New Gods Movie
 

Ava DuVernay has signed on to helm the New Gods movie

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/av...dc-1202725043/

I like the New Gods but... is this a good idea? They've never been able to even hold down a comic for longer than a year or two, let alone anything else.

As long as Oprah isn't in it I am good. Be cool too see Orion Mr Miracle Big Berda and Granny Goodness

Sure, DC/WB... sure.

I think it's great because it's not only wildly imaginative, but it's quite different, relatively speaking, from other comic book movies we are seeing right now.

I can't comment on the director though, so that, along with DC's track record with films lately, is where my trepidation comes in.

Two things. One, this is probably phase 2 of Geoff Johns' "DC movies can be light! See!" (phase 1 is Shazam). Two, WB saw what happened with WW and now with Black Panther and wants to make a film insulated from criticism by diversity. As things get underway I expect to see lots of behind the scenes things telling us all about how the cast and crew are so diverse and enjoy working together so much.

Maybe a third thing: WB was really, really banking on A Wrinkle being a bona fide hit. Oops.

What is even the point of all these announcements?

At this point, I think WB needs to shut up and not announce a single movie until they're showing trailers. Announce they've signed directors and actors and actresses, but don't say crap about what the movies are. Nerds and critics alike will speculate out the wazoo. Then wow people with trailers.

I think that might help buy back a little positive PR. It sure would from ME, anyway.

After seeing Wrinkle in Time I don't want to see any big budget movie with Ava at the helm. Granted the script was awful so she didn't have much to work with but WiT was a poorly shot movie. Her framing choices in the first act of the movie were awful - every single shot was a close up of someone's face and the editing exacerbated these bad choices.

I know all the reviewers wanted to give Ava the benefit of the doubt with WiT but it was awful and it concerns me that she's involved with another movie of that size again already.

I believe it, when I see it.

I am not familiar with New Gods lore, but it seems something really big and "trippy" for the lack of the best term. Not sure it's what DC needs right now. On the other hand, at this point they might as well try anything. I am pretty sure that they plans to make cinematic universe akin to Marvel one are in shambles anyway.

As for the choice of the director - I don't know. Haven't seen any of her works, but some people are already hyping this movie, as if it was already shot and about to be released on the next week. And some already suspect racism, when people have doubts about this project and a director.

Sadly, I am agree that this might be a possibility.
But on the other hand, it didn't save Wrinkle from being a failure with audience and critics, so no amount of propaganda will help this movie become box office hit, if it is not a good movie.
So, at least there is a silver lining.

Of course, if this project become something more than a "project", since lately WB has a habit of announcing bunch of stuff and then cancel it, en masse.

not going forward it has been cancelled

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...source=twitter

^^^

I don't buy that as a reason at all. We have potentially three different Batmen appearing on the big screen why would it be complicated to have two different Darkseids? It's not like the general audience even checked out the Justice League Snyder cut and even for those that did it would potentially be a good thing to have another movie with the character. Hey were you intrigued by that Thanos-looking dude at the end well here's a movie that explains who that is.

Any chance this is DuVernay's attempt at April Fool's humor?
I mean... I can see it being true, but the timing here....

I think this was always a long shot. The New Gods was always going to be difficult to adapt and I can definitely see WB passing on it is being too difficult.

:roll:

https://www.cbr.com/hbo-max-justice-...ecord-numbers/

I get that you don't like the guy's movies but you don't have to flat-out lie to people in support of your own subjective opinion that they're no good. Going by The Facts it was very clearly not just "diehards" who were watching ZSJL. It outperformed WW84, even. Which most agree was terrible BUT was also very much a movie a lot of people were looking forward to - and yes, that includes a lot of people in "the general audience".
--------

Anyway. The article I read earlier had an altogether different reason for New Gods being cancelled, that being there was too much material for one movie, which makes a lot of sense. But given how uncertain the future for "blockbuster" movies is right now, it unfortunately makes sense that they'd scrap the project entirely rather than retool it as a series. All the announced DC movies they're moving forward with are more stand-alone type of stuff; obviously if they do well there might be sequels, but an entire trilogy of films for something like New Gods is definitely not something WB is in any position to commit to right now.

I don't see a thread for it, but that "The Trench" movie that was gonna be spun off from "Aquaman" was also cancelled. Allegedly, because James Wan was too busy. Real Reason probably being, nobody actually asked for that movie and everyone's already forgotten that they announced it in the first place.

