Formerly one of DC’s most lucrative releases, Aquaman now does nothing but disappoint fans everywhere. The buzz around the upcoming sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, has been consistently dire, even as Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, has bent over backward to promote the flick. James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy is finally in pre-production, but the movie’s synopsis sounds incredibly close to another Superman entry set to debut on Adult Swim later this year. Whatever you have to say about the executives at Warner Bros., we hope it isn’t one praising their sound decision-making skills. Director Todd Phillips has come clean about the studio’s interference around his award-winning Joker film. WB was so nervous about the avant-garde Joker entry that studio execs almost prevented the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time from even existing.
As it turns out, no news isn’t good news.
Aquaman seems destined to sleep with the fishes
After months of silence from James Gunn, fans’ worst fears are finally being confirmed: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is shaping up to be yet another terrible DC film. It’s not just a slew of disappointed test audiences that feel the film lacks that special something that made the first entry the highest-grossing DC movie ever made. Even Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav doesn’t have a single modicum of faith in the film. After repeated recuts to try and improve upon the dead-in-the-water arrival, those test audiences have taken to the internet to declare the yet-to-be-released film one of the worst superhero movies ever made.
Aquaman star Jason Momoa has been one of the film’s loudest champions, going so far as to tout his friendship with James Gunn and Peter Safran as reason enough to keep him in the DCEU. Connections may be enough to keep the actor attached to the extended superhero universe, but his position as the King of Atlantis will certainly be in trouble if studio executives fail to get a much-needed monetary return on the film. It’s not all doom and gloom for the brawny Hawaiian as Momoa has already been picked as a fan favorite to embody the Man of Steel’s alien nemesis and sometimes ally, Lobo. Regardless of how the movie turns out, James Gunn is still hard at work with his partial reboot of the DC Universe, and these final entries to the DCEU are still on the proverbial chopping block until their reception pans out later this year.
My adventures with Superman’s legacy
While we still don’t have many details on James Gunn’s Superman reboot, there have been just enough pieces of information dropped for a vague picture to develop. We know that the series intends to focus on “the story of Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas.”
The single revealed piece of information falls incredibly close to the synopsis of the upcoming Adult Swim release My Adventures with Superman. The animated series promises to focus on a fresh-faced Clark’s burgeoning adventures as he “embraces his role as the hero of Metropolis, and perhaps the world.”
While fleshing out backstories is a wonderful approach to storytelling, there is no small amount of concern that the continuous exploration of the beginning of the Man of Steel’s life could result in the infamous burnout that plagued the second Spider-Man series, The Amazing Spider-Man. As it turns out, fans get a little weary of the same subject matter continuously repeated. Let’s hope that James Gunn manages to find a way for all of the various incarnations of young Clark to exist without fans feeling overwhelmed by oversaturation.
As Joker comes to streaming, WB pretends it didn’t try to ax the film
It comes as no surprise that Warner Bros. viewed the non-canonical Joker film as a bad investment, with executives failing to see how such an offbeat, violent movie would appeal to fans. The studio is known for crazy budgets and over-the-top CGI, and Joker failed to meet either one of those bars. Not that director Todd Phillips would have passed on the extra cash, mind you. Joker’s budget was exactly half that of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which weighed in at a whopping $110 million with another $100 mil in advertising. Joker subsisted on $55 mil, an amount that most superhero movies could never even dream of, with the least expensive Marvel movie coming with a $130 million price tag. That didn’t stop it from raking in the big bucks and acting like a siren’s song for millions of fans, and the praise just keeps coming in.
Joker hit streaming platform HBO Max, and within days, the title has risen to the Top 10 list in more than 20 countries worldwide, proving WB’s lack of faith was a mistake. With all of Joker’s success, it seems WB has managed to shake itself of the brief insanity that led to its mistreatment of Phillips and his brainchild. The company has seen the error of its ways, and this time, the sequel Joker: Folie à Deux comes with a $150 million budget to help WB offset some of the cash it lost over a shortsighted mistake.