Laid-off HBO Max execs confirm WB is ditching wokeness and embracing middle America

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leofan26

Oh is that why they are axing female lead movies yet keeping the flash film even though the lead actor has a questionable History?

No. The Flash cost hundreds of millions more to make and apparently had (honestly surprisingly) good test screenings. Batgirl still had more to shoot, untouched SFX, would cost a lot more money to finish and even more to market and had abysmally bad test screenings.

I hope that clears it up.

What is this middle class America they speak of?

They said middle America, not middle class America. You made that up. As for who it is, it is generally average people not interested in far left propaganda or political virtue signaling in their entertainment.

Firing thousands of employees isn’t helping prove that.

Nobody was fired. Everyone on Batgirl was hired to do a job and were paid accordingly for it. That the movie isn't coming out is irrelevant.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leo656

As for the marketing stuff, I really do despise when these action movies or comic book movies try and pull the "Chicks Rule, Guys Drool!" approach. It never, ever works, and it's because despite the fact that the internet has exposed that there are more women into that stuff than some people think, it's still a VERY tiny fraction of the audience for those products. Very broadly speaking, chicks don't care about action movies or comic books, they watch them to placate their boyfriends but very few actually like them enough to spend money on them or their associated product. It's a "boys space". Frankly, even making a "girl power" action movie at all is a very questionable business decision. The audience for it is SO small that it's hardly even worth attempting, and they always, always fail, for that exact reason. On one hand, the potential audience is so small you can't make profit, AND the marketing and message push all the male fans away as well. It's just a dumb thing to even bother with.

It's like Charlies Angel's. It was a very 'this one's not you for YOU boys' kinda movie. Then it crashed and burned because 'boys' didn't go to see it and there weren't enough women (the attempted target audience mind you) that went to see it. It's stupid. Might as well make some kinda trashy romance movie that's very 'this one's not you YOU ladies' and then wonder why it bombed at the box office because most of the time men don't care for romance movies unless their girlfriends drag them to see it.

The part that make me laugh is when people start with the 'well, how do you even know it's woke, you haven't even seen it yet'. It's because the marketing, the actors and the directors DON'T SHUT THE **** UP ABOUT IT months before release.

Keep telling people this movie is not 'for them' and keep asking yourself why it bombed.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

The part that make me laugh is when people start with the 'well, how do you even know it's woke, you haven't even seen it yet'. It's because the marketing, the actors and the directors DON'T SHUT THE **** UP ABOUT IT months before release.

“The Stand By Me remake is coming to a theater near you…”

“Really?!”

“…and one of the main characters will be played by a black actor while another will be LGBTQ+, adding much-needed inclusivity to a predominantly white classic film…”

“…Really…?”

“…and it will tackle toxic masculinity and white fragility, so if you hate this film then you’re a racist homophobic person and we don’t need your money.”

“…Ok, then. Thanks for the heads-up, I guess.”

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Cowabung-Gal

“The Stand By Me remake is coming to a theater near you…”

“Really?!”

“…and one of the main characters will be played by a black actor while another will be LGBTQ+, adding much-needed inclusivity to a predominantly white classic film…”

“…Really…?”

“…and it will tackle toxic masculinity and white fragility, so if you hate this film then you’re a racist homophobic person and we don’t need your money.”

“…Ok, then. Thanks for the heads-up, I guess.”

*after release*

We don't understand??? Why did no one see the movie?? I mean we put a black person and one of them gays in it and everything!!! Must be all those racist homophobic trolls.

[AquaParade]

Stand By Me is great.

[Leofan26]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

No. The Flash cost hundreds of millions more to make and apparently had (honestly surprisingly) good test screenings. Batgirl still had more to shoot, untouched SFX, would cost a lot more money to finish and even more to market and had abysmally bad test screenings.

I hope that clears it up.



They said middle America, not middle class America. You made that up. As for who it is, it is generally average people not interested in far left propaganda or political virtue signaling in their entertainment.



Nobody was fired. Everyone on Batgirl was hired to do a job and were paid accordingly for it. That the movie isn't coming out is irrelevant.

It’s just weird to get rid of two lead female movies is all, either way it costs them money.

This so called word Woke is confusing as Hell, from what I understand it’s pro woman’s rights, race rights, gay rights? So what now?

FYI Charlie’s Angles was a really old tv show back in the 70s, it’s not just a movie.

Paid still or not they are still getting rid of people’s jobs but at least they get money from the film they worked on.

Mean while, all that hard work for certain movies to not even be seen, what a waste of money over all.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leofan26

It’s just weird to get rid of two lead female movies is all, either way it costs them money.

