I'm Reading Your Stuff: General News and Discussion Thread

[OnLeatherWings]

"Well, let's have him in a small DCU role until XYZ" or "No competing solo films" is exactly what bothers me about modern movies.

It's all about marketing, the business of everything and sacrificing all else, including story.

I know that filmmaking has always been a business - but in the last half decade or more, when I watch a lot of blockbusters, I can't forget that this is a business like I used to. It's so blatant and apparent, now - in the most cynical way.

If I'm engaged with the upcoming DCU series and we see Batman in some smaller role - I'll just be reminded that they're doing this not to intrude on another franchise. It immediately takes you out of the film.

There's no immersion anymore.

 

[TheGDBatman]

Honestly I was never really worried about TBATB being in conflict with the Reeves movies because I assumed the turnaround time for Part 2 (and eventually Part 3) would be much quicker than the first..... but if it ends up being 4 years between each movie, the idea of the DCU shelving Batman for 8 years seems unlikely. 4-5 years I could buy, but not 8.

What does this mean for the planned trilogy? No idea. There's certainly an argument to make that Part 2 will be the conclusion of this series, which would be an absolute shame. But until we get confirmation on that, ignorance is bliss.

 

[marsh]

Just because he has a three-film contract doesn't mean WBD has to exercise it. If they want to be done at Part 2, they're done at Part 2. Simple as that.

Personally, I'm of the mind that there will be a third film if the second one performs as well as (if not better than) the first one. But the whole Gunn/Safran/DCU thing does throw a curveball no matter which way you slice it. I am not convinced that having two different versions of Batman running around concurrently is going to work. I applaud Gunn if he genuinely thinks it can, but I can only take his word so far with this. And you couple that with how long it's taking Reeves to get each movie ready to go. I dunno. I could easily see Reeves deciding to put everything he's got into this one and calling it. But there's really no point in worrying about this until 2026/2027.

That’s great. You’re still just speculating. Official word as of now is it’s a trilogy

 

[marsh]

I still maintain that DCU Batman should have a Hulk-esque role till Reeves’ saga is concluded. Not in the sense that marvel has completely botched the characters arc, but in how they use him.

Maybe you could get away with a straight up batfamily movie or something, but having Batman in JL movies and little appearances here and there in other characters projects would be a cool way to differentiate from other interpretations

Isn’t brave and the bold more of a batfamily movie though?

 

[Boom]

That’s great. You’re still just speculating. Official word as of now is it’s a trilogy

I never said I was doing anything but speculating. I'm simply cautioning you against using a three-picture deal as a guarantee of anything, especially with the flippant tone you used.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Isn’t brave and the bold more of a batfamily movie though?

We only know that Damien is Robin, anything else is just speculation at the moment. I hope it is a batfamily movie though.

 

[Lily Adler]

At least you guys are getting Batman films while the Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel fans are going to face a multi-year drought!

 

[Frodo]

Everyone forgets or wants to pretend that Batman Forever was this immediately rejected, hated flop of a film.

It wasn't. It was a huge hit and a pretty big success. Even in the documentary on the film - WB and Schumacher, and everyone involved were terrified when it was coming to release, only to pop champagne with how big it was. All my friends watched the crap out of it and loved it.

The toys were huge. The tie-ins were a big deal. The soundtrack is legendary to this day.

Batman Forever, I will always argue, was tainted mostly because of how bad Batman & Robin was. For the most part, Forever is a perfectly valid interpretation of Batman that's a comfortable hybrid and happy medium between dark Batman and a lighter Batman.

It's still a solid, fun, and surprisingly good Batman film. Is it the Burton/Keaton film I much would've preferred to have? No. But it's not bad, by any stretch. I love it - and I will always pushback on this idea that it was some failure.

The Forever Batmobile also freaking slaps, I don't care what anyone says.

This .

Batman Forever was a hit, and as much as alot fans may not want to except it, the GA at the time, was fine with it .

I don't doubt there were probably some diehard fans of the comics who didn't like it at the time.

But the idea that the film was somehow reviled or met with a "meh" reception in 1995, is a falsehood that unfortunately has been spread throughout fandom close to 30 years now.

I suspect it mostly comes from fans who weren't old enough to remember what reception the film was in 1995 , and super imposed Batman and Robin reception on it .
At the same, I also think it's revisionist history from older fans who didn't like the film at the time , and want to claim that it was hated.

 

[marsh]

This .

Batman Forever was a hit, and as much as alot fans may not want to except it, the GA at the time, was fine with it .

I don't doubt there were probably some diehard fans of the comics who didn't like it at the time.

