DC cancels Ava DuVernay's New Gods, which sucks, and The Trench, which probably would have
Film Features The Trench
Some real Good News, Bad News in the world of superhero movie-making today, as Variety reports on two big cancellations from WarnerMedia and DC Films’ upcoming schedules: Ava DuVernay’s New Gods, a highly anticipated exploration of the existential strangeness of Jack Kirby’s venerable Fourth World blend of mythology and comics, and The Trench, a movie about a bunch of CGI monsters you probably don’t remember from a five-minute segment of Aquaman. One of these films will be mourned for the loss of the ambition, potential, and imagination that was poured into it by one of Hollywood’s most exciting filmmakers; the other was The Trench.
DuVernay addressed the news on Twitter earlier today. (That is, the New Gods news; she didn’t step in to issue a statement on behalf of The Trench.) Noting that she was “upset” that the saga of many of Kirby’s iconic characters “ends this way,” DuVernay praised co-writer Tom King for his work on their collaboration. (King responded in kind, while also teasing fans about a scene between Mr. Miracle and former Darkseid soldier Big Barda that we’ll now, sadly, never get to see.)
The cancellation of New Gods comes at a typically confused time for DC’s ever-befuddled superhero franchise. The profile of chief villain Darkseid has never really been higher, courtesy of the hype surrounding Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and yet DC and Warner seem dedicated to pulling back from whatever fan enthusiasm that bizarre exercise in consumer engagement might have bought them. Really, though, it’s just disappointing: DuVernay is an ambitious filmmaker, and the thought of what she could have done with the elemental concepts Kirby played with in his Fourth World books—simultaneously mythic and very human—could have been something special. (Kirby fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed that Marvel’s Eternals turns out okay.)
Meanwhile, The Trench remains the single weirdest pitch we’ve ever heard of for a superhero spin-off film: Take a group of anonymous, personality-free monsters from a vaguely horror-ish action sequence in an otherwise lighthearted superhero flick, and then try to build an entire movie around them. Despite the attachment of Aquaman director James Wan, it’s the sort of thing that’s more fun to speculate the existence of than it would be to actually watch: Did some DC Films executive just really like the look of those particular fish monsters? Did Joker convince the whole studio that any movie about any villain might do well? Did someone come up with the name, and then try to reverse engineer a film into existence? It’s totally bizarre, and now, apparently, totally canceled.
As is, DC Films’ next big release is James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, set for an August release. The next one won’t arrive until Black Adam hits theaters in mid-2022.
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Hardly a surprise in the case of New Gods, which was dead in the water the moment A Wrinkle in Time tanked
That doesn’t really track. A Wrinkle in Time came out March 2018; a week after it came out (when it was already tracking to do poorly), they announced DuVernay was directing New Gods. A year later, they announced King was writing it. For “because AWIT tanked” to be the reason they’re pulling it now, 3 years later, seems unlikely.
Was that really 2018? Feels like ages ago. Man, pandemic really fucking with our timeline.
Keep in mind to announce DuVernay a week later, discussions had been going on for at least months before. Everyone thought A Wrinkle in Time was going to wreck the box office and it didn’t. They waited a week because they hoped that opening weekend would improve by the next and when it didn’t just moved ahead because everything was already in place anyway.Consider how badly she directed A Wrinkle in Time (its obvious VFX and green screen confounded her directing style), something like nearly 100% green screen New Gods was going to disaster as she did nothing in the last three years to gain experience in the VFX filming arena. I would love to see what pre-production work was put together. I suspect the stills were a series of close-ups and simple 4 wall sets so she could avoid as much green screen as possible.
Maybe someone figured they could just string the project along for a while and eventually find some reason to bury it, or hoped it would end up being someone else’s problem to deal with.
Yeah, although it is kind one of those sad examples about how the big challenge for female directors is getting another chance after a failure.Still, it was somewhat odd to read the praise about al the things that DuVernay could have done as a filmmaker as we already had an example how that vision had worked on the big screen. Doesn’t mean it could have been better, though, but not really that excited after it.Writing now, I do wonder if another components was the Eternals movie coming out and being a similar concept?
I think you nailed the reason with your last question. If true, DC is admitting what many already know. MCU is better at story telling, and movie making.
I was very excited to see my two favorite Kirby comics being adapted. I love Eternals, but I was way more excited for New Gods. Orion and Mr. Miracle are my favorite super heroes.
I’m not sure. She’s still very high profile. And that style of too-muchness from Wrinkle might’ve worked for a superhero movie, if she chose to stick with it.
