Henry Cavill again out as DCEU's Superman (formerly "exits" then "returns")

[Vegita-San]

batwoman supposedly shelved.

also, is this the only way they think they can make superman 'cool' these days? tired of this goofy look.

[Leo656]

Considering they've been using the "Heat Vision" motif on a fairly regular basis since the late-1980s, the statute of limitations to complain about it has long since expired.

You and MikeandRaph with the whole "I wish it was 1955 again" spiel. Yeesh!

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Leo656

And Superman Returns isn't anywhere near as "bad" as people say it is, and those problems are very tiny unless you NEEDED that movie to be an action movie slugfest rather than a drama. Still holds up for me. I get the complaints but I don't see tham as being all that big a deal, never have.

It's really not as bad as people remember it being. I think the real problems with it were more attuned to Singer's own Freudian psychology and his metro-sexual fantasizing about Superman/Christopher Reeve manifesting as the DNA of the film.

A little more of "Superman II" fan service would've put that one over the top as opposed to the remnants of Singer's sexual frustration as a teenager. But like I said - it's there across the DNA of that movie moreso than anything overt and so on.

[Andrew NDB]

Brian Singer movie, check. Little boy, check.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Brian Singer movie, check. Little boy, check.

Isn't he openly a pedophile?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by mrmaczaps

Isn't he openly a pedophile?

His kind would tell you the correct term is MAP (Minor Attracted Person).

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I'm not a Michael Bay fan, but he does know how to create a spectacle that gets everyone, including women and kids, into the theaters and generate that billion-dollar revenue. I don't especially like that kind of spectacle, BUT in his "defense" he does know how to create "safe" (and more importantly, profitable) movies that make a ton of money even though everyone says they're stupid.

Bya knows how to create spectacle, but otherwise he is VERY dependent on the scriptwriter and on his own he is ready to put to the film even the most retarded **** possible, if it looks pretty. He is not good for coordinating franchise, unless he has some competent writer paired with him.

Originally Posted by Leo656

I think he'd need a rocket up his ass to be half the filmmaker Snyder is, frankly, but the biggest difference is that Bay knows how to lean into the mainstream and Zack has always been outspokenly "F*ck the mainstream." By that logic, someone like a Michael Bay is who WB actually wanted to steer the DC Movies ship. They just maybe didn't understand that that's what they were looking for at the time. In hindsight, though, it's clear that they would have been fine if the movies were "stupid" as long as they made money.

Snyder is a "one trick pony", when it comes to his cinematography. It is creative and cool-looking? Yes. Is he relies on the same stuff over and over? Yes, as well.

Also, his smartness is overrated. Snyder thinks he has some cool ideas, but let's just say, they are neither smart nor original. Even worse their execution leaves a lot to be desired.

[Andrew NDB]

Snyder is great at taking existing iconic comics and bringing those specific visuals, translating them to the screen. That's it. He's not a storyteller, but he's a decent enough visual storyteller... if someone else that is good is writing the story, or the material he is directly adapting is and it happens to be a comic book.

And that's fine! I'd love to see what a Snyder movie would look like with a script from a super talented writer who's able to play to his strengths.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Sumac

Snyder is a "one trick pony", when it comes to his cinematography. It is creative and cool-looking? Yes. Is he relies on the same stuff over and over? Yes, as well.

I'm not sure where you arrive at this. Sincerely. He certainly has his "motifs" but I'd certainly never say that "Sucker Punch" bears any strong visual similarity with BvS, for example. "Man of Steel", in particular, has almost none of the stuff he's most known for; no slow-motion, no "freeze-frame" shots, no "needle drops", none of that. And then there's "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole", which while obviously a completely different beast by way of being a CGI animated film, also has no obvious "Snyder-isms" in it, aside from being a little bit dark and violent for a kids' movie.

For the sake of transparency, the Snyder movies I've seen and base this on are Watchmen, MoS, BvS, Sucker Punch, Legend of the Guardians, and Justice League. I know that not having seen 300 yet makes me some sort of philistine, but I've been busy. I've also not seen his zombie movies yet because I rather don't care about zombie movies, period. In any case, I'm only calling what I've seen.

