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Super Freak
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2018
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I'd also put this down to WB marketing department also being shown how it's done by the "one man show" which is Zack Snyder. He single handedly marketed it himself and showed them how to use the fanbase to your advantage. Also stuff like going to the smaller Youtube channels where the real fans are, to spread the word, and not to the standard "Pop-culture Gatekeeper" media outlets who will always tow the company line predicated by Emmerich in this case. Not to mention most of the mainstream outlets also had their own agenda considering they had already said several times that the Snyder Cut wasn't coming. And if it did it would of course be very similar or not so good.
In any case with WB marketing no doubt as butt hurt as Emmerich, it wouldn't have taken much to convince them to not release HBOMax streaming numbers, or to move Godzilla vs Kong into the same release window as ZSJL to muddy the numbers.
The politics and details of it are amazing. And all because WB execs (Emmerich and co) meddled into the process and were true a-holes.
Yeah, great point that WB actually got schooled by what Snyder did to get ZSJL completed and released. Like you would think their attitude would be damn, look at this engagement! Let's work with Snyder to get that lightning in a bottle, for Pete's sake. And I hope that is precisely the sort of vision that David Zaslav brings! But there's simply no way to know yet. He might just as easily support the good old boy system including Emmerich. The reason I'm fairly optimistic that he won't is that Emmerich has not at all delivered with these incredible DC IPs.
Aquaman did outstanding thanks to an Asian market that loves colorful, whimsical, fantastical, playful films featuring Kaiju! But my God, Shazam and BoP barely made any money. Joker made a billion but WB had no confidence in the film and shared the meager marketing costs with other investors, coming away with only 1/3 of the profit. They did everything they could to prevent the Snyder cut from seeing the light of day. I'll bet it shattered viewing records. Spider-Man and Batman are the two most popular superheroes on the planet. Right after Spider-man: No Way Home made a stunning $1.85B during what we all hope and pray is the tail end of the recent pandemic, the first solo Batman film in a decade released to great reviews but will end up making about what 2016's Suicide Squad did, ending in the mid 700Ms. Maybe 775M tops.
This is nothing against Matt Reeves or Robert Pattinson. I liked The Batman personally. I'm glad that the film was as dark in tone as it was--that is appropriate for the character! (However please note: dark toned and psychologically disturbing superhero films typically do not appeal to the Chinese market, pandemic notwithstanding.) But the film evidently failed to ignite the level of passion that would get it to $1B.
If Ben Affleck had been able to make his solo Batman film without interference (if you don't believe there was any by Geoff Johns, not sure what to say), squaring off in a heavily action oriented film against Deathstoke a la the Arkham game, does anyone really think that would not have made $1B?
I mean, I'm also happy that we have the Reeves/Battinson take as well. But I think Ben's film would have been more popular.
So let's just hope that Zaslav sees all this with objective, sensible, fresh eyeballs.
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