It is what it is. But no, the idea is to stop the costing of money, stopping the hemorrhaging of wasteful spending on projects that weren't going to succeed and would only hurt the brand.

This so called word Woke is confusing as Hell, from what I understand it’s pro woman’s rights, race rights, gay rights? So what now?

It's not that confusing. "Down with and/or representative of some or all the current LGBTQ/(fill in the blank current leftist cause) stuff" is pretty much what "woke" is right now. Basically.

FYI Charlie’s Angles was a really old tv show back in the 70s, it’s not just a movie.

Are you just throwing that out there for the 0.02% of the people who maybe didn't know that? And for what purpose? Pointing out a show that originated Charlie's Angels that wasn't woke at all, shooting your point in the foot by illustrating how the latest Charlie's Angels movies made itself into something other than it was created to be?

Paid still or not they are still getting rid of people’s jobs but at least they get money from the film they worked on.

So the editor gets paid for 100 days instead of 110 days. The SFX guys (which is an industry with a notorious over-abundance of job opportunities) never got to start work to be able to say they were "fired." These are the only "casualties" here. Wow, so terrible.

Mean while, all that hard work for certain movies to not even be seen, what a waste of money over all.

It wasn't going to earn its money back, so throwing good money after bad money wouldn't have made any fiscal sense. I know the idea of only making movies that stand at least a decent chance if not a good one of making money is a radical one, but there you go.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Galactus

I must admit I'm at a loss at a loss at how bringing Michael Keaton to play his iconic version of Batman was supposed to be woke. Perhaps someone can explain to me because it's not just a stretch but flat out wrong.

I don't recall one person in this thread citing Keaton's Batman as a woke element. I certainly didn't. So where is this nonsense coming from?

The thread is replete with examples but you are still bull$#!((ing your bull$#!( point completely, and now doing it with unrelated information. Are you a sociopath or an embarrassed child for your absolutely out of touch and foolish attempt to be insightful here?

Take the "L" instead of digging in further on nonsense because here and now and in publication of your elements of this thread you sound like a complete and absolute idiot.

Originally Posted by Vegita-San

some people are starting to conflate woke with racists. and the mere mention of the word gets them triggered. 'but, it's people like me!'...reeee

I think that's the irony that most of normal America has the real issue with. "Woke" $#!( was never really about inclusion and seeing "the world outside your window". It was about infiltration and a re-writing of culture to basically put white people down - specifically white males.

It was always disingenuous nonsense, interestingly enough from a generation that hadn't experienced almost any of life let alone all of the "horrific" things from white males they were claiming too. "Woke" is a lie. It's marketing for the peasants to get behind racism against white people, specifically white males. The end.

Anyone who can't admit that at this point is either a coward, an anti-white racists themselves, or a social fool of the highest order.

[Andrew NDB]

It's not that Keaton's Batman's presence is woke at all -- it's not -- it's what the overall move represents and the motivations therein. Along with actually replacing the Cavill Superman with the Hispanic Supergirl, shoving out the Affleck Batman and replacing him with the elderly, mostly retired Keaton Batman -- which is all what was going on -- would mean by default that the only active Bat-person in the DCEU would be black/Hispanic Batgirl. It's pretty blatantly a transactional, "We wanna make Batman into a woman and black... so how about in return for allowing us this bit of equity and fighting on the right side of history, we offer you 30 seconds of Michael Keaton Batman sprinkled over various projects? You like Michael Keaton Batman, right?"

Seems pretty woke to me.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leofan26

This so called word Woke is confusing as Hell, from what I understand it’s pro woman’s rights, race rights, gay rights? So what now?

It's not. It's pretty much sacrifice the story, the characters, literally everything for the sake of putting people of all sorts of different races and whatnot while at the same time making sure to show that women are better than men and all white men are evil or general assholes. And if they're pre-established characters that don't act that way or too many white folks, then MAKE them act woke and replace all the white boys.

It's like that one meme

"With all these POC and trans people, everyone will know we're the most inclusive and diverse company ever!"
"That's cool, what's the movie gonna be about?"
"........ Movie?"

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by Leofan26

This so called word Woke is confusing as Hell, from what I understand it’s pro woman’s rights, race rights, gay rights?

Pro-women’s rights? That’s a joke.

All they’ve ever done for me is give me unlikable, lazily-written Mary Sue’s and traditionally male characters with boobs photoshopped on them (or traditionally female characters with their boobs photoshopped off).

