.

Most films should only be hour and half - two hours long - much more and you are often just padding IMO.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I like JW - very sad way to get the job, 20 years old is no age.....

BvS could have been a fantastic film if they had cast a decent Lex.

I don't understand how the Directors Cut can fix the fundamental miscast that is Lex in that film - he ruined every moment he was on screen with his Loopy Lex Wannabe Joker nonsense.

.

This. So much this. Lex is an evil genius, not an unhinged psychopath.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I like JW - very sad way to get the job, 20 years old is no age.....

BvS could have been a fantastic film if they had cast a decent Lex.

I don't understand how the Directors Cut can fix the fundamental miscast that is Lex in that film - he ruined every moment he was on screen with his Loopy Lex Wannabe Joker nonsense.

.

This. So much this. Lex is an evil genius, not an unhinged psychopath.

I don't hate the performance anywhere near as much as Mr. Morden, but I didn't love it either. I actually thought we were going to get something special early on. I really liked the cold focus he shows in the Jolly Rancher scene. Had me thinking that was the 'real' Lex and the spazzy stuff was for show. But then he just kept going to the spazzy stuff.

Since the performance was so disliked, it's possible that Eisenberg will adjust it going forward.

 whembly wrote:

Have you guys even tried watching the director's cut of BvS?

Its the only version I've seen actually. I'm aware of the scenes that it has that the theater version didn't but I honestly don't think it makes any difference. The film is a mess.

This is exactly the case of how stupid Movie producers demanding to cut movie times to some arbitrary number, without considering the impact to it's story.

I do think this happens a lot though, and in a lot of films the deleted scenes make things make more sense.

Like in Battle of the Five Armies, when people were all like "where did those goats come from?" towards the end of the film because by god some goats just showed up for Thorin and company to ride. In the Director's Cut you see the Dwarven goat Cavalry, which was cut from the theater version and suddenly it's not confusing where the goats came from anymore. However my problems with BvS are not with minor details. To me ist just bad and a few deleted scenes covering a few points of incoherence doesn't fix how contrived the film is as a whole. It's bloated, filled with pointless plot elements, and the villain's evil plot confused being clever with pointless complexity. Batman vs Superman is an amazing concept that was simply taken for granted, and run into the ground by a long list of the banes of modern movies with no one around to reign any of it in. The only the thing I liked about it was Batfleck, which is like the last thing I was expecting to enjoy but the guy was the silver lining on a very crummy cloud.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:


I don't understand how the Directors Cut can fix the fundamental miscast that is Lex in that film - he ruined every moment he was on screen with his Loopy Lex Wannabe Joker nonsense.

I agree with this as well. It's not even that I think the guy they picked is bad. he was enjoyable in his own way but much like Kylo ren in TFA there were aspects of how his character played out that I think soured his performance. Lex doesn't work with the emo teenager look. The scheme itself, was pointlessly contrived as well. I actually think the Batman v Superman thing would have worked better by completely abandoning him as a villain and instead letting the differing ideals of Superman and Batman drive the conflict of the film which is what has always made the concept of Batman fighting Superman so engaging to begin with. The idealized heroism of a virtuous paragon vs the seething rage against injustice of a fundamentally broken man. There's so many little foils between those two characters to exploit. There was no need for a villain to drive them against each other imo. That's good stuff, and they just soured it.

Giant tunneling worms in BoFA, and people were concerned with loose mountain goat cavalry? I just figured they were mounts that had gotten loose, I think you can see some of the cavalry in a long shot even though their charge was cut from the film.

That movie had bigger problems than loose mounts.

xraytango wrote:
Giant tunneling worms in BoFA, and people were concerned with loose mountain goat cavalry?

I thought it was stupid too cause that's a really tiny detail to complain about. It's just something I remembered off the top of my head for a time that a director's cut explained something that was weird in the theater release XD

That image recently posted of the girl from the first Matrix movie going "not like this"... yeah. That. I wanted Snyder gone from DC. But not like this. Hearts and prayers go out. Nobody should suffer this kind of loss.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I like JW - very sad way to get the job, 20 years old is no age.....

BvS could have been a fantastic film if they had cast a decent Lex.

I don't understand how the Directors Cut can fix the fundamental miscast that is Lex in that film - he ruined every moment he was on screen with his Loopy Lex Wannabe Joker nonsense.

.

This. So much this. Lex is an evil genius, not an unhinged psychopath.

Yes - I think the biggest problem is that Lex was criminally miscast. I don't have anything against Jesse Eisenberg, but he committed the acting equivalent of malpractice in that movie.

I think the really galling thing about Zack Snyder is he's actually tremendously talented, much like Nicholas Cage. However, just like Nicholas Cage, he needs to be kept on a tight leash to harness said talent - if you give him a free hand you get a real mess.

I still wonder who's choice manic Lex was, as I'm fairly certain Jesse could off the Lex everyone expected.

Probably a little of both...it's usually a collaborative thing. Clearly the story developed Luthor as a tech wunderkind with megalomanical tendencies and daddy issues. But then it's the actor's job to interpret that. Actors seem to like working for Snyder, which probably means he gives them plenty of room to work. And JE is a big enough star that you probably don't try to micromanage his performance. Then again, they may have tried scenes different ways, and selecting which to go with falls to the director.

So again, it's probably both.

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
I still wonder who's choice manic Lex was, as I'm fairly certain Jesse could off the Lex everyone expected.

There was one part with Jesse's Lex I liked, and that was at the tail end of his talk with Kal. The whole "When you got here you had an hour. Now it's less." It was the one time when I thought he could have been a good villain.

Kevin Spacey Lex had the same thing. At the start of the third act of Superman Returns he gives a speech of: "Gods are selfish beings in little red capes that fly high above us. No I don't want to be a God, I just want to bring fire to the people... And I want my cut."

Yet aside from this one scene he's just doing an impression of Gene Hackman skiing an impression of Lex Luthor."

Although, maybe JE is salvageable. Gets out of prison, "I'm innocent, Darkseid was messing with my mind."

And completely rejig his character to be the cold supremely rational, mostly sane Lex we all hope for.

Yeah but the only part of that interaction I liked was the part I quoted, the rest just tried to hard, and admittedly I never saw the one with Kevin Spacey.