"Justice League" Box-Office: What happened?! How DC and the WB messed up the DCEU.

Ok, so you're probably wondering how did things become so bad for the WB and the DCEU? In a nutshell, it's more complicated than the following 400 words thesis.

The WB was desperately in need of a franchise, The Dark Knight trilogy was done ditto Harry Potter and the Hobbit.  "Man of Steel" was made with the intent to be followed by a sequel, however, the WB decided to turn that sequel into the misbegotten "Batman vs Superman" and had that film launch their unprepared cinematic universe.  That same year, the WB interfered a lot with David Ayer's  "Suicide Squad," production rumors were swirling all around and, as you know, the film is now the stuff of cinematic infamy.

We all thought they had set-up a concrete cinematic universe by that point. Ten movies were announced, to be released from 2016 to 2020. Not even halfway through that slate of films, and banking on Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman" having surprise success at the Box-Office, the WB decided to have "Wonder Woman 2" released before "Flash" and "The Green Lantern." Not just that, they also decided to add in a slew of new projects in the span of 6 months: "Suicide Squad 2," "Justice League Dark," "The Batman," "Batgirl," "Gotham City Sirens," "Nightwing," "Man of Steel 2," "Black Adam," "Deadshot," "Lobo" "Deathstroke" and the untitled Joker and Harley Quinn film, produced by Martin Scorsese. Phew, suffice to say, the plans of a DCEU are all but fucked. In fact, there never really was a plan, they were changing their plan every month. They haven't even announced if Ben Affleck will return as Batman. They were supposed to rebuild around Affleck and now he may be done, with Jake Gyllenhaal being sought for the caped crusader role. That much anticipated "Flash" movie?  It's lost, multiple directors have quit or been fired. 

Who is to blame for all this? The WB of course, they set their sights on Zack Snyder to herald the DCEU forward, that didn't work so well. They wanted Avengers-sized success but didn’t want to put the time, effort, thought and resources into building it up in a thoughtfully conceived manner. At this point, my advice to them would be to do what they did with "Wonder Woman" and actually hire competent directors that have talent and that can put their own signature to the films. You might as well get on the critics good side because, and I do say this with the utmost confidence, I do believe bad reviews have contributed to this debacle.

Why Wonder Woman Should Not Be Nominated For Best Picture

Warner Brothers will be focusing on an Oscar campaign for “Wonder Woman” this fall. They, of course, are the studio that produced it and own the DCU universe. I can only imagine how badly they would love to have a DCU film nominated for Best Picture, but it seems like they are going a little too far with this campaign. The consensus this past June was that “Wonder Woman” was the first “good” film from the DCU. Ok, fine, that doesn’t say much really. It seems WB might be, mightily, overreaching by pretty much implying that they believe “Wonder Woman” is Best Picture material. The backlash will no doubt happen because, well, “Wonder Woman” just isn’t that good. I can list 30 films that were released this year that were better than Patty Jenkins’ film. Hell, it’s not even close to being the best superhero movie of the year. That honor goes to James Mangold’s “Logan,” which, in fact, does deserve a Best Picture nomination.

To say that this was a very poorly thought-out PR move from WB would be an understatement. When "Wonder Woman" was released this past June, people made it out to be the second coming. Yes, it's miraculous that a comic book movie was made with a female director at the helm and an actress as its leading star and yet, its flaws are very present for all to see, including a third act that completely spins out of control with the usual CGI bang, that we've come to expect from a DCU, filled with bad shots, bad CGI and no human touch whatsoever. As for the directing, yes it was good, but not Oscar-worthy. Patty Jenkins didn't deserve to go 15 years between her last movie, "Monster," and "Wonder Woman." I want her to make more movies in the future and I am ecstatic that she is being given so much power for the just announced sequel to "Wonder Woman" set for July of 2019.

There's a very good reason why comic book films don't get Oscars. They are pulpy, silly in concept, and usually shaky in terms of quality for critics/adults, hell, even "The Dark Knight" had a somewhat infuriating last 20 or so minutes, but it's still a great, momentous movie. A woman should, of course, be nominated for Best Director but only when the picture is truly worthy of it or, more implicitly, when something artistic and truly groundbreaking as a work is accomplished. Why should we fast-track progress just because it feels good to be a part of it, that's just dishonest, pandering, and actually works against progress? All this teaches people is that quality is not important, it's who you are (or what you were born as) that matters. In fact, despite my objection at "Wonder Woman" and Jenkins being rewarded,  I really hope three female directors are remembered come awards time with nominations: Kathryn Bigelow for "Detroit," Julia Ducourneau for "Raw," Dee Rees for her upcoming "Mudbound."

What do you think about Wonder Woman's Oscar chances? Give us your take in the comments section below.