[Leo656]

Meanwhile, here's the thing: Movies like this are a tricky proposition because women - the supposed target audience - don't pay to see these movies. Wonder Woman was the one major exception but you know there were a ton of guys picking up the slack on that one, box office-wise. Birds of Prey didn't make money. Charlie's Angel didn't make money. These "girl power" action movies simply don't sell, because women - predominantly - like "chick flicks". Even if they enjoy the occasional action romp, they watch those movies on cable. The actual audience of women who enthusiastically enjoy comic book action stuff enough to pay for it is NOT large enough to generate significant box office revenue. These are "boys' toys", even when the leading role is a woman.

So you know going in that the audience will be predominantly men, even though it's being marketed as a "chick thing". And only the comic book purists are gonna care enough to pay to see a Batgirl movie. And so what do they do? They race-flip, stick the trans character in there for brownie points, etc. etc., making sure that those comic book purists don't care either, now, because they hate that stuff.

So what they ended up with was a rather expensive movie with no truly passionate audience, outside of a vocal minority who actively wants race-flipped female lead super-hero characters. It was almost guaranteed to make SOME money, but I'm guessing the people who get paid to crunch numbers actually looked at the hard data and said it wasn't worth the risk in the end.

Business is Business.

[CyberCubed]

Weird thing is they should of made more of a push to give Cyborg his own movie before they pissed off the actor so much he didn't want to do it anymore. See, nobody complains Cyborg is black, because Cyborg has always been black. So nobody cares.

John Stewart is black but he is his own character, it's not like they turned Hal Jordan into a black man, they simply made a new Green Lantern from Earth so people accepted it.

[The Deadman]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Go and rewatch Birds of Prey and WW84. And check out any synopsis of Batgirl anywhere and the "important" castings within it. Or WB's plans for not one but two black Superman projects. Big plans to replace -- like literally, their whole history and just swap in -- Henry Cavill Superman with Hispanic Supergirl in the Flash. General plans to replace Batman with an elderly Batman who's basically retired (Keaton), so that Batgirl, Supergirl and presumably one of the two black Supermen can be the face of the DCEU.

Keaton's Batman was never meant to be anyone's replacement, him being in a Flash/Batgirl movie was literally their version of the multiverse.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Weird thing is they should of made more of a push to give Cyborg his own movie before they pissed off the actor so much he didn't want to do it anymore. See, nobody complains Cyborg is black, because Cyborg has always been black. So nobody cares.

John Stewart is black but he is his own character, it's not like they turned Hal Jordan into a black man, they simply made a new Green Lantern from Earth so people accepted it.

I thought Cyborg was one of the coolest characters in that movie. Visually awesome, played well and with a personality that develops over the movie.

And then Ray Fisher opened his mouth in real life with his BS and I went from being possibly interested in a Cyborg movie to never wanting to give that guy a dime through anything he does in the future.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by The Deadman

Keaton's Batman was never meant to be anyone's replacement, him being in a Flash/Batgirl movie was literally their version of the multiverse.

Half-true. Keaton's was definitely supposed to be presented as "The Batman of note" for the next round of things, with his version making cameos in multiple DC movies and basically being the one who tied everything together. Meanwhile Affleck's was to be written out entirely and Pattinson's would be entirely segregated to his own movie universe.

So since Keaton's would be showing up Everywhere and the others would be "locked away" in their own corner, as the original plan went... maybe he wasn't "officially" replacing anyone else but he was definitely meant to be the Batman we were supposed to pay the most attention to and care the most about, whose actions would have the most affect and impact on everything going on.

So yeah, you can say he wasn't "replacing" anyone and it's true in the strictest sense but in a broader sense he actually was.

Originally Posted by IMJ

I thought Cyborg was one of the coolest characters in that movie. Visually awesome, played well and with a personality that develops over the movie.

And then Ray Fisher opened his mouth in real life with his BS and I went from being possibly interested in a Cyborg movie to never wanting to give that guy a dime through anything he does in the future.

I still think the fact that his "BS" was corroborated by multiple other people who actually were there and would know what happened should hold some weight, more than "Well he didn't put himself at legal risk by indulging the idle curiosity of people on the internet who demanded he dish specific dirt", but whatever, I don't wanna open up that whole can of worms again. I get it, "If there's no audio or video tape of Geoff Johns or Joss Whedon calling him a dumb n****r then nothing bad happened at all", that's the story we're supposed to back and the only "proof" anyone will ever accept.

Personally I think it's a lot more complicated than that, but whatever, it's all been said a hundred times and as usual nobody who's made up their mind is ever gonna change it.

[CyberCubed]

Given how much of Cyborg's screentime and story was cut in the Joss Whedon version of the film compared to the Snyder's cut, I'm going to have to side with the actor on this one.