World News – USA – How Wonder Woman changed DC’s entire film strategy

While DC Entertainment has had great success in comics, television, and games, they have had problems with the films. Does Wonder Woman show the way forward?

There is a paradox at DC Entertainment that can be summed up with two men wearing Superman’s tights. One of them is Tyler Hoechlin, a dreamy American who portrays the man of steel on the small screen as part of the TV show Supergirl. The other is Henry Cavill, a stately British man who plays him in DC’s big-screen forays like Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the mega-tentpole Justice League this fall. Hoechlin’s Superman has an excellent public image: he’s not a regular, but when he shows up the fans will go gaga for him, as much as they are delighted with the well-reviewed show in general. Cavill’s Supes, on the other hand, has a problem with image control: all of his films have so far been confronted with at least a certain critical contempt, if not outright ridicule. In short, a Superman flies high; the other experiences turbulence.

It’s DC Entertainment in the microcosm: when it comes to movies, there is chronic bad vibes. elsewhere things are floating. Warner Bros was known as DC Comics in 2009 and was restructured in 2009. More than just a comic book publisher, the company now works with the rest of Warner to produce superhero content in TV, games, consumer products, and films. Her comics are in a renaissance of sales thanks to a recent initiative called Rebirth. DC TV shows like Gotham, Arrow, and The Flash enjoy meaty ratings and fan loyalty. DC video games like Injustice and Batman: Arkham are considered some of the best the medium has to offer. Hell, even a partnership with Warner’s consumer goods division is bearing fruit: the DC Super Hero Girls toy line has grown into a miniature empire with animated web cartoons and a New York Times bestseller.

So what explains the conflicting reputation? Perhaps part of the problem is that, until recently, the films had very little impact on the DC Entertainment core team, which had done so well elsewhere. « I think it took some work to earn our flicks with the rest of the studio and the filmmakers, » says the company’s young creative director, Geoff Johns, who sits at a long table next to a group of DC executives rolled into one San Diego Marriott sits on the first day of San Diego Comic-Con in July. However, in the past 16 months they have gained significantly more influence on the movie industry, and that change is already bearing fruit. « It’s not a mess, » assures me DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson, who sits near John’s. « It is intended. ”

You are in the middle of a fight to convince the public that this is the case. For years they fought in the multiplex as their blood rival Marvel soared. As of 2008, Marvel pioneered a Hollywood buzz concept known as the cinematic universe: a narrative company designed to have a number of individual films exist in the same world, with characters that overlap and many megamovies in which the whole gang composed comes together. Marvel, which is owned by Disney, has captured billions of eyes and dollars by performing this operation with an iron fist: its films are all closely linked and its brand image is held in a vice.

When Warner saw the success of this model, he launched his own joint cinematic cosmology with Man of Steel in 2013, which did well at the box office but received criticism for portraying a brooding Superman who, at the end of the story, murders someone. Then in 2016 came the gritty, grainy, and costly Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice, which provoked a harsh critical reaction and with a global gross of $ 873 million, fell far short of Marvel’s $ 1. 153 billion earners this year, Captain America: Civil War. Just a few months later, Suicide Squad made $ 745 million – a huge part of the change – but was devastated by critics, leaving a critical aggregate of 25 percent for Rotten Tomatoes. Those speed limits would be bad enough, but the fact that these DC movies were all part of an interlinked super story made the situation all the more problematic: How can you have a successful universe when your individual galaxies aren’t that hot?

None of this seems to worry Nelson, and that’s in part because DC and Warner adopted a new strategy: let’s rethink the whole universe. You’re not giving up the idea of ​​continuity, but you want to highlight the idea that all of these films occupy the same space. « Our intent to move forward is certainly to use continuity to ensure that nothing diverges in a way that doesn’t make sense, but there is no insistence on general action or interconnectivity in this universe, » says Nelson and nods brass around them from above.