WB needs to get its shit together badly. Quit trying to pretend they are not following Marvel’s method and just follow the Marvel method. They need to hire a “Kevin Feige” who actually likes comics, familiar with them but has wisdom on when to trust his writers/directors, what to change and what not to change. More importantly this person needs to report directly to the WB CEO, no middle-men executives. The probably dozen or so execs vying for credit on success (but avoiding blame for failure) just creates to many cooks situation.As for the cancellations – they were wise. DC cinematic universe has done a shit job of laying the groundwork and trust that takes going into something as strange as The New Gods. The only reason Marvel can do their version of them (The Eternals) is because of a decade of trust they have instilled in their audience to give it a go. Besides even The New Gods comics have been consistent failures for the last 30 years so the odds of a movie succeeding were frankly shit.Also the simple fact is Ava DuVernay was a bad choice as director for this type of film. A Wrinkle in Time was an absolute mess and it was most obvious in scenes that clearly required a great deal of green screen (her use of bizarre closeups was her attempt to mitigate it). It was also clear she didn’t figure it even by production end. Nothing wrong with that, many directors just can’t handle green screen heavy films, they know it and they avoid them. Something like The New Gods would have been practically nothing but green screen. Its just beyond her current skill set. Her best work requires real sets, with real practical effects and all that. Leaning to strengths and using time and developed experience to overcome weaknesses is just smart. Give her a Star Wars TV show eps or movie so can build her experience but 0 to 100 that was The New Gods was doomed to fail from the jump. I suspect as pre-production evolved WB execs finally saw she hadn’t learned from Wrinkle, knew if they replaced her it would cause a shit storm and so better to cancel.As for The Trench, even at the time people were like “wth?”. They just used this as a chance to undo that “OMG Aquaman did great!?!” off the cuff decision.
“They need to hire a “Kevin Feige” who actually likes comics, familiar
with them” That was Geoff Johns, I wonder what it didn’t work.
“but has wisdom on when to trust his writers/directors, what to
change and what not to change”Oh, OK. That figures.
Geoff Johns didn’t report to the CEO. He still reported through a heap of WB executives all of who had to put their fingerprints on the movie. If ever read Johns comics, you would know that the dark gritty approach of Snyder was not his jam in the least which shows exactly how much sway he didn’t have on the movies. A better approximation of his comics approach is Shazam and Stargirl.
They will be and his name is Zach Snyder. Also I think co head Jim Lee
Counter point on New Gods…Marvel was questioned about launching Guardians, which was fairly early in the Marvel era. If New Gods was a good movie, I think it would have sold. Otherwise agree with most of your points.
Honestly, I thought the spectacle was the weakest part of Wrinkle in Time. She handled the emotional scenes between characters really well, but anytime it switched to big CGI gestures, it felt kind of unsteady and boring. Though maybe she would have done better after that practice run.
“New Gods, which would have been a sprawling tale, was complicated by the fact that its villain, Darkseid, just appeared as a major foil in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and there was a desire to have space between the latter and any new appearances.”Lmao they really killed DuVernay’s movie because it messed with Zack’s headcanon
It’s also hilarious how ZSJL kind of makes Darkseid kind of weak. He got his ass kicked by Amazonians and can’t remember which planet he got defeated on. How the fuck is he that big a threat when some no-name Amazonians easily beat him?It’s also ironic they announced this just as Disney is getting ready to release Eternals, the rip-off of The Fourth World that Jack Kirby made because he wanted to write more about the New Gods when he came back to Marvel in the 70’s.
I remember when reviews of the Snyder Cut came out, and people said Steppenwolf looked so weak in the original movie. But in the theatrical cut, Steppenwolf was just a general who got overwhelmed by massive forces and had to be forcefully pulled back, whereas Darkseid got his ass kicked and would have died if not for his troops rescuing him. Tangent, but that battle also had Green Lantern in the theatrical cut fight well and use constructs, while Zack’s GL was pathetic and only used generic laser beams.
Snyder turned the ultimate evil of the DCU into the drunken asshole who gets the shit kicked out of him in a Denny’s parking lot.
I’m saving a snapshot of this comment for future DCEU use.
The only New Gods stuff I’ve read was Mr. Miracle, and Darkseid gets his ass kicked in that universe too.
God that was pissing me off so much! How the fuck do you forget the one planet that you failed on? That has the one thing you want?
Plus Snyder managed to not get a character again in Darkseid. Yes he’s a huge dude with super strength and a giant build but he also has nearly undodgeable eye lasers that he isn’t afraid to use. He was so busy cribing story ideas from Injustice, he couldn’t be bother to see what Darkseid would really fight like. A dude at parade rest kicking you ass with his eye lasers.
He didn’t use the Omega lasers yet because he didn’t have Omega Sanction during that battle, he was still Uxas. In the future vision Cyborg had, Darkseid did use the Omega lasers.
