The Fate of the DCCU

The DC Cinematic Universe has officially begun with its second film in their line up, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” which was released on Friday, March 25; its opening weekend has grossed about $166,007,347 (shown on Boxofficemojo.com) but has dropped -69.1% in its second weekend. For a film with a budget of $250 million that bad. How bad is that? Let’s take the 2 DC Films that have failed before Man of Steel which was “Green Lantern” (released in 2011) & “Batman & Robin” (Noted as the Worst Batman Film ever made and was released in 1997); “Green Lantern” had dropped to -66.1% in its second weekend and “Batman & Robin” had dropped to -63.7%. That means more people went back to see those films than Batman v Superman. This film was one of the most request movies that Fan of DC (and Comics in General) always wanted to see, some more than seeing Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and even The Avengers and with all that hype, how did this movie have a lot fewer people coming back? Well, Rotten Tomatoes had a bad Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t help which is at 28% as of April 25. That is not good for this film nor is this good for their film universe. Marvel Studios are about 12 films in which their 13^th one “Captain America: Civil War” Due to being released in Friday, May 6^th, not to mention their 4 shows set in the universe (Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Daredevil) that help fill out the universe that the studio created.
 
Before the release of Batman v Superman, news about the movie had worried the fans of putting too much in. For example, talks were in about The Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Doomsday, and Cyborg in a movie about Batman and Superman of which just the two would have been good enough for the movie; not to mention they have to throw in a lot of foreshadowing for the overall universe. Since they definitely showed Wonder Woman and Doomsday, fans are in the right to feel nervous about this film.  As the film released… yeah it was too much for the film and they should have focused more on Superman of which barely get to do anything and what they showed is either bad for superman or people telling you about Superman (barely him speaking for himself) with few scenes showing Superman Being Superman. Note… there is worse with the movie in which you can watch Nostalgia Critic’s Review of the film on youtube or at his more in-depth video on the subject. So what does this say for the Cinematic universe? Well unless they change their direction on what they want to do in their universe like Who do they want to appeal to, topics they want to bring up, philosophies to tackled with their superheroes? Who to Directed these films, who to write, produce, etc… to achieve these goals? Also, DC should know that what really makes anybody return to re-watch anything they saw is usually the story itself. With this badly written story with strange (also weak) motivations for our heroes and even villains; more focus on recreating comic book imagery than building character so the audience can care about those moments than just seeing it recreated whether build to it or not.  Zack Snyder has Directed this and Man of Steel, people familiar with his work know that he is more about style over defining character. Sucker Punch is a perfect example of that, hey even Watchmen his issues with its story, but it looks great! We need a director that knows how to direct action and characters, work well with the writer to achieve it and Zack doesn’t seem to fit that bill. But not the only thing we need a film. The movie can look great, but with bad characters, bad story, little motivation, just them assuming instead of investigation and doing things off-screen that is important to the plot (or character).  The next film in their line-up is “Suicide Squad” which is set to be released on Friday, August 5^th and hopefully, this movie can restore faith in their universe.