I've got a beautiful 9.6 slab of New Gods #1 too, that was just begging to have the speculators hear movie news!

LOL and that's the thing that's ashame about modern comic collecting. A book like that is a true hobby-wide key, but neo-collector's are not sophisticated at all and don't care about something unless it's going to be on film.

It's twice now you've said that I don't like Zack Snyder movies which isn't true. I keep saying I'm okay with them, they are interesting I just think he was the best choice to direct the DCEU.

I must be behind on comic book movie news as last I heard it hadn't beat Wonder Woman 1984 and just narrowly beat Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Not that it matters, are we really arguing that the casual audience is here for Snyder's Justice League?

Anyway I'd probably agree that the idea of there being too much material there to adapt was probably what put them off even if I don't really agree with that myself.

- I can only work with what you give me, you only ever really talk about his movies in a negative context. I can't read your mind. Regardless of how you really think/feel, you SPEAK as someone who doesn't like his movies because all you do out loud is talk about what you didn't like, so that's what I'm left to assume.

- I'm not "arguing" anything, simply pointing out that you made a statement that the "general audience" didn't watch the movie and that your statement is provably false. Quite a lot of people in the "general audience" watched it. Again, your comment came off as passive-aggressive and I can only work with what you give me. Not "arguing" anything, I just don't like when people make provably-false statements in such an authoritative tone. Call it a "pet peeve".
---------

To topic:

- Too much material for one single movie, sure, definitely. It's a very dense mythology. The fact that it seems like they were sincerely going to try and "cram" it all into one film in the first place just shows me how much WB misses the mark with stuff. In her "sorry it's not happening" post, the scriptwriter name-dropped like a half-dozen characters who all would apparently have been in this, and it just would have been Way Too Much.

One of the biggest criticisms of the DC films has been that they try and do too much at once. I don't necessarily agree, I rather think that their movies simply mimic the comic book method of storytelling where you don't spend a lot of time on preamble, you just throw a bunch of stuff at the audience and fill in the backstory in bits and pieces as you go along. People can agree or disagree about whether that "works" or not for movies as well as it does for comic books, and that's a conversation. My point is, given that it IS something people always whine about with regard to DC movies... yeah, doing Darkseid and Highfather and Orion and Kalibak and Lightray and Metron and Big Barda and Mr. Miracle and Apokolips and New Genesis all in ONE MOVIE - which apparently was the plan - would have been a f*cking disaster.

That's why I didn't have any problem with Zack using Darkseid in his JL movies and then letting the other New Gods stuff be spun out of that, same as they did with Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Once some of the basic character stuff is established you don't need to retread it in the stand-alone movies and can do other things. Having Darkseid and Co. already fairly well-established in JL would have left more room in the New Gods movie to flesh out some of the other characters and concepts. But even then, one movie isn't nearly enough.

For "New Gods" it needs to be a trilogy or nothing. There's just too much going on. Frankly, I'd leave Barda and Miracle as minor characters to be spun off into their own movie, rather than let them take up tons of space in the actual New Gods stuff. Just for starters. I mean, you could easily do an entire film just about the fall of the Old Gods and the rise of the Fourth World.

When I heard they were doing a New Gods movie I kind of assumed it would be a Part 1. If it was literally just going to be a single movie that tried to cover "everything"... yeah, that would never have worked. I don't blame them for walking that back, but I also recognize that there's no way that WB is going to pursue ANYTHING right now, in this economy and uncertain future, that demands the kind of real estate a trilogy or series of films would demand. They want "smaller" stuff like Blue Beetle, where if it does well they can do another one and if it does poorly they can just pretend it didn't happen.

I mean, I definitely want to see it happen. It almost has to eventually, the material is too good to waste. But Covid has unfortunately changed the reality of movies like these for the foreseeable future.

I was interested in seeing Darkseid, and Big Barda and Mister Miracle (if they were going to be part of it... was that ever confirmed?), but that's about it.

Also, Ava DuVernay did "A Wrinkle in Time" which did poorly. But that can't entirely be laid at her feet; it's a weird little book that I despise so I'm gonna be a bit skeptical towards her choices anyway. :tlol:

In her tweet or post or whatever, Ava mentioned "Barda and Scott" among several other characters she'd been writing for the now-cancelled movie, so one can safely assume that they were part of the plan, yes.

