DC FanDome Recap - The Suicide Squad, The Batman, Wonder Woman, THE ROCK And More!
Wonder Woman 1984
In a sea of sub-tier DC properties, Wonder Woman definitely stood out as being one of their better movies. I still think it suffered from having a really bad villain and kind of crappy antagonists in general, but it was otherwise good! This 1984 vibe looks like this is going to be awesome, especially Chris Pine rocking parachute pants. What I'm worried about is two things: I don't really get Kristen Wiig as a villain (and her CGI Cheetah looked...interesting).
It looks scary, but at least it's on purpose unlike Cats. I also get the vibe that Pedro Pascal's Maxwell Lord is gonna be an unsubtle Trump stand in. Just as a note, that comparison is something that Jenkins has denied (she says it's supposed to be more like Gordon Gekko). I just hope the villain issue gets fixed. Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, and Connie Nielsen are reprising their roles while Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal are joining as villians. Patty Jenkins also returned to direct and co-write the script. Scheduled for October of this year.
Gotham Knights (Video Game)
As a person who traditionally doesn't like superhero video games, I can safely say I'm buying the shit out of this. It looks like it's basically Assassins Creed with superheros, which is much more like the vibe of the Spider-Man video game which fucking rocked.
The Flash Movie
One of the coolest things about the Flash is obviously his multiverse traveling. They did a lot of cool shit with that in the Arrowverse, including the recent "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover which was fucking awesome. Doing that same thing on a bigger scale across the movies and even better shows like 'Watchmen' would be treat. I will admit that I was a little surprised with how much they leaned on Ezra Miller, but I guess we can assume that the powers that be know more about that situation than we do. Maybe.. Miller is returning alongside Batfleck with Andy Muschietti (IT Chapter 1 and 2) directing. Scheduled for June 3, 2022.
The Suicide Squad
This was the event I was personally the most excited for today. Suicide Squad was a steaming pile of dog shit, and deserved a lot better than the final product which was rolled out. Giving it another go with James Gunn, who did an outstanding job with an ensemble group with similar anti-heroish vibes in Guardians of the Galaxy, was a stroke of genius as well. During his pannell, Gunn made a lot of very pointed comments, noting that this was the MOST fun he ever had filming a movie and the BEST cast he ever worked with. Think he might be a little pissed at marvel about getting canned and uncanned from Guardians? Possibly. Anyway, I can't wait for this. Gunn is a master of weaving effortless humor into superheros and is great at character building. I think a LOT of these characters are going to guy and we are going to get a lot of laughs and even more action.
The Snyder Cut
This is both the most Zack Snyder trailer ever and incredibly cool. The Snyder cut saga is something that was incredibly annoying to me at first, but the more that came to light about the production of the movie, the more I came around to their side. In case you don't know the Snyder cut drama, here is a quick recap.
During post-production of the movie, Snyder's daughter unfortunately passed away. He understandably stepped down, and Joss Whedon was hired to finish things up. In theory, this seemed like a no brainer. Whedon directed 'The Avengers', so the pedigree was there. Whedon oversaw a ton of reshoots and tried to add his own vibe to the movie (more humor, kind of like Avengers), slashed the runtime by a ton and turned the whole film into a Frankenstein monster. That is all bad on it's own, but there is also this which is much worse:
WarnerMedia is apparently in the midst of a third party investigation into the claims by Fisher and others. Anyway…
Snyder obviously has a very specific vibe to his movies. I love the chance for any creator to get a direct pipeline to fans to make sure we see whatever they intended the final product to look like. His version is going to be release on HBO Max as a series of four 1-hour long episodes in 2021. That is a great idea to help hype build, IMO. It's also cool to see any studio actually listen to the fans of their properties IE Sonic. Even if this decision is driven by money just like every other one they make.
Black Adam
The BossLogic artwork for this was really cool, but there wasn't a ton to this presentation. It was basically the Rock looking ripped as fuck talking about how this project has been in hell for 10 years trying to get the right pieces together. What they did do, which sapped a lot of interest for me, was introduce Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher. No fucking thanks my dude! Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, The Shallows) will direct.
The Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
This isn't really my thing, but it is, in fact, something that premiered at DC FanDome, so here you go.
The Batman
Look at me with a straight face and tell me this doesn't look fucking awesome. As a long time Pattinson defender, I love seeing him shake off the stank of Twilight as people come around to him as being the legitimately good actor he is. This team up with director Matt Reeves (director of 2 Chernin bangers in Dawn of and War of the Planet of the Apes) looks darker, more violent and way less polished than anything we've seen on screen from the character before. I know you might be going into this trailer or news with the notion "Well, it's not going to be good as the Dark Knight!!!". Maybe not! Or maybe it will be a different version of the character that is still really fucking good a la 'Joker'. This Batman will be in Year 2 of crime fighting. Battinson has gotten the blessing from Christian Bale and advice from Christopher Nolan, who is his director on 'Tenet'. All the pieces are here for this movie to succeed, and I, for one, cannot wait for it. Plus the new Batmobile fucking rules out loud.
Beyond Battinson, it has an INSANE cast of Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. It will be release probably sometime next year. HBO Max is also developing a police-procedural spinoff show similar to Gotham as well, with that version of Batman being Year 1. It's not entirely clear who, if any, of the movies cast members will be reprising their roles in that yet. I'm all for connectivity between TV and Movie franchises, though.