I don't get this specific claim, is all. If anything, he's like Burton, in that he has certain visual flairs he likes to play with when it suits him. But I can't really buy into the whole "one-trick pony" line when most of his movies only bear a superficial resemblance to each other, appearance-wise. Are there recurring motifs? Yes. Do all the movies look the same? No.

That just sounds like some stuff to say about a guy you personally don't care for, just saying. Each of his movies has plenty of things that make them visually distinct. Which isn't to say that they're all completely dissimilar, either. But to dismiss the amount of variance simply isn't being honest, is all.

To me, a "one-trick pony" describes someone who does the exact same thing all the time with no variation. Perhaps that's pedantic, I don't know.

[Andrew NDB]

I got to kind of agree with Sumac, even if he's a little brutal in the way he says it. 300, for example... I love it! Amazing! But everything is just... basically using the Miller comics as storyboards and casting talented actors who give memorable performances. Plus sending everyone to muscle school (which hey, do it). Plus CGI artists and wardrobe and whatnot. It isn't to say that just anyone is capable of pretty perfectly adapting what is on the page in an exciting way on the screen because they're not... it's just that he seems to need that crutch to make something good.

Now, put Snyder in a room with decades of comics and ask him to plot a road map to follow in film that will be good requiring a lot of original thought to make it work. I don't think he can do that.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I'd love to see what a Snyder movie would look like with a script from a super talented writer who's able to play to his strengths.

Like who? Are you familiar with how Hollywood "scriptwriting" works at the "blockbuster" level? The guy(s) whose name gets put onscreen as the "writer" doesn't actually write the entire story A-to-Z, in case you haven't heard.

For example, Goyer always gets credit/blame for writing Man of Steel, and Chris Terrio gets the same for BvS. Here's the thing, though: Neither guy "wrote" those scripts. Sure, they polished and punched-up a few things and got the final credit. But the fact is, in both cases the "writer" was handed a pre-fabricated script that was spitballed together by WB executives and told "Make something out of This". Sometimes all the "writer" actually "writes" is the dialog. In Terrio's case, he (and Zack) went behind WB's back and excised a ton of truly awful stuff the studio had insisted "had to be in there" - like Superman nuking the terrorists with his heat vision 5 minutes into BvS, which is what the executives wanted. Terrio and Zack made a ton of unsolicited changes to the script without WB approval, figuring that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and that by the time the footage was shot it would be too late to go back. But even within that, they still had to stay mostly within the "guidelines" of what WB demanded they do.

I mean, BvS is FULL of bits from other older, discarded Batman, Superman, and Batman vs. Superman movies that WB had been trying to make for 15 years... are we to believe that Snyder and Terrio just happened to have the exact same ideas in a vacuum when they were "writing" the movie? Of course not, WB said "Do This Stuff, we already had it in the drawer" and on some level the "writers" were in turn forced to accommodate them.

The "writer" of a hundred-million dollar movie is often the least-important and most-ignored guy in the room. So knowing that for a fact, I'm curious as to Who you'd pick to have written Snyder's scripts, and also Why you're convinced it would make any appreciable difference, knowing that the scriptwriter is generally impotent in the grand scheme of things.

I mean, Mario Puzo "wrote" the first Superman movie, yet not one word of what he put on paper actually got into the movie. It's all bookkeeping and marketing stuff. "Blockbuster" movies are "written" by a group of marketing executives and then sent off to someone else for a spit-shine so they can actually give someone a credit because of how the union works. That's All.

Do people actually not know this stuff?

I'd never claim that Goyer or Terrio were necessarily brilliant, but I am saying it's a bit naive to think it makes any supreme difference as to who is listed as the "writer" of ANY movie, at the blockbuster level. Only smaller movies have Actual Scripts written by Actual Writers.