Although one could argue that they're a bit too "conventional super-hero" for something like this project. Like out of all the Fourth World characters, Scott and Barda are pretty much just "regular" super-heroes, other than the fact that they're more or less refugees from the Fourth World. Some of their stories would fit more of a "domesticated", sitcom-type feel than anything as "epic" as what New Gods would suggest.

Therefore, I'd have them be in a spin-off that was more of a conventional super-hero movie. They're part of the lore, you can't leave them out. But as far as the actual "saga" of the Fourth World, it's much more about Darkseid, Hightfather, Orion and Kalibak. Even Metron is more important in the big picture than Barda or Mr. Miracle.

Something called "New Gods" and based on the Fourth World mythology should have a huge, gigantic, epic feel to it, like a rock opera in outer space. Everything should be over-the-top bombast dialed up to 11, like the actual Kirby comics were. Smaller characters like Mr. Miracle and Lightray would honestly be more clutter than anything in the initial film. They need to be involved, but again, that's what sequels and (more appropriately) spin-offs are for. If there's one thing Kirby's New Gods stuff was NOT, it was "conventional super-hero fare".

I love that book. I've wanted a true first edition of that book for years. It's right up there with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for me in my book collection, although as an aside - I don't know if you've ever read it, but DADOES is not actually a well written book. I swear it's written as if a ten year old wrote it. Things just.... happen.

AWIT is incredibly well written though.

As for the AWIT movie? I didn't see it. Bimbo Larsen told me it wasn't made for me. So, no ca$h there.

We're still getting the Immortals which is basically the New Gods

Yeah, and "Fighter's History" is "basically" Street Fighter II.

Jack Kirby had to do what he had to do to finish his story
https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/ima...quality=65.jpg

I know people praise Tom King's Mister Miracle book, but the whole thing is framed like he's stranded in an illusion and either has to accept this is one trap he can't escape from, or escapes it by killing himself. Worse, it tries to paint family life and fatherhood as something to be afraid of and to aspire for.

I feel we dodged a bullet with this. King's DC work is divisive at the best of times, his Batman run went from interesting to atrocious, Heroes In Crisis was the last straw for the Dan Didio regime too.

Ava Duvernay is sort of a weirdo and Tom King is a bit of an anomaly. You never know how a comic writer will take to film scripts. He’s also been inconsistent in the comic world as of late.
I think the man is capable of great writing, but his Batman run had me scratching my head most of the time.

That's dumb. They had 3 solid years to move this movie into production and they never did... that has nothing to do with Snyder or the Snyder Cut.

But yes, absolutely a bullet was dodged here. There could be an amazing New Gods movie, but it wouldn't be coming from the hand of Duvernay.

Duvernay kind of confirms that the Snyder Cut of JL killed her movie:

https://www.darkhorizons.com/snyders...ew-gods-scrap/

I mean, on some level that's somewhat unfortunate.

On the other hand, it's pretty much impossible that anyone's take on Darkseid would top what Snyder did and was building towards. I mean, he nailed it. What little we saw of the New Gods in that movie was 1:1 with the comics. If anyone's going to do any New Gods movie at this point, it should 100% be him. He clearly understands how to do those characters and their mythology well, even though he had a very limited canvas on which to do it. I can only imagine what he'd do with a whole movie just to explore that stuff. Because the little bit he did was perfection.

Tough break for her, but that's life.

Also, as others have pointed out, some of her other movies flopped and that probably had a little bit to do with her New Gods movie getting cancelled, too. New Gods would be VERY expensive no matter what and risking all of that with someone who suddenly wasn't a big draw would be a rather questionable decision. I mean that's the exact same reason they pivoted away from Snyder; "These movies are too expensive unless a slam dunk is guaranteed." Based on her track record, she was honestly no "better" a choice than he was, to be perfectly blunt.

I mean, not to be mean but let's just be honest: She only ever got tapped for the gig because she's a female director anyway. Not that she's "bad" - I've never seen any of her work so I can't speak to it - but she got put on New Gods for the same reason the other woman got put on "The Eternals": Because she's a woman, AND a minority, and right now that's super important over all else. She might've done a good job, but she definitely did not get the job because of her resume. Let's not even pretend.

So yeah, kind of a bummer but also, feels like the universe just correcting itself.

I was really looking forward to this one actually.