Darkseid wasn’t Darkseid yet in that battle, he was Uxas(no Omega Sanction, no armor) and he went up against Olympian gods. As I said, your very heavy bias is showing when you chose to omit the fact that it wasn’t some “no name Amazonians” that beat him, but Olympian gods.
I still stand on the fact it kind of takes the menace out of Darksied seeing him get his ass kicked and than forgot where he got said ass kicked. You’d think he’d remember something like that…That’s just my opinion, which is supposed to be biased.
The whole plot with them not knowing the planet and/or being surprised to find out it’s the same place was bothering me too. But the fact that you leave out facts when saying “Darkseid got his ass kicked” is you, well, leaving out facts to fit your narrative.Opinions are fine when they’re based on the whole fact. Not when you cherry-pick them. Then you’d be no different than those Q nuts.
That was my bad. I misremembered that part.
Yeah, I thought the defeat of Darkseid worked fine, though it was visually and thematically a little too close to the opening of Fellowship of the Ring for me. But I did not understand how DS just forgot which planet he was defeated on. Why not just have it be, it was there the whole time and he didn’t realize?
He wasn’t Darkseid yet but yea how new god film would have informed WHY he got his ass kicked. Notice he didn’t have omega beams the first time. Hope that helps.
Which is sad, seeing as this deprives us of a cinematic version of the characters that doesn’t suck.
The New Gods’ appearance in ZSJL was pretty received though. It’s also basically all the promotion those characters received in the movies. Sounds more like WB throwing out the baby with the bathwater: they don’t want Snyder anymore, so they’re getting rid of anything even remotely related to it.
…
“More like Darkseid isn’t, amirite?”
I just chalk it up as Ava’s long over due punishment for unleashing A Wrinkle In Time upon the masses.
White male fillmmakers have made worse and done worse, and still have a career. A Wrinke In Time might be the result of Disney meddling for all we know.
That makes no sense based on what they said. WB said Zack’s DC movies are over. In other words, if it messed with the Snyder movie continuity, it would not be cancelled.
I just want to take the time to mention this little quote from the Hollywood Reporter article covering this (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ava-duvernays-new-gods-james-wans-the-trench-dc-movies-not-moving-forward-at-warner-bros):New Gods, which would have been a sprawling tale, was complicated by the fact that its villain, Darkseid, just appeared as a major foil in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and there was a desire to have space between the latter and any new appearances.So AT&T decided to fuck over a movie directed by a black woman to instead dump $70 Million on a white director’s vanity project that only barely beat out the Premiere of Falcon and the Winter Soldier in terms of viewership, 2/3 of whom never even finished it because a bunch of assholes on Twitter harassed them into making it…
So by these numbers (which seem low), only something like ~1M households worldwide finished the Snyder cut? That’s like spending $70/household plus marketing for his vanity project.
This also doesn’t account for the number of people who “finished” the movie in that they fell asleep while it was running.
To be fair, the fact that they haven’t made a big PR push for the movie with its viewership numbers says a lot about how low it was.
To be fair, her New Gods would have sucked.
How much space do they need? New Gods had not even started shooting yet and would have had a long post-production period for VFX, plus it would have to wait for all the other previously delayed movies to come out. It would have been easily another 2 years til it was released, the only way people will still be thinking about the Snyder Cut then is if DC decides to actually keep going with that version of the DCEU.
This is just a bullshit excuse.
The Snyder cut performed a lot poorer than they wanted, so they’re scrapping every borderline project they still had not really started to invest heavily on.
Sucks for New Gods, but I’m not really surprised. As for the Trench, fuckin lol I can’t believe it took this long.
There is a joke about The Flash movie in here somewhere.
I’m legit surprised it beat F&WS. Like seriously. Good for you, Zack! Ya did it!
Yeah, the movie featuring a bunch of A-List superheroes fighting an A-List supervillain in an epic crossover got 100,000 more views than first episode of a show about two B-List Superheroes!
Isn’t it a bit generous to refer to Steppenwolf as an A-list supervillain? If it was Darkseid, then sure. Even Desaad could fit in the category.But Steppenwolf?And that’s before you test market with J’onn Q. Public, whose knowledge of DC supervillains is probably limited to “whoever Batman is fighting” and Luthor.
What does “finished” the movie mean in this context? Including credits? Finished in one viewing? How long can you pause before it’s counted as not finishing?
I saw that, but it doesn’t really address what finished means. It also illustrates the problem with this metric – the average UK household spent longer than the length of the movie watching it over the last 7 days. Does that means lots of people watched it twice? Multiple people in the same household?I don’t know the answers to these questions, and if there are answers then maybe this information if more useful than I’m giving it credit for, but to me it seems like a not very useful gauge of engagement to look at ‘finishing’ the film without more information about what that means.