This new approach already has a test case and has been a success in every way: Wonder Woman outperformed any other movie this summer, scoring 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes – more than almost any Marvel movie. And one of the keys to how Nelson and her executives saw it was the fact that it was more or less telling the viewer to ignore the rest of the universe and only focus on what was in front of them. Batman versus Superman nodded a tiny bit, but that was it. « The film is not about any other film, » says Johns. “Some of the films, like Justice League, tie the characters together. But as with Aquaman ”- one of her next endeavors in 2018 -“ our goal is not to associate Aquaman with every movie. « As Nelson puts it, » As you move forward, you will see that the DC film universe is a universe, but it comes from the heart of the filmmaker who created it. ”

One of the core pieces of this new, decentralized strategy is an as yet unnamed side label of occasional films that are completely independent of everything else and are completely outside the cinematic universe. Totally independent based on good ideas from well-known filmmakers. Films that are just films, not part of a larger clockwork. The first they talk about is a solo outing about super villain, The Joker, directed and co-written by Todd Phillips, alumnus of The Hangover and War Dogs. Johns says they will be announcing the name of this site label « soon ». ”

All of this may be welcome news for reviewers who felt previous DC outings were too closely tied to building the world, but the pessimistic chatter of Warner’s superhero face won’t be single-handedly undone. While DC Entertainment has had tremendous successes in television, comics and games, in film they still have a major public perception problem. But they think they’re turning a corner. The approach Warner and DC are now taking at the Cineplex is not one that they came to easily, nor one that they only worked out in response to film setbacks. It came after nearly a decade of growth, missteps, and careful corporate maneuvers.

If the story of the rise of DC Entertainment were a comic, it could be one of those comics that featured an unlikely pairing of mismatched protagonists. Call them Geek Lad and Executive Woman. Johns is every inch an over-nerd who has read comics his entire life and practically memorized tons of them. Nelson had barely picked up a comic book before getting her current job. Eternal in public, John’s gleefully interviews even the flimsy geek blog to promote the company’s line of business. Nelson rarely speaks to journalists and mostly works in the background. Johns built a career as a DC Comics writer after making his first appearance there in 1999. Nelson navigated Warner’s C-suite and stood out for leading the company’s Harry Potter brand. But in the pivotal year of 2009, they were brought together to face a common enemy: the threat Marvel poses to Warner.

Up to this point in time, Batman Warner had brought great treasure, most recently in the form of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) and billionaire The Dark Knight (2008). . But one challenger showed up with a new strategy. Marvel Entertainment had started making their own films, and the first two – the sensational Iron Man from 2008 and the smaller hit The Incredible Hulk from the same summer – had caught the eye because they were set in the same world and future episodes promised in this joint franchise. In fact, they were successful despite starring B-tier superheroes. Warner made good movies, but Marvel seemed to represent the world to come.

« DC was so far behind the Marvel Eight Balls in terms of entertainment, » says a former DC editor. “They had to get their shit together. And Warner Bros. . had to get their shit together in terms of the footage. « Warner Bros. Barry Meyer, Chairman / CEO of Entertainment, Alan Horn, President / COO, and Jeff Robinov, CEO of Warner Films, got together and decided to emphasize DC as a bulwark against the rise of Marvel. This marked the end of DC Comics and the birth of a reinvented organization: DC Entertainment, with a mandate to aggressively place DC’s intellectual property in more parts of Warner’s activities and to get superhero products out in as many media outlets as possible. There were few precedents for such an initiative . . . except what they’d done to Harry Potter. When it came time to choose a guide, the choice was natural. Robinov asked Nelson to take the job, and after she accepted, DC Entertainment was announced on Nov.. Announced September 2009.

Nelson knew that DC would have near-complete control of what it did with comics, and to accomplish that task, she selected creator-editor Jim Lee and executive director Dan DiDio to be co-editors. Her first job was to get her comics back on track after years of declining sales, and to do so with an unprecedented effort called New 52. In it, they deleted all of their existing superhero comics and replaced them with 52 new ones, all set in a tightly controlled new universe similar to the one experimented with later in the film. It was a blast and shot her on sale in front of Marvel.

