How would you have handled DCEU?

[Clone]

The topic of what went wrong with DCEU has been discussed pretty often. The consensus seems to be that it's too dark/edgy, has bad script/casting, etc.

With all that said, I wanted to get your thoughts on the specifics. How would you have done it? What characters would you have started with? How would you have build up to a Justice League movie? What kind of tone would your version have? Feel free to bring up ideas to questions I didn't ask too.

Edit: this thread is not about what you would have done with the current movies, but how you would have done it from step one. Who's gonna be in the first movie and who's he gonna fight? How are you going to build it to a Justice League movie and we are they gonna fight?

[Independent voter]

Whatever they did with The Dark Knight.

[yetgdhfgh]

Whatever they did with The Dark Knight.

In other words just give it back to Christopher Nolan!

[Realitytrembles]

Honestly don't mind the grimdark of it. It makes Superman even more special as someone who kind of stands out. I've liked all the DCEU movies.

And of course grimdark is what you want for Batman.

Man of Steel was f'ing amazing, imo. Not a popular one I know, but there it is. My favorite line: "Where did you train? ON A FARM?"

Just my 2 cents.

The few changes I would have made: B vs S had kind of a stupid title. I would have just called it JUSTICE, and had the combined logo behind it.

No changes to SS. Great film.

WW: Cheetah foreshadowing in a post-credit scene

JL: GL foreshadowing in a post-credit scene

[Hadriker]

For one. I would not have been in such a hurry to get the Justice League together. The major players should have had their own movies at first (at minimum the trinity should have. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) Avengers worked becasue we knew the majority of the characters through their solo projects beforehand.

They blew their load on doomsday/death of superman too early. That deserves its own movie. The relationship between Supes, Batman, and the others needed to be built up much more before that happened. It felt so cheap in BvS.

Basically if they had taken their time instead of rushing to catch up with Marvel i think things would have been a lot better. Now they've backed just about backed themselves into a corner. It is going to be tough to win back the trust of the movie goer.


The first time Batman and Superman appeared on the big screen together should have been an event. Comic book nerds, including me, had been waiting a long time for that. Its something that should have been built up to and done with care. Instead we got a rushed barely coherent storyline that thrusts them together and pulls them apart just as quickly as it started.

[Lanrefni]

I'd have put Bruce Timm in charge and given him absolute freedom to hire whatever writers and actors he deemed necessary.

[Skulltaker]

Make not of homever was responsible for the editing in BvS and Justice League, travel back in time, administer death by angry possum stuffed in pants, make sure the director has a say in what scenes stay in the movie, and done.

[Sanguinerd]

I would've delayed Justice League and let Zack Snyder finish what he started.

Despite it flaws I really enjoyed MoS and BvS and would've loved to see more that.

[jellmoo]

Three simple rules:

1) Fuck origin stories.
2) The glue that holds the universe together is the combo of Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.
3) Each hero has a unique theme: Batman is desperate. Wonder Woman is pragmatic. Superman is aspirational. Their films follow that.

Build up those three first. That's your foundation. I'd love to see Batman face one bad night, a la Die Hard or Dredd. I'd love to see All Star Superman on the big screen. Be true to the characters.

[ZazuuPriest]

The DCEU is trash and its doomed to fail. Christopher Nolan is garbo and his over exposing every fucking thing on screen is almost as bad as a jj abrams lens flare. Their biggest mistake was separating their tv shows from the movie universe. basically theyre trying to do the exact same thing as Marvel but in the exact opposite way and to top it off theyre late to the party.

[Chinese Bootlickers]

Just stop and stick to comics and animation.