Fuck. They refuse to acknowledge Snyder so hard they willingly screw over other filmmakers who don’t have a problem with him. And of course, the POCs are the first on the chopping block. And people wonder why Ray Fisher have issues with WB.
Given how much Snyder gave room to Fisher when making JL, I’m not surprised if some WB executive calls him “Zack The [N-word]” in private (and of course they would just straight up call Fisher the n-word).
IMO the dumb part of the logic is not using Darkseid twice. How does that make any sense? They are still using Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad despite the first SS being a dumpster fire. They’re still using a lot of the cast from Justice League.Just typical idiotic studio thinking.
that’s because it ain’t the real reason. They’re scrapping those project because the snyder cut didn’t perform nearly as well as they wanted.
And ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s numbers have a chance to build. I wonder how many people are waiting for the whole series to come out so they can binge it?
I am.
I sub to D+ about a month per year. When F&WS is done, I’m gonna sub and watch mandoS2, Wandavision and F&WS. Miiiight wait on Loki too, idk yet. Or sub twice, we’ll see.
But yeah D+ doesn’t ahve enough stuff to justify continuous sub for me.
that’s what I did with WandaVision.
Laserface, you’re doing that thing again. You’re letting your bias shows too much. Even Ava said she had no problems with Snyder’s Darkseid. You’re also cherry-picking streaming figures from the one service and tweet that happens to fit your narrative, ignoring that Snyder Cut did really well on Asian and South American countries.Honestly, I know you can be a very reasonable person most of the times. But when it comes to Snyder, you’ve always had an irrational victim complex against him.
I’m not blaming Snyder, I’m blaming AT&T for giving Snyder, a director with a niche following at best and whose films under their banner had diminishing returns, $70 Million and total creative control rather than focus on films that would potentially have a more broader appeal. And, here’s an important fact: If this was successful, they would have announced a follow up movie in the Snyderverse. But they’re not. The best you can say that, while it was profitable, it wasn’t making enough money to meet there expectations.Your biases are also showing. I know you liked the movie, but Snyder’s movies are cult status at best. WB wants movies that can appeal to a broader audience.
I wouldn’t argue with IrvingLee. Its not worth your time. He will accuse you of gaslighting him.
Snyder’s movies are cult status at best
Man of Steel made about $700 million and Batman v Superman made about $800 million, with a combined total of about $1.5 billion for two movies. That might be disappointing compared to their budgets (MoS was considered a success and BvS a disappointment, though both made money) or compared to Marvel, but it’s still well beyond “cult status at best.”Though, yes, the Snyder Cut was always going to be a cult object, regardless of its what merits it might have. An alternate cut of a movie from four years ago was never going to drive loads traffic to a streaming service without much else on it, which is why it beating Falcon and the Winter Soldier in any capacity came as a surprise: that’s brand new Marvel content.I also detect a whole load of bullshit with the “we can’t release something with Darkseid so soon after the Snyder cut” excuse. WB can and is releasing new Batman material with a different actor, and currently has a Flash TV show with a different actor while simultaneously developing a new Flash movie with the Snyderverse actor. They released a Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie in between two Leto Jokers. This just reeks of them wanting to cancel it and looking for the nearest excuse to do so.
Okay dude I’m so sorry you’re upset that a woman who had a subpar film last go around won’t be making New Gods. Snyder isn’t a vanity person. In fact if you ACTUALLY WATCHED HIS JL you’d notice his film was all about everyone(white, female, black, asian, and on and on). Second the samba numbers are VERY small look at the real numbers. EVERYONE is foolishly thinking you judge this films impact based on how much it is streamed. That is the incorrect metric to judge this on now. These companies don’t give a fuck about streaming. They care about ONE and ONLY ONE thing. Can you guess. It’s new subscribers. AT&T will be blasting this news in a few weeks cause their earnings call will be happening but word has been put out that the Hamada or Toby Emmerich group have been trying to sit on the numbers and even push this false narrative about the samba numbers. My tv doesn’t have samba neither do most my other friends. So their “numbers” aren’t as accurate as whoever pushed that narrative, Hamada, thinks it is. Hamada and Sarnoff are in deep shit now too because if AT&T is doing their job then what will happen is they are going to fire Hamada and Sarnoff. As for who head DC films I suspect it will be a co-head kind of thing with Snyder being the Feige type while Jim Lee helps with all the stories and make sure they connect and don’t step on each other. So I know this little part of the internet despises Snyder, I still haven’t been told why on that one, but it looks like the genius that is Snyderverse is happening and may even be happening in theaters as well. Thank the New Gods. I’m sad DuVernay is not doing a new gods film or the one she was writing but wouldn’t be shocked if Zach brings her back to do one that is rewritten with Jim and everyone and it fits the narrative that’s already been established with ZS JL. Not a vanity play. This film is superior and the story is brilliant and every night I go to sleep watching. It sucks you and others don’t like it but I didn’t like Harley Quinn but you guys did. So oh well. Sorry you’re upset.