Nelson and her team never had and never would have had such a direct impact on any of the other mediums their superheroes appeared in. When it came to all of the other divisions, Nelson had to play nice. That meant the need for a new role with blurred lines and multiple responsibilities: a chief creative officer to liaise with the rest of Warner. Johns was DC’s golden boy at the time. He wrote success stories of the company’s greatest characters and piqued interest in many of their lesser-known ones as well. He also had Hollywood experience: Before joining DC, he was an intern and production assistant at the production company Donners’ Company. After a series of conversations, Nelson concluded that she had found a perfect candidate in Johns and anointed him as her CCO.

Together they inherited a mix of existing multimedia projects. Some were exciting visions of the future: Most notably, the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum had just praised its innovative gameplay. On the other hand, there were promising films in the pipeline: a film adaptation of the lesser-known DC comic book character Jonah Hex starring Josh Brolin, bombed; Another, about the violent antihero Lobo, was announced, but never came about.

Oddly and frustratingly, the only project that was Warner’s greatest DC Comics-based effort was the one to which Johns and Nelson had the least access: the nascent DC movie universe. In August 2008, shortly after The Dark Knight was released, Warner decided on a new version of Superman. Robinov turned to Christopher Nolan, who had successfully resurrected the Batman franchise, for advice on how to move forward. Nolan suggested two potential helmets: Darren Aronofsky of Black Swan and Zack Snyder of 300. The studio went ahead with Snyder, who was in some ways the least likely choice as he had just directed the 2009 DC adaptation of Watchmen and received mixed reviews and mediocre ticket sales. Even so, the process of making Man of Steel began.

Around the same time, a film initiative that caught the attention of DC Entertainment was a 2011 film about John’s beloved Green Lantern, which was in development long before DC’s reorganization. Ryan Reynolds was the star, Blake Lively was the female lead, and Warner had plans to add at least one sequel to it. DC wasn’t closely involved in developing the film, but Johns was a consultant and cheerleader, and director Martin Campbell remembers meeting him to discuss the character’s pros and cons. DC offered support where they could: John’s office coordinated with others at Warner to create a Green Lantern animated film and a Green Lantern CGI children’s cartoon. The expectations were high.

So was autumn. Green Lantern was released in June 2011 and barely got its budget back and made 27 percent from Rotten Tomatoes. « Obviously the film was a failure, » Campbell recalls bluntly. “It comes out and everyone feels depressed and so on and so forth. There’s no point in shitting about it. Critics and viewers railed against the childishly light sense of humor and the incoherent climax, as well as against the kitschy, caricature effects. Plans for sequels were abruptly canceled. In this way, Warner’s grand scheme for a new DC celluloid hero was dashed, and the first major attempt at cross-platform branding in the DC Entertainment era was embarrassed.

Nelson and Johns faced further cinematic frustrations: they were creatively marginalized during the development of Man of Steel. It was a decidedly difficult take on Superman, and in his final battle he ruthlessly destroyed skyscrapers and eventually executed his enemy, General Zod. This was inconsistent with John’s. « Geoff Johns and Diane were reading scripts, and he thought Geoff Johns was concerned that there wasn’t enough lightness or humor given who the character is, » recalls one person with some knowledge of Man of Steel making. « Geoff definitely made that point, but this current administration didn’t care what Geoff Johns thought. The film was released in June 2013 with the DC Entertainment branding, but largely without fingerprints.

It also had the seeds of a larger, expanded Marvel-style world. A few weeks after its release, Warner announced a sequel at San Diego Comic-Con 2013 in which Batman and Superman would battle each other, and the announcement made it clear that the film would be based on the famous 1986 dark comic The Dark Knight returns. John’s warnings about the need for ease were ignored. A new Warner CEO, Kevin Tsujihara, was crowned that year, and he was far more optimistic about superheroes than his predecessor. Under his supervision, the studio released an ambitious list of ten DC-based films in October 2014 that will last until 2020. They should all be part of the same great movie universe. It was more than a little crazy as the cinematic universe at the time was all Man of Steel, which hadn’t been received with fierce enthusiasm. But it was too late to think twice – Warner was all in DC properties, if not always on DC advice.