[Adam Jensen]

1. Spend more time with the characters. We had a shit ton of movies before Avengers started putting everyone together. I think every superhero, except Hawkeye and Black Widow, had his/her own movie before showing up in an Avenger's movie.
2. Less repetitive special effects. Man of Steel was: Supes piledrives Zod into a building. Now Zod is piledriving Supes into a building. Now Supes is piledriving Zod into a building
3. Better casting. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex and Jared Leto as Joker was baaaaaaaaaaaad
4. Better writing. Oh, Batman and Superman are going to stop fighting each other because they both have mother's (well, step mom for Supes) named Martha? Give me a break.

[Faroth]

Outside of agreeing with having Bruce Timm & Paul Dini be the Kevin Feige of the DCEU....

Man of Steel:
I would have only changed the final battle to show Clark trying to save people that were put in danger, but every time he does, Zod just beats him down. Like really hammers him. So then when Clark tries to focus on fighting Zod, we actually see Clark recognize the danger and even injuries or deaths being caused by fighting Zod directly. An attempt to lead Zod out of the city just sees Zod turn his attention towards civilians. There should have been a building tension through the whole fight that there was no way to win so the final neck snap had more of a desperate resolution to a no win scenario.

Man of Steel 2 should have gotten a greenlight and explored some of the themes BvS introduced. Do people trust Superman, what if he went bad, how do we know he's on our side, some of the themes from Superman Peace on Earth would have been good (god like powers still can't solve the world's problems)

Batman solo film - establish this Batman and give more time to see how Superman's arrival has affected his perspective.

Batman v Superman - If they really wanted to utilize this, the MoS 2 and Batman solo films would serve better as the build up and lead in. I think that would have streamlined things for the film a bit. Give more time to make Doomsday look more like Doomsday and less like a LotR cave troll.

Wonder Woman - some tweaking on the final battle.

Justice League - Wonder Woman should have been the focal point of gathering the League. Batman supplying intel and where to find them, but not doing the recruiting himself. Bruce should definitely have never revealed himself to Flash up front. It just doesn't fit with Batman to do that without knowing the kid whatsoever. More time to polish the CG and tighten up the script. Better use of Flash and Aquaman for proper comedic relief without everyone taking their shot at a quip here and there.

Suicide Squad - I'd just scrap that entirely and look for a different angle to introduce them. Fire the costume/make up designer for Joker before they even start.



Now if you want to go totally from scratch?

You still need a guy like Kevin Feige that has a big picture view, but go a different route than Marvel did. Chart a course for a Sueprman franchise, Batman franchise, Wonder Woman franchise and then give Aquaman and Flash their movies with all of these having small Easter Eggs that establish they're the same world. Lexcorp in Gotham, Wayne Enterprises in Wonder Woman's film, etc.

Introduce some plot threads that are little more than throw away lines that will allow you to tie everyone in for Justice League to deal with large threats, but otherwise let each of the characters mainly stick to their franchise instead of the interconnected everything. Batman can almost exist solely on his own, he rarely leaves Gotham to deal with things in other cities, so having him only assist in Justice League is fine.

You could do a trilogy of WW and Superman before doing a WW/Superman team up film. Same if you wanted to build up and then do Batman/Superman team up.

Basically, I would have established the DCEU as a world of franchise silos that cross over less frequently than the MCU does. There's enough to be clear that they're all in the same world without them popping up in other films too often.

[Jotaux]

I'd have put Bruce Timm in charge and given him absolute freedom to hire whatever writers and actors he deemed necessary.

I actually really enjoyed the Justice League origin 3 part pilot/movie Bruce Timm did way back in the day.

[bluenote13]

Honestly don't mind the grimdark of it. It makes Superman even more special as someone who kind of stands out. I've liked all the DCEU movies.

And of course grimdark is what you want for Batman.

Man of Steel was f'ing amazing, imo. Not a popular one I know, but there it is. My favorite line: "Where did you train? ON A FARM?"

Just my 2 cents.

The few changes I would have made: B vs S had kind of a stupid title. I would have just called it JUSTICE, and had the combined logo behind it.

No changes to SS. Great film.