It's just kinda nuts to me that certain individuals get credit/blame for writing certain movies when the truth is it's the studio who "wrote" them. It's standard practice, but only the individual ever gets the blame. That's unfair, in my eyes, given how they're not allowed to "really" write the scripts they get blamed for. It's paint-by-numbers at best, at that level.
--------------

I'll speak to 300 when I finally get around to it. The book didn't grab me so I've never been incredibly excited to see the movie. I'm sure it's fine but I doubt I'll like it as much as some do.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Now, put Snyder in a room with decades of comics and ask him to plot a road map to follow in film that will be good requiring a lot of original thought to make it work. I don't think he can do that.

Again, you're using the mistaken assumption that he "writes" the DC movies instead of just doing polish on a script that a bunch of WB guys in a conference room came up with and told him to work from.

To my knowledge the only movie he wrote on his own was Sucker Punch. Everything else, he did not "write" from scratch even if he got a writers' credit. Writers' credits are for the union. Like producer credits, they're generally fake and only given for legal/marketing purposes.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Leo656

To me, a "one-trick pony" describes someone who does the exact same thing all the time with no variation. Perhaps that's pedantic, I don't know.

Yes, its pedantic - what I mean that in order to enhance his cinematography he uses the same tricks over and over.

Also, most scripts in Hollywood, especially for troubled production like Superman, are going through many hands and some of them end up being alright. I am fairly sure, that Batman and Spider-Man scripts went through many hands, not to mention Batman Begins and OG X-Men.

[Leo656]

Exactly, it's standard practice, that's what I was saying. Every movie has a "Written By" credit but especially with big, expensive blockbusters, it's just mostly a union thing. Most of the "writing" is done around a conference table by people in the marketing department and then handed off to some poor soul to tidy up.

And that's why I just plain think its weird when people get mad at people like Snyder, Goyer and Terrio for choices made in the script. They did very little of the actual writing, at least insofar as Events and Structure. Their job was mostly dialog and trimming fat. It's easy to blame the guy whose name is on the sticker, but it's also easy to read about how movies actually get made and realize that little "Written By..." credit doesn't tell anywhere close to the whole story.

My rule of thumb is always, "When in doubt, just blame WB." More often than not it works out.

[IMJ]

If you are well versed in comic books and artists then you can liken a lot of these directors to that. Some guys just have a different artistry that sets them apart.

Todd McFarlane draws these amazing images of over the top angles and sort of these caricatures that make something pleasantly extreme. Zach Snyder does his version of this on film.

Steven Spielberg has this rock solid style that you know immediately is a "Spielberg" movie, but it's not as extreme as Snyder's stuff. Spielberg is your Jim Lee kind of artist - enough style and showmanship but very proper construction.

And then you know, you've got "random artist guy" who draws nice comics and gets them done. Just like "random director guy" who pounds out a movie without a real signature to it.

The point here is to defend or attack that "Snyder isn't the McFarlane of film". The comparison doesn't matter as much as the concept that illustrates what you are looking at when you watch these guy's movies. Michael Bay would be another "rock star comic artist". He's got a signature film cadence that works for better or for worse, but you know it's him. Like Rob Liefeld drawing X-Force.

[ZariusTwo]

Word is Henry's close to landing a deal to be the MCU Reed Richards

https://www.koimoi.com/hollywood-new...ipated-biggie/

[Leo656]

On one hand, it would be a cute middle-finger to WB.

On the other hand, the Fantastic 4 are terrible and going from playing Superman to playing Reed Richards is like going from King to Court Jester.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Word is Henry's close to landing a deal to be the MCU Reed Richards

https://www.koimoi.com/hollywood-new...ipated-biggie/

The source is Giant Freaking Robot, so it's FAKE. They're just the same as "We Got This Covered."

And if Reed isn't revealed as Krasinski, what exactly did Dr. Strange 2 give us? Beyond Captain Two Moms, that is?

[IMJ]

Cavill as Richards would be terrible casting.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Cavill as Richards would be terrible casting.

There's that, too.

[AquaParade]

Yeah, obviously fake given the source and probably not the best idea, but I do wonder who Cavill could play in the MCU.

People say "The Sentry", but that's just because they see him as a Superman analogue.

They should cast him as Professor X, so I can laugh my balls off.


But seriously, how about Cavill as Dr Doom? Do you think he could pull it off?

I think he’d only accept something high-profile, so probably no “Beast” for Henry.