So Johns and Nelson largely concentrated on the small screen. There they found redemption in the form of a bitter veteran of the Green Lantern. Dawson’s Creek and Everwood screenwriter and TV showrunner Greg Berlanti had co-wrote the first passes in the Lantern script and was hired as a director before being reassigned to another Warner feature and losing control. He was understandably dissatisfied with the finished product and almost walked away from Warner for good. In a last-ditch effort to hold on to him, Johns and TV managers Peter Roth and Susan Rovner turned to Berlanti and encouraged him to come up with an idea for the blue sky. Berlanti, a lifelong DC Comics freak, said he evaded the idea of ​​customizing the crusader Green Arrow with an archery theme.

He got permission and he and co-producers Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg had to figure out what later became the CW Arrow. You would be given near-total creative freedom, and there was no talk of getting tied to the DC movie universe. The show debuted on Jan.. October 2012 in the CW and had a full series order within a few days. Not only did Johns provide creative advice, he also wrote episodes for it and eventually started a spin-off series on DC Staple the Flash with Berlanti and Kreisberg. It debuted on Jan.. October 2014 and was John’s biggest engagement on television to date. In the next few years a so-called Berlantiverse was created with two other shows in the same common cosmos: Supergirl and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The shows received booming praise from fans, based on a guiding philosophy of « heart, humor and spectacle », as Sarah Schechter, President of Berlanti Productions, puts it. ”* It works – Berlantiverse regularly shows the top rating charts on the CW.

DC developed a success strategy on television that envisaged the current strategy for the films: it allowed people to throw a variety of approaches on the wall and see what was inside. For example, the programs produced by Berlanti share a common universe, but Gotham, iZombie, Lucifer and the upcoming titans all stand for themselves and have wildly different tones from each other. Developers are trusted to make their own decisions about direction and feel, and John’s team is seen as a trustworthy group of partners who provide suggestions and constructive criticism, rather than a draconian bureau forcing everything into a single shared megastory to fit.

The slump in the new 52 sales led DC to adopt this first tactic in comics as well. In May 2016 they started an initiative called Rebirth, which avoided the close continuity in favor of the good ideas of the comic makers. Flash comic book writer Joshua Williamson recalls worrying about breaking the continuity of New 52 during a rebirth brainstorming session with Johns, but « Geoff said, ‘Just forget everything. Forget everything, none of it matters. None of this matters. What are you trying to say about this character? “The rebirth was an instant hit when she was born on Aug.. May 2016, and it continues to be.

But a bomb was dropped a week before the rebirth debut. Johns had flown to New York to speak to reporters about the comics initiative, but he was plagued by questions unrelated to the funny books. It had been reported overnight that Johns was no longer just a creative link with the rest of Warner Bros.. and that he was paired with studio manager Jon Berg to oversee Warner’s superhero film release. The message was clear to anyone who paid attention: Batman’s recent critical failure against Superman had frightened the powers in place and a change in governance was necessary. After achieving success on TV and comics, DC Entertainment’s experts were brought in alongside Berg to bring their skills to a new arena. Johns – and his boss Nelson – had just adopted a problem child.

The cinematic universe of DC caused a sensation two months before the rebirth when the Snyder-directed Batman versus Superman was released in March 2016, which, like its predecessor, had creatively kept Johns and DC at a distance. The similarly gritty suicide squad was at the same time in the midst of its own difficult post-production and reportedly went through massive changes to get closer to the tone of an early trailer. When the BvS critically flopped, there were finally concerns about the creative decisions that had been made up to that point. Johns and Berg, reinstalled, quickly decided that a core element of their new strategy would be a lightening of the previously muddy mood. Suddenly you saw John’s interviews talking about how the DC mythology is built on « hope and optimism ». Berg was on the same side. « We’re talking about four things, » says Berg. “Heart, heroism, humanity and humor. ”

There was one place they could quickly implement that approach: Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, due to be released the following summer. Though not recognized as a writer in the finished product, Johns assisted writer Allan Heinberg with the script and he grew up close with Jenkins. The result of their partnership was the DC Cinematic Universe’s most successful film to date. It currently has accumulated more than $ 410 million domestically, a larger gross domestic product than any Warner Bros.. . Film in the story except two of the Nolan Batmans. Not only that, it was also the most successful live-action film ever made by a woman and held up by its advocates as a kind of feminist landmark. For the first time in history, Wonder Woman is more of a crown jewel for the DC brand than Superman or Batman.