The Snyder Cut was announced, what, a year ago? Why would they wait until two weeks after its release to cancel New Gods? Surely they knew Darkseid was in it before now. Plus New Gods hadn’t even started filming, it would have probably been another two years before it came out, plenty of time between it and JL. Seems like they’re using the Snyder Cut as an excuse to cancel it.
They waited for Snyder’s cut numbers before considering dumping money into other DC movies. I’m guessing the numbers are not good enough. And the Darkseid shit is just an excuse.
rEsToRe ThE sNyDeRvErSe!!11!!
I decided to sit through it. I got to the 2 hour mark and was like “Holy shit there’s 2 more fucking hours??????”
lol @ framing this as a white v black issue. Bravo!
It’s very weird to let Snyder do Justice League, reap the hype and awareness of it, then cancel every film lined up that can be associated with it other than Aquaman and (maybe) Wonder Woman. Superman, Aquaman Spin-off, New Gods and, it sounds like, probably Flashpoint, as well are all gone.I don’t know that you need to try and put a racial spin on it just because of Snyderfans, though. There is Black Adam, black Superman, Blue Beetle and talk of a black Batman on the way. She was just unlucky enough to be on a project they want to disappear.
The Snyder Cut happened do to the internet mob bullying WB into making the damn thing. It didn’t actually exist, proven by the fact that Snyder had to film everything he wanted to add to the original cut. Given that these were the same people that tore Snyder apart because of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, WB felt it was better to move in a different direction with the DC franchise. Which unfortunately meant cuts to movies they haven’t started filming already.
In a certain way I can see the idea of trying something like the Trench movie as you want to play around and do those different kinds of movies. One of the smarter decisions by WB is to allow DCEU movies be all these different kinds of things, so why not a monster movie?Yet I also agree that the Trench was a superweird choice as it isn’t like they are a big thing in DCU either. Actually, I don’t think they are even a factor anymore in the Aquaman comics anymore, but I haven’t kept that much of a tract of it. Instead, to be cynical, it felt like a remnant from a period when Johns was trying to heavily influence the direction of the WB movies as the Trench was one of his creations.
I’m not a huge DC fan but I was really excited about The New Gods. But the world needed that four hour Snyder cut I guess. Man, WB has no idea what they are doing with DC.
Never have and probably never will, sadly.
I figure we’re three years away from a movie where Batman teams up with Batman to defeat Batman.
They are not far away from blaming the properties themselves. Mark my words, when they stop adapting characters for the big screen it’ll be “people just aren’t that into Superman anymore”.
I’m so pissed that we’re losing a film featuring a live action Barda and Scott Free and the New Gods co-penned by Tom King because of the fucking Snyder Cut. GAHHH.
A Barda/Mr. Miracle movie would be great. Or TV show. Just plop them in the suburbs like Wandavision and I’d watch every week.
Just a movie based on the King book would be magnificent.
Next CW series coming up!
I would love a season of Legends of Tomorrow with Barda on the team
Now that Sarah is all coupled off, they DO need a new person to seduce every attractive woman the team encounters…
If you cast the right person as Barda (and they usually do on Legends of Tomorrow), the possibilities for her on the show seem almost limitless
Supposedly, the numbers for 2 Justice 2 League are worse than Wonder Woman 1984’s were, so yeah, this is no surprise.
“Take a group of anonymous, personality-free monsters … and then try to build an entire movie around them.”Well, we’re on the 3rd (of the most recent version) Godzilla movie, so it’s not really a stretch.
To be fair, Kong has a lot of personality, especially in the newest one, but Godzilla is just a giant nuclear flamethrower.
That’s because when studios sign a deal with Toho – I’m not making this up – they agree that they won’t give Godzilla a personality because Toho sees Godzilla as a force of nature.
And the best Godzilla movies are those that correctly treat it as a natural disaster humans must respond to.
So weird & interesting.. Such a hard line stance at the expense of character. Especially after Godzilla did this at one point…
Remember guys, it’s not problematic they cancelled movies produced, directed and written by women and POCs not long after hiring famous white creators and promoting their movies, because Walter Hamada is a POC too! I’m sure Ray Fisher also fully understood when Hamada said that to him in reponse to his allegations about Hamada.