I like to believe that Duvernay's probably super woke, super racist "New Gods" pitch featured New Gods and Darkseid and all of that bearing little/no resemblance to the comic book ones... and then the Snyder Cut of JL dropped and they went, "Uh oh. Now everybody knows what the real New Gods are like. Damn, we can't release this now."

But I have no idea.

Could very well be that. I have zero idea what experience she has with the material. All I know for a fact is that Lightray would 100% be gay, because... well, c'mon. :lol: I don't think they ever confirmed it in the comics, but Gardner always called him "Swishray" for a reason. :lol:

Which is also the exact kind of joke you'd NEVER see nowadays. Just sayin'.

But yeah, I mean... she's probably alright. Maybe she even knows the characters. But giving such a huge project to an affirmative action hire was always a questionable decision. And seeing the "real" version of Darkseid and Co. in some live-action form probably did screw up whatever she intended to do. Especially since the suits above WB at WarnerMedia still seem to want to leave the door open at least a crack for some Snyder stuff to be brought back in. Perhaps the WarnerMedia people simply liked Snyder's Darkseid better than whatever Ava had pitched, and hope to one day revisit that version.

OR, maybe it was just because "A Wrinkle In Time" tanked and suddenly she was too risky to trust such a big project to.

Could be multiple reasons, and probably are.

I'd love a proper New Gods movie, but the key word being "proper". No "reinvention". Doesn't need it. Just play it straight.

Until that day comes, the best New Gods movie we have remains 1987's "Masters of the Universe".

I mean... that's probably true. But I'll look forward to these projects as always until the first sign of evidence that it's been corrupted by insanity and "inclusion-hate". And then when the pix and trailers and info drops and it's woke $#!(.... THEN, I'm out.

But until then, Duvernay might be talented and have turned out a great flick. Until it's apparent that it's not. You know?

I mean in theory, yeah. We know literally nothing about what her plans were.

I honestly don't think that WB, in its current state, can pull off a New Gods movie. That material is very obtuse, very dense, and not at all "casual-friendly". To pull it off properly, they'd need to really commit, and accept going in that it's not going to pull in Little Timmy and the Soccer Mommies. Even in print, the New Gods were never a huge draw. Darkseid is, which is why he gets used to death. The rest of the DC Kirby stuff... well, it's for hardcores. Almost exclusively so.

Those books were popular and highly-regarded among super-nerds, but they never sold huge numbers. So in turn, expecting a New Gods movie to crack a billion dollars is... well, it's not very likely. Nobody knows those characters, and you can't just circumvent that by making the whole thing a carefree romp like Marvel did with Guardians of the Galaxy. New Gods can't be done that way. It's somber, it's bombastic, it's incredibly self-serious...

Put simply, it's all the kind of stuff only Snyder has really shown any ability (or interest) in exploring. Like seriously, if he ever did a DC movie again, that one is tailor-made for him more than anyone else. Everything New Gods IS, is stuff he's been either lauded or vilified for doing with his other material.

...But it's not the kind of material that's ever gonna crack a billion dollars and it's gonna cost about half that to even make. And I can't see WB either 1. Adapting it properly, knowing that they're going to alienate a lot of people from it by design, which is 100% what would happen, or 2. "Reinventing" it in a more family-friendly way that wouldn't completely tank.

New Gods is risky business. Present-Day WB/DC does not believe in taking risks. Therefore, we probably won't see any New Gods movie for a long time, if ever.

I think Ava Duvernay might have pulled off something interesting visually with the New Gods but the one thing we do know about her plans is she planned on Big Barda to be the focus character with Mister Miracle which is a terrible idea. I imagine that being more Earth-bound she thought they would work better as audience povs but their backstory would be way too much to load in a movie that has to explain an awful lot of core Fourth World mythology. I wouldn't mind them featuring or playing a more prominent role in a sequel or even have a movie of their own but not be the main characters of the first New Gods movie.

I agree that the New Gods is a bit too out there for Warner Bros now. I'm not sure I'd trust WB with it even when their track record was better.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the Barda/Scott stuff. You're right, that's terrible!

I mean, I like Scott and Barda, but they're... periphery. Doing a "New Gods" movie and focusing it on a domestic couple is like bad sitcom premise. It's like f*cking Coneheads; "The nice couple next door are secretly ALIEN SUPER-DEITIES TAKING REFUGE FROM A COSMIC WAR!!! 'Back Home', it's a war for the fate of the universe... but these two would rather just mow the lawn, fire up the grill and sip some nice cold lemonade! DC's New Gods, coming this Summer!"