There’s still a spandex-clad elephant in the room, however: the Justice League in November. The look wasn’t great. Immediately after the BvS setback, the fact that Snyder would also be responsible for the Justice League dwarfed the latter efforts in the film commentary. There were internal discussions about how parts of the film can be revised. Johns and Berg debated whether anyone other than Snyder should write new scenes for the film. By chance, the writer and director of Marvel’s The Avengers, Joss Whedon, met with Johns and Berg to discuss making a film. The couple were a game for it (they ended up choosing one through Batman ally Batgirl) but later realized they could accomplish another goal: “Everyone was excited about Joss being part of DC and we thought he was great, the [Justice League] scenes, the extra photo scenes we wanted, ”recalls Johns.

That choice gained momentum when tragedy hit the Justice League soon after: Snyder’s daughter died of suicide in March of that year. The director stayed associated with the film for a few months, but on March 22nd. In May, he announced that he would be leaving to mourn and leave the rest of the film to Whedon. Since then, rumors of the picture have surfaced in droplets: Whedon reportedly rewrote a third of the film, including the ending; The Justice League sequel, announced in 2014, was not mentioned at a Comic-Con presentation, adding to speculation that it won’t happen. There have been reports of expensive, last-minute additions that are difficult to coordinate. and so on. DC and Warner don’t comment on these rumors, but it hasn’t resulted in a great image for the mega tentpole.

In general, image control seems to be one of the biggest challenges facing the DC Movie company today. When they fix their house behind the scenes, the public rarely sees it. News of recruitment or development agreements comes from unofficial channels and is often portrayed as the product of a studio just trying things without a coherent mission. In a minute, the director of the next stand-alone Batman film, Matt Reeves, will be suggesting that the film is not set in the cinematic universe. The next day he will say that it is « naturally » part of this universe. There was once talk of a Suicide Squad spinoff called Gotham City Sirens, then there was a report that another movie would replace it, then there was a report that Sirens was still on.

When I ask Johns about the criticism that there doesn’t seem to be a strategy, he shows a rare break from his usual buoyancy. « Some of the things are true and some are not, » he says. « When we’re talking about things or doing business for people to develop scripts or whatever, sometimes things leak; sometimes things are misreported and it’s frustrating. Because we want to go out there and talk about our strategy, and this stuff just clouds the water. There are a lot of internal conversations going on about how we can clean this up a bit. « 

Even so, there’s little evidence that DC’s first post after Justice League, the James Wan-directed Aquaman next year, has gotten into trouble in any way. Even if the league isn’t going quite right, Warner is hoping he’ll come out well with the next installment. Also, according to Nelson, looking at the movies means missing out on the general forward movement DC Entertainment has seen in recent years. « Movies are hugely important, but they’re not everything, » she says. « We want to make sure these stories and characters work everywhere, and I think they have a pretty unprecedented way of doing it, » she says.

She’s not wrong on more than a few points. The stories and characters work very well in comics, games, and on television. And the first movie that DC Entertainment made a significant impact on, Wonder Woman, certainly worked. The question now is about organization and dynamics. Can they clarify their public perception and convince more consumers that they understand what moves the Man of Steel, the Dark Knight and Diana of Themyscira? When promoting Rebirth, Johns was asked what makes the DC characters so special. His answer summed up the challenge his company is facing. “The iconography and the portrayal of the ideals they embody mean so much to people,” he said. « There is a lot of emotional foundation for the characters and the stories. But when it’s not there, you really feel this emptiness. ”

DC Comics, Wonder Woman, DC Universe, Warner Bros. .