8 Classic Problems With Batman And Superman Movies Warner Bros. Are Repeating With The DCEU
Learning from your mistakes is for Marvel.
Warner Bros. are struggling with its DC Extended Universe endeavour. This isn't a matter of debate on the quality of the movies (we've already done that plenty), but a simple summation of the facts; Man Of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice were largely received poorly by critics, averagely by fans and their substandard box office (Batman V Superman should have easily been a $1 billion+ knock-out) shows they've struggled at capturing Marvel's mass-appeal magic. It's not the end by a long shot - they're running full steam ahead into team-ups and standalones - but some things really need to change.
What's so strange about this is that it isn’t Warners’ first rodeo. There’s been four versions of Batman and two of Superman (with one retcon reboot), and in that time we’ve been able to see what works and what really, really doesn't, so surely they should know how to knock things out of the park by now. Yet for all the attempts at comic accuracy and the increased quality of special effects, they’re making pretty much all the same mistakes now with the DCEU as they were back with the Burton-Schumacher Batman (and the raft of Superman projects that never made it to screen).
Why is that? Well, like war, the greed of Hollywood executives never changes, and they're doomed to relive the same mistakes over and over. Mistakes like these eight, which were made in the characters' earlier runs and have only been repeated for the DCEU.
8. When All Else Fails, BvS
There’s been multiple attempts by Warner to
get a DC Cinematic Universe off the ground in recent years – you can bet that
was the plan with The Dark Knight Trilogy until Nolan opted for a more final
conclusion and Green Lantern was angled to become a mega-franchise – which meant that when Man Of
Steel was met with a mixed response, things were problematic. That film wasn’t at all about setting up the future, with only passing references to non-Superman
mythology, but to start from scratch again would put them so behind the bubble would probably burst before they got close to success.
What did they do? Why they went back to that old trick, Batman vs. Superman.
And, be sure of this, this isn’t the first time when out of options Warner had turned to making the banner heroes duke it out. In the early noughties, when both characters were trapped in development hell (Batman was still haunted by Schumacher and every possible permutation of Supes had been considered), the idea of BvS came up also. The story of this proposed film differs wildly from what we ultimately got, although key elements (most importantly Lex Luthor being behind it all) were there then, revealing it as a long-standing Warner plan.
The problem with the Batman vs. Superman idea is that it's inherently contrived in any universe angling for a later team-up, something neither of these versions could fully get past.