I feel sometimes like WB has to begrudgingly acknowledge Zack Snyder because he’s white and male, the same way Israel has to accept that anti-zionist Sarah Silverman, Palestinian rights supporter Natalie Portman, and vocal Israel criticizer Bernie Sanders are Jews.
I have to add that even in the post-JL-failure “renaissance” of sorts where WB seemingly give more freedom to their DC filmmakers, the two directors who appeared to have some interference with their movies are Patty Jenkins and Cathy Yan.
Oh, hey, politics in a thread about supehero films.
Funny post in light of Falcon & Winter Soldier being an ongoing series right now.
It’s worth mentioning that Syafiqjaber of Mars and Argh are Snyder Cultists with massive persecution complexes who try to reconcile their love of Snyder with their performative liberal beliefs with…interesting comments like these:https://io9.gizmodo.com/1729291253https://io9.gizmodo.com/1792780918https://kotaku.com/1820362800They aren’t content to just like his movies, they pretend Snyder’s Objectivist beliefs and are really in denial that he’s a Libertarian. So they spam performative left wing comments because they seem to think that if they do that, then Snyder is also a leftist. They basically do that to make themselves feel more superior for liking Snyder movies.
Natalie Portman is not only a Jew, she has Israeli citizenship because she was born in Jerusalem to an American Jewish mother and an Israeli Jewish father.
which sucks, and The Trench, which probably would haveI don’t know about that, the Trench monsters were the best part of that damn silly film.
I was vary cautiously looking forward to this, but one of the reasons for all that caution was because I expected CD/WB/AT&T/OCP to pull this exact move. Way to live down to my expectations, team!
I think the real reason behind this is that WB fucked up so bad, they can’t actually financially support New Gods or the Trench because of all the money they game the perpetually failing upwards Snyder.
Imagine if they’d took the frankly shocking amount of money they flushed on the Snyder Cut and, I dunno, gave it two terrific female filmmakers to make Birds of Prey 2 and New Gods?Just spitballing here, feel free to ignore
After Wrinkle in Time I’m not seeing another DuVernay directed movie. WiT was a real disappointment and just so bad.That’s not to say that WB just doesn’t know how not to screw up DC.
It was a shitty propaganda film that flopped BIG time. Thankfully, Oprah funded most of that shit.
Ava DuVernay has her strengths. Documentaries, docudramas and personal-scale dramas are where she excels. It’s just that those strengths aren’t necessarily applicable to bombastic, CGI-heavy science fiction and fantasy stuff. This doesn’t mean that she can’t learn to do this sort of thing, but AWiT suggests that her innate talents don’t really lie with that work.
They would, but they aren’t white men so…
Good. Less horrible films by talentless, black, female directors.
WRONG. They need the money to make more Snyderverse. You haters really are behind the 8 ball
Unpopular opinion – New Gods would have probably been a bit of a mess and not great. And also compared to Eternals a ton, which is both fair AND unfair.Fair: they’re basically the same thing because Kirby.Unfair: DuVernay was given no luxury of 12+ years of movies and series to fit some glorious cosmic nonsense into an established universe.Basically this would have come across like everything else DC does (excepting Shazam): a rushed, sad copycat.Now give me a no-strings-attached Mister Miracle movie where he’s just escaping from elaborately cool cosmic prisons. I’m already pulling out my wallet.
I think starting off with a Mister Miracle solo movie actually would be a great way to ease into the New Gods. He is probably the most straightforward and relatable of them.
Considering her last big budget franchise film lost the studio anywhere from 76 to 186 million dollars, this should surprise no one.Anyone who’s attempted to slog through A Wrinkle in Time has some serious reservations about claiming DuVernay being one of the most exciting young filmmakers….
I liked A Wrinkle in Time a lot better than almost all DCEU films.
I dunno, I think you’re dismissing The Trench a little too quickly. James Wan is responsible for a lot of really good horror films, I think he would’ve done something pretty cool with those monsters.Losing New Gods really stings though, especially if the actual reason is that we saw Darkseid for 10 minutes on HBO Max. Come on, WB/DC!
James Wan actually has experience building a successful cinematic universe franchise, so while I never saw Aquaman and don’t know anything about The Trench, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
Remove superheroes completely, and you might have an interestingly lovecraftian-ish The Trench to make.
Which, to be fair, we kind of got with Underwater.
Ok, haven’t watched it (it was described as a bad Alien rip-off, and I’ve seen enough of these). Maybe I actually should.