Yeah, that's dogsh*t. You don't start New Gods with two of the least important characters. You start with Darkseid and Highfather and all'a that sh*t or you don't even bother. It's a tale of fathers and sons and the Son destined to kill the Father and take his place, the death and rebirth of entire universes in a never-ending cosmic cycle.

You don't start that story off with f*cking Space Houdini and his Space Roller-Derby Wife. That's ridiculous. They barely matter! Part of why they're constantly on Earth is because they are ultimately THAT inconsequential to the entire New Gods saga to begin with. Again, I like 'em as characters, but c'mon.

As far as "trust", I would "trust" Zack Snyder to make a movie that was as or more faithful to New Gods canon than his Watchmen movie was to Watchmen. But I would also "trust" that movie to completely alienate most of the critics and mainstream audience and top out at making its budget back, at best. Because the whole thing just won't play to the same audience that likes MCU stuff. No matter who made it - and I do sincerely believe him to be the overall BEST choice - the material is simply too dense by design.

New Gods was not created for casuals, period. It's THE nerdiest of "nerd sh*t" and that is entirely its point. DC should only even ATTEMPT to adapt that stuff, if they're perfectly fine taking a hit on it financially. "We know it won't play to everyone, but we know it'll please the people it was made for and that's fine." That's the only way such a project as New Gods should even be attempted. If they try to make it a theme park ride, it'll be garbage.

They're not there yet. Once in a while, studios will make movies strictly for their intended audience and accept that they might not make money, knowing they'll make it up from some other project. But you don't see that kind of thing often with movies about warring planets and Space Gods that cost five hundred million dollars to film.

I'd trust Snyder to make like a good, big Orion vs. Darkseid movie, with New Gods sprinkled in. Not necessarily a big Jack Kirby's "The New Gods" epic. Unless he just used Jack Kirby comics as storyboards and script the way he did Watchmen.

I'm still not convinced Snyder independently understands story. Give him some great screenwriters and maybe. Visually he'd nail it and make it wow.

Orion vs. Darkseid is the main crux of it all, anyway.

I mean yeah, there's like 80 other "important" characters but their conflict is central to the entire thing. That should be the main focus. It always comes back to them.

Obviously everyone else should be present and "involved". But you have to focus "New Gods" on the prodigal son who is predestined to kill and usurp his father. That's forever been the single most persistent and central theme of the entire thing. Nothing else "really" matters all that much.

Sounds like a potential stone thrown at Snyder, perhaps in favor of people she is close to at WB, because I don't buy that reason.

Or possibly an excuse for a film that just wasn't coming together, in script or concept.

It would appear that so far, most people who've voiced any opinion on the matter do not, in fact, believe her suggestion.

The predominantly expressed opinion thus far is that after her previous movie sank like a brick, WB simply decided that the project was too much of a risk to move forward in its then-current form.

There's things we Know and things we can Suppose. And those things together can tell us a whole lot.

Things We Know:
- "A Wrinkle In Time" lost around one hundred and thirty million dollars.
- People were told they should see it, mostly because "It's the first $100 million+ movie directed by a black woman." What that has to do with the movie being good or not, I'm not sure I comprehend.
- Lots of people who liked the book it was (loosely) based on, hated the movie for its deviations.
- People who never read the book said the movie was very pretty, but sometimes incoherent and sterile.
- Disney hates losing money.
- WB, also, hates losing money.
- And now they see their new diversity hire who's supposed to direct their very expensive New Gods movie just pissed away over $100 million of their main competitor's money.
- Despite every reason anyone gave for not seeing/not liking "A Wrinkle In Time" - and there multiple reasons given - the reason the director and Disney decided to insist upon was, "Y'all just racist."
- She has now twice in a row blamed other people for one of her projects not turning out as planned. First the "racists" who didn't go see "A Wrinkle In Time", and now Zack Snyder and HBO Max.

Things We Can Suppose (based on Things We Know):
- WB decided, based on All That Other Stuff Before, that having this woman direct New Gods was suddenly too large of a risk.
- This woman is persistently full of sh*t. (To be fair, this one should probably be under "Things We Know" but I'm trying to be nice)

Conversely, had Wrinkle in Time done amazing blockbuster numbers... WB would have surely fast-tracked New Gods.