WW: Cheetah foreshadowing in a post-credit scene

JL: GL foreshadowing in a post-credit scene

Man, you lost me with the "No changes to SS. Great film" comment. If you think SS was a 'great film' I don't know how to help you. The casting was awful. The plot was worse. And, if possible, the execution of the film was the worst part.

[Faroth]

Man, you lost me with the "No changes to SS. Great film" comment. If you think SS was a 'great film' I don't know how to help you. The casting was awful. The plot was worse. And, if possible, the execution of the film was the worst part.

What if the next Superman turns out to be a villain? We need a team to combat that.
>includes a woman with no powers and a baseball bat

I mean, I'm okay with them using the anti-Superman preparation as a lie to justify the squad, then using them for wet work black ops type stuff, but that lie would be really flimsy under any oversight considering your team has next to no powers. Slipknot, Boomerang, Harley, arguably Deadshot, and Croc are practically no-powers and you're building a team to deal with potential Superman level threats? Heck, Katana qualifies on this level as well.

Brilliant!

[Clone]

What about the specifics though? Who's gonna be in the first movie and who's he gonna fight? How are you going to build it to a Justice League movie and we are they gonna fight?

[SL1200]

I would have gotten out of the way of the creative type people I hired to make the thing to begin with.

[unbound]

The topic of what went wrong with DCEU has been discussed pretty often. The consensus seems to be that it's too dark/edgy, has bad script/casting, etc.

lol

Too dark / edgy was argued by a few idiots and was taken up by DCEU die-hard fans as evidence that people only like happy touchy feely stuff (an argument which Avengers Infinity War neatly obliterated). I absolutely love dark / edgy stuff...but I only love it when it is done well.

The reality is that most of the DCEU movies are simply poorly written. Zack Snyder is great at visuals, so he can translate well written material and make it look good, but when he gets involved too much into the scripting...it becomes garbage.

The whole "Martha" scene in Batman vs Superman is emblematic of the problems. Not only was the line incredibly bad, but from a story perspective, it was utterly stupid...Batman is simply going to stop because of that? The actual fight between the 2 was something like only 5 minutes which is what many people really wanted to see anyways. Even with the enhanced release, Lex Luthor is just a muddled mess.

The rest of the movies since (and including) Man of Steel are much the same way. Perfectly fine as eye candy, but devoid of a consistent story and chock-full of horribly cheesy lines being spoken earnestly.

Wonder Woman was great (at least until the final act), and it is looking like maybe Aquaman may be pretty good too. Perhaps with Zack Snyder out of the picture, they can focus on making good movies again.

[Nurvus]

DCEU has 4 huge problems:
1 - Story arc.
We get decent attempts at telling and re-telling "origin" and "beginning" stories, but that's it.
Batman Trilogy was the only one that got a semblance of a story arc, but it was largely inconsequential - they still felt like 3 different "origin" movies.
2 - Coherence/Writing
Batman doesn't feel like the smartest detective. When he almost does, he will do something stupid a moment later.
Superman never learns from his mistakes. He always falls for the same shit, even with all his augmented senses and insane reflexes.
Flash barely does better than Superman in that regard, specially considering he's supposed to be essentially a genius.

And what worries me is that I don't think the writers know how to do any better.
They don't know what to do with superman beyond a "beginning" movie.
They don't know how to make a batman movie that properly showcases batman rather than his toys or his background.

3 - Relevance/Writing
DC characters are ridiculously unbalanced, so whenever a movie tries to combine them, it requires obnoxious plot devices to try and make everyone look useful, and the writers are doing a particularly abysmal job at achieving that.
4 - Misplaced Comedy
DC is a darker universe than Marvel.
Trying to clone Guardians of the Galaxy/Thor Ragnarok with retarded jokes one after another just ruins the entire vibe.
For me this was the at the core of Batman vs Superman and Justice League failure.

Aquaman manages to do it fairly well, but would have been better without.