Ava DuVernay’s New Gods, a highly anticipated exploration of the existential strangeness of Jack Kirby’s venerable Fourth World blend of mythology and comics… Highly anticipated movies don’t get canceled; they usually get released even if they’re bad.
I’m not sure DuVernay was ever a good fit for this material. Honestly, I would have been more interested in a DuVernay Justice League film and a Zack Snyder New Gods. Have the director that is good with characterization take care of the property with beloved characters and have the “visual” director use the prestigious-but-kind-of-niche comic as his sandbox.As for The Trench, it was a bizarre project but bizarre doesn’t mean bad. I prefer both Guardians of the Galaxy (a comic I had never read before) to the Batman and Superman film so, my mind was open about it.
This has to be a prelude to them announcing that Zack Snyder is going to get to finish his trilogy on HBO Max right? This sucks
Now, bring forth creators that are masters of their subject matter. If I wish to anticipate a superhero or science fiction or fantasy film, that is because the producers and directors and writers are all world-renowned experts of the projects they are creating. MarvelDisney have found success because of this approach, while DCWB have exercised decades of failure – with prolific creators having to work outside the box to prove their worth. I do hope these projects are picked back up by suitable masters of their craft; but at the continued current pace I expect DCWB to be acquired by the Disney monopoly before the end of this decade.
“The Trench, a movie about a bunch of CGI monsters you probably don’t remember from a five-minute segment of Aquaman.”Oh, I remember them. Mostly because I was sitting in the cinema a bit light-headed, thinking “This is a horror movie now? Okay, I guess.”
one of Hollywood’s most exciting filmmakers[Citation needed]
That’s what I was thinking: Am I missing something? I know she’s done some great documentary work, but last I checked, Ava DuVernay’s most noteworthy narrative films were a middling biopic and a failed YA adaptation.
Any time I see things like that, especially written by a 30-something white guy, my thought is just “We know what you’re doing here. It’s obvious, and it’s a little patronizing.”
At least until Marvel’s The Eternals comes out, then WB will fast track it with Louis Letterier or Alan Taylor or someone else Marvel has opted not to re-hire.
Hot take : these were probably smart decisions. Yes, Warner Studios has managed the DC cinematic universe horribly. But even without that or Snyder’s film usurping key New Gods characters, Marvel had already checkmated them by getting Thanos —a character based on Darkseid — and The Eternals— basically a reskin of The New Gods saga by the creator of both franchises — to market first. DuVernay has not shown she can launch a fantasy franchise— Wrinkle in Time was a notable flop. Trying to build another massive franchise from scratch is jumping in the deep end. King ‘s runs on major comic franchises have been highly polarizing and sprawling epics don’t seem to play to his strengths or preferences. Add a toxic fan environment to the existing obstacles and pausing, while not noble, seems prudent.As for The Trench, an effects laden horror film by a proven hit maker in the genre seems more of a sure thing. But if I was a studio head, I would prioritize a sequel to huge box office hit, especially since it features two rising stars in Jason Momoa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen. I always assumed they greenlit The Trench because they assumed it was something the studio could salvage if Aquaman bombed. If Aquaman 2 is a hit, perhaps they will want 3 or a Black Manta spinoff. It’s undoubtedly true that the Snyder Cut and its accompanying cult are to some degree a factor in these calculations, but, based on what we know now calling it the main reason would be overstated.
Yeah, don’t buy too easily into WB pretending this was because of Snyder’s Darkseid. They already said they don’t consider his version canon and it wouldn’t mess with their plans, and they really didn’t want him using Darkseid anyway. This is purely spite on WB’s part. New Gods had been in development for a while, and for whatever reason they lost confidence in it. Throwing the blame towards Snyder is just killing two birds with one stone.
I love Jack Kirby, but to me his career is proof that even geniuses need editors. My take that’s warm enough to ruffle feathers of friends I love and respect is that in the same way Eternals are a poor man’s New Gods, New Gods are a poor man’s Inhumans, and frankly the Inhumans aren’t even that great. We get it, Jack, you like silly misspelled names to lend pseudo-mythological credence to designs that don’t need any help in that department because you’re a brilliant artist. Dude could make the best lilies in the world, but without someone telling him not to he could never resist gilding them.Now, back to not having an ounce of the world-changing talent the guy I’m ragging on had.
I’m torn on this one.
On the one hand, Warners really screwed
the pooch on this one, since they’d have had the ability to develop a Star
Wars equivalent and have it cross over with the main universe in keeping
with continuity.
On the other hand, King has shown he has a tin ear for the Fourth World (I thought his Mister Miracle was as clueless as his Adam Strange is), and I have no doubt DuVernay
would have screwed it up and cast British actors who have never heard of
the characters all over the place.