But the idea that the film was somehow reviled or met with a "meh" reception in 1995, is a falsehood that unfortunately has been spread throughout fandom close to 30 years now.

I suspect it mostly comes from fans who weren't old enough to remember what reception the film was in 1995 , and super imposed Batman and Robin reception on it .
At the same, I also think it's revisionist history from older fans who didn't like the film at the time , and want to claim that it was hated.

It was conceived from the genesis and focus tested specifically to appeal to the most base lowest common denominator normies possible. Or at least the screen writer basically said as much in an interview years later. That they cut any nuisance or character texture to not alienate the masses

Personally I like the film alright but I’m very intrigued by the Schumacher cut and would love to see that one day. But apparently Joel was quite happy and content with the theatrical cut as well so as long as he felt his vision wasn’t butchered ala Marc Webb Spider-Man I guess it’s fine

 

[Boom]

The toys were baller.

 

[marsh]

I believe if you adjust for inflation it sold more tickets than any Batman movie sans Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises, and Batman 89. Which means it beat the Matt Reeves movie in tickets sold. (I think Batman returns did as well)

 

[Frodo]

It was conceived from the genesis and focus tested specifically to appeal to the most base lowest common denominator normies possible. Or at least the screen writer basically said as much in an interview years later. That they cut any nuisance or character texture to not alienate the masses

Personally I like the film alright but I’m very intrigued by the Schumacher cut and would love to see that one day. But apparently Joel was quite happy and content with the theatrical cut as well so as long as he felt his vision wasn’t butchered ala Marc Webb Spider-Man I guess it’s fine

I'm not sure which screenwriter you're talking about .

I certainly haven't heard Lee and Janet Scott Batchler certainly say that about the film .

I haven't even heard Akiva Goldsman talk say that about the film .

Now , Schumacer has basically said as much about Batman and Robin .

It's no secret BF was meant to a crowd pleaser in contrast to those whose may have been bothered by aspects of Batman Returns.
WB was reactive even back then .

Nevertheless, Normies, which were the majority of the GA in 1995 , liked, and enjoyed the film .
Several Film critics didn't , but it wasn't a hated film , regardless of what some fans today feel the film should have been.

Now , of course, the expectations for audience for these types of films today, are much different than they were in the 90s .
General Audiences, fair or not, weren't expecting or looking for a Batman film to be TDK or The Batman .

Whether we like it or not, that's not how alot of filmmakers, producers, the media, and the GA in 1995 saw CBM movies.
It was a different era in general, let alone in films.

Again, that may be a reality fans have a hard time excepting, but that's the way things were in the 90s.

Now whether fans today like the final product, or feel they should have done something else, is a matter of opinion.

But if the issue is whether or not Batman Forever was popular with audiences at the time, the answer is yes.

 

[Boom]

Release the Schumacher Cut is something I could actually get behind.

 

[Mysteryman]

How different of a film would the Schumacher cut have been and much longer was that cut?

 

[Eddie Dean]

It would still have the same performances and tone. I really don’t think it would be that different.

 

[OnLeatherWings]

It's no secret BF was meant to a crowd pleaser.

Right - and I think people need to understand that being a crowd-pleaser isn't inherently a bad thing or a lesser thing.

I think one of the biggest issues with people who love the art of film is this thinly veiled (if at all) snobbery of films that aren't trying so hard to be taken seriously, films that aim to please a wider demographic, and aren't niche, or aren't trying to be profound at every turn.

That type of snobbery is why we have pretentious fans like...umm...let's just say it rhymes with PnyderDros.

Crowd-pleasing does not have to mean lower quality, worse, dumber, etc. It's anything but simple to make a film that more people like than a film fewer will enjoy.

I think movies are either too silly and meta or too far up their own rear-ends, these days.

I miss films like Batman Forever that are neither, but a happy compromise that people can enjoy.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Right - and I think people need to understand that being a crowd-pleaser isn't inherently a bad thing or a lesser thing.

I think one of the biggest issues with people who love the art of film is this thinly veiled (if at all) snobbery of films that aren't trying so hard to be taken seriously, films that aim to please a wider demographic, and aren't niche, or aren't trying to be profound at every turn.

That type of snobbery is why we have pretentious fans like...umm...let's just say it rhymes with PnyderDros.

Crowd-pleasing does not have to mean lower quality, worse, dumber, etc. It's anything but simple to make a film that more people like than a film fewer will enjoy.

I think movies are either too silly and meta or too far up their own rear-ends, these days.

I miss films like Batman Forever that are neither, but a happy compromise that people can enjoy.

