Faraci's article:
I first heard about Batman v Superman at a party. It was the Warner Bros party at Comic-Con three years ago, and they had synchronized swimmers in the rooftop pool. A big rumor was making the rounds - Zack Snyder was going to announce a sequel to Man of Steel at the WB panel, and it was going to be Batman vs Superman (back then we still had an s in the vs). The rumor was accompanied by another rumor - this decision had just been made days before; Snyder would be taking the stage to announce something so fresh they had little beyond a concept.
The reaction in Hall H was enormous. Comic-Con is an enormous pain in the ass, but if you can get into Hall H and be there when one of the magical moments happens - when Harrison Ford takes the stage or when the entire cast of The Avengers walks out - you'll be glad you battled the crowds and the smells. It's easy to get really worked up. It's easy to get swept away in the energy and excitement of 6000 cheering, screaming, stomping fans. It's cool (it's also what I imagine a Trump rally is like, except harnessed for evil as opposed to marketing). And that day, being in that room, the energy was electric. It was like a chain reaction, with a wave of excitement rippling through the gigantic space.
Here we are three years later, just a week away from the official release and about 24 hours away from the junket press seeing the film for the first time. The movie has screened - long lead national press, like Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly, has seen it. The movie played for IMAX execs a couple of weeks back, and it screened to exhibitors last week. Employee screenings at Warner Bros are either happening this week or in the next few days. But tomorrow is when the people most likely to break embargo and give out an opinion will see the film. On top of that, the critics from the trades may well be in the theater, and they have a huge history of breaking embargo and running a review whenever the hell they feel like it (critics at the major trades have an email chain amongst each other where they decide when to break an embargo, I've been told). So we're close to the point where Batman v Superman isn't just speculation, it's going to be a sea of opinions and counteropinions. I suspect it'll get ugly along the way. Things get ugly with this movie pretty easily, it seems.
It's been a fascinating trip, these three years. Reactions have been all over the place along the way - remember when the Internet freaked the **** out that Ben Affleck was hired to play Batman? Remember when we first heard that weird title? Remember when people claimed I was lying when I said Doomsday was in the movie? I'm going to be interested in reading a behind the scenes book about this film, which started its life as a reaction to the reception of Man of Steel and has become the cornerstone of a decade's worth of upcoming superhero films. Batman v Superman isn't just a movie - it's a massive leap for Warner Bros, and it's a film that could determine the careers of quite a few high-ranking executives at the studio. It's looking as though the film will open well, possibly exceeding The Hunger Games' March opening weekend box office (current predictions place BvS about $10 million lower than Hunger Games, but modern tracking - as proven by Deadpool - isn't reliable), but the studio needs more than a big weekend; many analysts believe the film needs to do $1 billion at the global box office to be a true success (it probably needs about $800 million global just to break even). Since Man of Steel did $668 million globally, WB must be hoping that Batman can push the film the extra $340 million over the top.
So here are the three narratives for the next week, as reactions come in (first junket screening tomorrow, fan screening Monday, press screenings and embargo lift Tuesday): is it a good movie? Is it a good foundation for the DC movie universe? And will it be a hit or will it create some chaos inside Warner Bros, a studio that has seen some serious high profile flops like Jupiter Ascending and Pan recently? They're three interesting narratives because one is purely artistic - will it be any good? - one is purely commercial - will it be a hit? - and one is perfectly in the middle - does it set up the expanded universe successfully? That, to me, is the entire blockbuster world in a microcosm. And in about 9 days we should have the answer to all three of these.
