With Zack Snyder’s Justice League creating history in Hollywood by becoming the first massive-scale director’s cut to be made. It is interesting to see how other DC Directors had similar issues and how they were treated by Warner Bros.
How the DCEU started with the original DC director
When Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy ended, Warner Bros had earned a lot of revenue from the three Batman movies. But looking over at what marvel was doing by creating a very connected universe, Warner Bros wanted to do it too. The problem that arose was they never had an intelligent head pulling all the strings like Kevin Feige.
So Warner Bros asked Christopher Nolan to help them create a DC universe of their own. Nolan helps the studio by writing and producing Man of Steel and bought in Zack Snyder whom he knew was the one to create an atmospheric large grand scale universe with some lovely visuals after watching his adaptation of Watchmen and 300.
Watch: Justice League Spoiler-Filled Deep-Dive With Zack Snyder
Zack Snyder’s Polarizing DC Trilogy
Snyder then went on to direct Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, but they were very polarizing. Many fans took these versions to heart as evidenced by the Snyder cut community. The other half didn’t like the deconstructed version as much as we can see how much critics like bashing Snyder. The story of Justice League is well known, so when the original version of Justice League was released recently, it is telling how DC directors are treated.
David Ayer treated poorly
David Ayer’s Suicide Squad was the one that was badly ruined by the studio alongside Justice League. The director had said on Twitter that his version was very different from the theatrical version and had a lot more of Jared Leto’s Joker. It had fewer songs and was heavy on soundtracks and themes. While a decent movie with decent box office revenue, the movie always seemed patchy and lacked vision.
At times the movie was trying to be funny when it didn’t need to, while at other times it had a serious tone which also didn’t suit a Suicide Squad movie. Therefore Warner Bros had decided to approach Guardians Of The Galaxy series director James Gunn to help soft reboot the series. James Gunn has a knack for delivering an entertaining movie with lots of humour which is what DC is looking for to move away from Zack Snyder’s DC universe.
Cathy Yan also supports David Ayer’s sentiment
A similar but smaller problem had occurred with director Cathy Yan on her Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) movie. Her movie was also interfered with by Warner Bros. She mentioned on Twitter that she had experienced the same things as David Ayer. That’s why when you look at both Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey they have this colourful tone with lots of music. These are distracting from the plot and vision of the director. They don’t align with what the DC directors had originally intended.
The directors WB didn’t interfere with
But on the other side of the coin, there was very little to almost no interference. They were Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 and David F Sandberg’s Shazam because they already had the cheery positive tone which Warner Bros always wanted. But it is hilarious that both of those movies performed badly. So maybe the lesson for Warner Bros is to trust their talented DC director’s visions as they will be better and unique than a studio-produced superhero movie.
