BATMAN - Solo Affleck Starring/Directorial Vehicle En Route

[AndyDursin]

Bat-fleck flies again.

This announcement makes sense to me. Snyder doing more DC movies doesn't -- nor does the rest of their 10 movie schedule (GREEN LANTERN CORPS -- seriously??! lol)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/w ... ben-883358

The stand-alone Batman movie has yet to be officially dated, although there's rampant speculation that it will take one of the two slots Warner Bros. recently reserved for two untitled DC films; Oct. 5, 2018, and Nov. 1, 2019. The other could go to Suicide Squad 2.

"You get your first real taste of this expanding universe," Warners film chief Greg Silverman said in the clip.

The DC films already dated include Suicide Squad (Aug. 5, 2016), The Justice League Part One (Nov. 17, 2017), The Flash (March 16, 2018), Wonder Woman (June 2, 2017) Aquaman (July 27, 2018), Shazam! (April 5, 2019), Justice League Part Two (June 14, 2019), Cyborg (April 3, 2020) and Green Lantern Corps (June 19, 2020).

[DavidBanner]

I agree about them trying to salvage this mess by having Affleck direct himself as Batman. Frankly, I don't really see what story he's going to be able to do here, and I really don't look forward to anything like the George Clooney Batman and Robin classic...

We haven't seen the other shoe fall yet from the meetings at Warner Bros over the past couple of weeks.
The industry consensus is that this whole "DC Universe" idea is in serious trouble and that the WB execs are trying to find the best way to spin it.
I anticipate hearing about some people finding the exit door very soon. My hope is that they include Snyder in the rush.
I think what we'll see is similar to Sony's scrapping of its multi-movie Spider-Man plans. They can just revert those other movies to "development" and it's an easy way out of the problem.
Obviously, they'll release Suicide Squad and they're mostly done with Wonder Woman.

I'm really wondering whether they actually started filming Justice League or if they pushed back.
I can't find any actual confirmation that the cameras started turning - just announcements from February that they were going to start yesterday.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they were told to stand by.
The smartest move they could make here would be for cooler heads to prevail and for them to push this whole idea back by another year or more.
They'll eat a little money on the project, but NOTHING compared to the disaster that awaits them.

[AndyDursin]

As of yesterday WB still seems intent on delivering the full slate of movies at least according to his comments.

[mkaroly]

Please Ben....do not do an origins story AGAIN!!

[DavidBanner]

I don't know that WB is fully committed to stuff like The Flash (with a completely different TV show on the CW right now), Cyborg, Aquaman and Green Lantern Corps.
After the grosses drop again this weekend, we'll have to see how much money they're committing themselves to losing.
The word in Hollywood is that BS, while not a flop in the strictest sense of the word, is a tremendous disappointment and a strong indication that WB needs to rethink this idea.
There's no way the company's board will approve doing all these bombs, particularly after the first one barely makes its money back. This one was supposed to be the juggernaut that kick-started the whole franchise, not the break-even kid.

I believe several of those movies, like the still upcoming "Sinister Six" movie from Sony, the Remo Williams sequels and the slew of new Terminator movies from Paramount, will continue to be listed. As "in development". Meaning there will be a piece of paper in a file at the studio that indicates the studio is still interested in the property. Someday.

Given what happened last year at WB and at HBO, Time Warner will not countenance losing hundreds of millions more. There's a reason why HBO isn't airing as many series these days. And there's a reason why WB is talking about releasing fewer movies. It's simply that they can't afford it. Now, if they have a few major hits like Universal did last year, that would go a long way toward restoring the company's confidence. But right now, they're in real trouble. Financing a whole series of extremely likely failures is not something Time Warner can do, even if the WB execs want to out-Marvel Marvel. There's a big difference - the Marvel movies are making money.

[AndyDursin]

I don't know that WB is fully committed to stuff like The Flash (with a completely different TV show on the CW right now), Cyborg, Aquaman and Green Lantern Corps.

Well, this happened yesterday:

Tsujihara said the studio has committed to 10 DC films — most of which have already been announced — within the next five years, then named every movie along with their director, including Batman with Affleck.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/ben-a ... 201752021/

They also, quite specifically, dated them yesterday again:

The stand-alone Batman movie has yet to be officially dated, although there's rampant speculation that it will take one of the two slots Warner Bros. recently reserved for two untitled DC films; Oct. 5, 2018, and Nov. 1, 2019. The other could go to Suicide Squad 2.

The DC films already dated include Suicide Squad (Aug. 5, 2016), The Justice League Part One (Nov. 17, 2017), The Flash (March 16, 2018), Wonder Woman (June 2, 2017) Aquaman (July 27, 2018), Shazam! (April 5, 2019), Justice League Part Two (June 14, 2019), Cyborg (April 3, 2020) and Green Lantern Corps (June 19, 2020).

Not that I disagree with your points David, but if they are going to apply the breaks -- they're not showing any evidence of it yet.

The real "Suicide Squad" would be the current WB regime continuing on with that slate!

[DavidBanner]

I agree with you, Andy.

I just remember that Sony had Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire all set for Spiderman 4 and 5 before they pulled the plug too.

We agree that the public statement by WB was rash - and really designed as them posturing with confidence in the light of news that has them scrambling in private.
If they were really that confident, they wouldn't be frantically reshooting sections of a movie coming out in 3 months.
In reality, they'll have to answer to Time Warner, and like what's been happening at HBO, they will discover what happens when a resistable force meets an immovable object. Even Superman himself could not lift it...

[AndyDursin]

No, you're precisely right. I do think there's a fair chance though we end up seeing at least the beginning of that slate -- which means AQUAMAN and THE FLASH plus the JUSTICE LEAGUE -- before they start moving pieces around. But perhaps they started that yesterday by greenlighting a BATMAN movie that is a pretty safe commercial bet. Especially if Affleck will control the budget and they know he'll work fine within the WB studio system (and he already has, obviously), that's a wise and understandable move.

These other pics? They have GREEN LANTERN potential written all over them...the only thing I can think of is they're waiting to see what SUICIDE SQUAD does. If that underperforms also, or barely "does ok," I can't imagine how they go forward with 10 movies in 5 years.