Batman Forever is a movie I want to like considerably more than I do. Schumacher was one of the great 90s journeymen and, IMO, fundamentally better suited to making Batman movies than Burton was if he'd been left to his own devices but the simple fact is that it's a tonal disaster with two harrowingly awful antagonists. It's also very much a kind of sequel that is a huge problem in modern franchise filmmaking: the reactionary sequel. Oh, there was something controversial and interesting about the previous instalment? Panic button!! Everything must be crowd pleasing!! All edges must be sanded down to appeal to the widest possibly demographic!!

 

[Luke995]

Waiting one more year is not a problem, to me. If that means a more solid script (more then The Batman I), I'm in.

But if all this means that The Batman Part II has to be more epic, mainstream blockbuster than Reeves intended, I'm pretty worried.
Yes, Reeves has one card to convince WB and the audience that his trilogy may survive until the end, but I don't really want that all this stuffs effect the original detective-noir Reeves' plan.
It's simply unfair: I'm so happy of the gritty, vaguely BTAS style, noir style of The Batman.

Anyway, there's one more risk.
That The Batman Part II begins its production with a script (with a final draft in... Summer 2024? begin of autumn?) that, due to the Penguin series and Superman reception, could be changed during the shooting (or, worse, with reshoots) so they can make the movie self-contained or eventually part of the DCU.

Reeves doesn't absolutely deserve a Shazam 2/Madame Web treatment. And, plus, it's always suicidal in terms of box office.
THAT'S what really sucks to me.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

I mean, one of the many plus side of Reeves is he's not going to make it more of a crowd pleaser. I'm pretty sure if they'd asked him to do that he would have walked by now. If he's making it at all we can be relatively certain it's the movie he wants to make, made the way he wants to make it.

 

[OnLeatherWings]

...with two harrowingly awful antagonists.

I'll give you that Jones' Two-Face isn't great.

But The Riddler? That's the most faithful version on film since 1966. At least he was actually The Riddler and not a Hush stand-in.

 

[Luke995]

I mean, one of the many plus side of Reeves is he's not going to make it more of a crowd pleaser. I'm pretty sure if they'd asked him to do that he would have walked by now. If he's making it at all we can be relatively certain it's the movie he wants to make, made the way he wants to make it.

Yeah, you're right. But what if all these delays and complications in the writing process are really due to his attempts to find a compromise that gives him creative freedom even in the worst case scenario?

Ultimately one thing is to leave in case not having your your creative freedom when you enter into a project, all another case is when you're already inside the project, you're in love with it and you want to finish it.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

I'll give you that Jones' Two-Face isn't great.

But The Riddler? That's the most faithful version on film since 1966. At least he was actually The Riddler and not a Hush stand-in.

Gorshin's Riddler is the best! Can't argue with that! Pity Carrey is doing the most obnoxious, painful to watch impression of Gorshin I can imagine. Almost completely kills the movie for me.

Dano's Riddler is absolutely Riddler lol, one of the more pleasant surprises of the movie to me was that Riddler was actually relatively on brand. Obviously he's a reinvention, the point of these characters is to reinvent them, but there are plenty of iterations of Riddler characterized very close to him.

 

[OnLeatherWings]

Dano's Riddler is absolutely Riddler lol, one of the more pleasant surprises of the movie to me was that Riddler was actually relatively on brand.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

We'll agree to disagree, here.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

We'll agree to disagree, here.

Riddler is often written as a pathetic, snivelling weirdo who isn't as tough/cool/smart as he thinks he is. Dano's is a hybrid of that take and Scott Snyder's - very recognizably so.

 

[BatLobster]

Gorshin's Riddler is the best! Can't argue with that! Pity Carrey is doing the most obnoxious, painful to watch impression of Gorshin I can imagine. Almost completely kills the movie for me.

Dano's Riddler is absolutely Riddler lol, one of the more pleasant surprises of the movie to me was that Riddler was actually relatively on brand. Obviously he's a reinvention, the point of these characters is to reinvent them, but there are plenty of iterations of Riddler characterized very close to him.

Let me just say that if you were a 9 year old kid in 1995 who was already obsessed with Jim Carrey after Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb & Dumber....his Riddler was the greatest Batman villain ever, haha. Still pretty quotable too. "Fred....BABE..."

Admittedly, it's obnoxiously off the wall by today's standards, but they hired Jim Carrey at the height of his powers to be Jim Carrey and they got exactly what they paid for. And I do think it's a pretty faithful take on the Riddler. I even think the angle with Nygma's "box" kinda ends up working in today's context with the social media companies of the world collecting all our data while rotting our brains.