Why is everyone assuming New Gods was going to be good? I’m not familiar with the source material, is it a well-known and loved comic series in the DC Universe?And even then, going by these 2 facts :1)) DC movies that have been more miss than hit and2) the director Ava DuVernay who has only directed one full movie, and that movie was, at best, very meh (and for a lot of people, it was just plain bad)I really don’t understand why anyone would assume it was going to be good in any way…
I really don’t buy all this talk about Snyder’s Darkseid being the cause of canceling DuVernay’s New Gods. There’s about a thousand different versions of Batman (and Joker) on the big screen, so that’s an extremely weak excuse. Could it possibly be because A Wrinkle in Time was god awful and WB was losing faith in her vision of a potential new franchise? Probably!
Also, a horror film like the Trench that loosely takes place in a superhero universe sounds fun as heck. Why would you not want to see that? Would much prefer to see that than another Wrinkle in Time disaster.
So, I take it DC just can’t be arsed making exciting new content for the fans now, no?
This is funny to me. You guys HATE Snyder so much you don’t get WHY this is happening. See the actual numbers, subscribers, went through the roof for HBOMAX. AT&T put their foot down and said Snyderverse is happening and told them to cut something cause the films they have approved budgets for won’t be increased to make room for Snyderverse content. Therefore kiss Hamada and MAYBE Sarnoff goodbye because the new head of DC Films will be Zach Snyder with co head Jim Lee. They aren’t going to give Warner’s more cash. So they had to make room. The shocker was the film Hamada wanted to do in the first place. The Trench is the kind of films DC was gonna start making. Disconnected films that were sub 100 million and hope it made bank like Joker did. Joker ruined their idea about how to make comic book films. They think they can make amazing comic book films with a shitty budget and all you wackos for some reason think that’s cool. But your marvel films cost way more. Or maybe all you Snyder haters hate him cause you hate DC. You want dc to fail. Either way AT&T has said F off and is making them do what they want not what Emmerich, Sarnoff, and Hamada want. Bet all you haters can’t even fathom this idea that the reason they cut these two films is to give the freed up money to Snyder to make JL2 and Batman v Deathstroke. Did you guys even consider that or do you hate him that much that you actually thought the 70 million came from those two films lol. Y’all be smoking some wacky tabaky. Peace out.
“…a highly anticipated exploration of the existential strangeness of Jack Kirby’s venerable Fourth World blend of mythology and comics”By highly anticipated, do we mean assumed to not make it out of pre-production because it’s based on a super niche property with almost no public awareness, which usually also gets canceled in comic form due to a lack of sales?
I think this is for the best, DC movies should take a rest for quite a few years until there’s a turnover in talent and people who know what they’re doing come in. I can’t think of a live-action DC movie I’ve enjoyed enough to rewatch since 2008.
This New Gods movie was never going to get made. Hope Ava D cashed in during the writing process.
if i was going to choose between being excited for a big budget undersea monster movie from the guy who made aquaman or a big budget crazy universe bending movie from the lady who made wrinkle in time, that’s a no brainer- undersea monsters all the way.
Last weekend, I sold “Mister Miracle” #4 to a speculator for a nice sum. Glad they waited till THIS weekend to lower the boom on THIS news!
highly anticipatedIs that true outside of hardcore DC fans? Even amongst regular comic book readers, I’d guess many couldn’t name any of the New Gods other than maybe Darkseid. The franchise has had one eight issue LS since the mid-90s, and that was literally just to kill the characters off before Final Crisis.
eh, Duvernay hasn’t really put out anything outstanding, this is hardly a loss. Selma is the only thing from her that’s really worth your time, and MAYBE When They See Us
I keep thinking I should give Selma another try, but it was such a drag the first time I can never convince myself to.
Honestly, a New Gods movie written by Tom King would have probably been an incomprehensible nightmare.
Look, this sort of stuff can maaaaybe work in a surreal TV show like Legion, but not in a feature length movie.
Why does your article lamenting Ava DuVernay’s movie getting canceled have to include a B plot where you shit on James Wan for no reason? I’m not a huge fan of his work (and I hate that he’s pretty much solely responsible for ingratiating a whole new generation of horror fans to the odious charlatanism of Ed and Lorraine Warren), but I can’t imagine I’m the only person who thought Aquaman was, if not a masterpiece, at least a good bit of enjoyable schlock, which is more than I can say for most of DC’s other recent offerings. I bet Crab People: The Motion Picture (and its sequel, War for the Planet of the Crab People) would have been fun!
Folks here are like “But Wwinkle iwn Tiwme”, because DC didn’t know about that when they gave her the project, right? I could be on a moon of Jupiter right now and see what you’re doing.