Justice League (2017) (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I don't really know anything about Flash, so the idea of his solo movie being a complex tale that doesn't portray what the character's normal superheroing is like seems like a misfire to me.

WB has my dollars for at least the next Superman and Batman movies because I have decades of fond memories of being a fan of those characters. I don't have that attachment to Flash, so it's really on WB to make a film that looks appealing. Which, to be fair, this could end up being.

One of my pals mentioned quickly that Flashpoint was just a season-long story arc on the Flash TV show. If so, that's even more bizarre. It's weird that Warner has two different versions of the Flash happening simultaneously, and even weirder if they're both doing the same story.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Flashpoint doesn't have to be overly complex. At it's root it's a story about Barry and his relationship with his father and mother. Everything else is just windrow dressing. There's a reason they're looking at Robert Zemeckis for it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

But doesn't it seem somewhat troubling that for the first solo Flash movie, they're apparently looking at a story that's a summation of years of Flash being Flash, rather than making the first film a solid character introduction? Or that the TV show Flash just spent a full season telling this same story?

From my perspective, this is another baffling choice from WB.

 

[Sam Favate]

Not to mention that the third season of the Flash TV show dealt with Flashpoint extensively.

 

[Brandon Conway]

But doesn't it seem somewhat troubling that for the first solo Flash movie, they're apparently looking at a story that's a summation of years of Flash being Flash, rather than making the first film a solid character introduction?

Not really. Instead of being a summation movie you make it an intro movie. There's nothing specifically in Flashpoint that requires it to be after years of heroic experience. In fact, in some ways a hero with some inexperience would be ideal for the story.

Or that the TV show Flash just spent a full season telling this same story?

The TV show has an audience of 2-3 million viewers a week in the US. The number of people who will see a Flash movie is far, far higher. Let's say the 3 million people in the US who watch the TV Show will see the movie twice at $10/ticket (current average movie ticket price is just under $9, but this is 2020 or so we're talking about, so let's go with $10).

So that's $60m in US box office if the higher number of TV viewers see the movie twice (10x2x3). Now let's say that the film takes in the low amount of $180m US during its theatrical run, which is the lower-end Ant-Man type of performance. So best case scenario is that the US Flash TV audience makes up only 1/3rd of the US Flash movie audience, and only because I was being generous with their numbers. Chances are it would be far closer to being 1/5th, 1/6th or much lower if the movie is very good and gets significant word of mouth. In any case, a majority of the people that would see a Flash movie aren't watching the TV show by a significant margin.

This scenario also never considers that some TV viewers didn't like how the show handled the Flashpoint story and want to see a movie tackle it from a different angle.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

(current average movie ticket price is just under $9, but this is 2020 or so we're talking about, so let's go with $10)

There must be some crazy low priced markets to make that average. I know I live in one of the most expensive markets in the country but that still seems insanely low for an average ticket cost. Man, I gotta move! (If the movie opened today in NYC, it would be $16.50 to see it in 2D, $20 to see it in RealD 3D, $23 to see it in Dolby Cinema or other premium large format screens, and $27 to see it in IMAX 3D. I'm scared of what those numbers will be in three years. IMAX has raised prices twice in the last six months already.)

I think this movie has a big mountain to climb. Admittedly, I know very little of The Flash, and maybe there are tons of people who are dying to see a Flash movie. I don't think DC gets the benefit of the doubt that Marvel Studios currently does when introducing a new character. Obviously they have all of Justice League to sell me on seeing a Flash movie, and certainly I'd like nothing more than to leave Justice League thinking "I can't wait to see solo movies for all of these guys" but right now, I'm not there. Frankly, each Justice League trailer looks worse to me than the last. For me personally, I didn't miss the Flash show on CW by accident; the idea didn't appeal to me because I'm not very familiar with the character and starting to feel fatigued with superhero obligations, so I didn't watch it. (I also stopped watching Daredevil on Netflix after two episodes for the same reason -- so I'm not picking just on DC when I talk about being a little fatigued by the repetition of superheroes, I remain a big fan of my core group but am feeling less of a need to expand my horizons.) The movie will have that same obstacle to overcome for me, with the additional obstacle of me not caring for Ezra Miller. It appears we're stuck with him in the Fantastic Beast franchise (even though his character was one of the least interesting parts of the first film, he's inexplicably being brought back), but I love J.K. Rowling's writing enough to deal with an actor I don't care for in a supporting role.

At any rate, they could end up making a great movie that's perfectly advertised that will draw my attention. But this one feels like more of an uphill battle than Wonder Woman was.

 

[AshJW]

I never saw the TV show. But I'm interested in the movie.

Actually I haven't seen any of the TV shows yet, neither from Marvel nor DC. I just haven't got the time for it, although many of them are available on Netflix (with the exception of i.e. The Flash ).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Not really. Instead of being a summation movie you make it an intro movie. There's nothing specifically in Flashpoint that requires it to be after years of heroic experience. In fact, in some ways a hero with some inexperience would be ideal for the story.

The problem I have is that they've done nothing to invest us in the silver screen Barry Allen's status quo. We only got a single glimpse of his home life in BvS and we probably won't get a whole ton more in Justice League. So if we don't have know or care about the before, why will we care about the altered after?

Flashpoint only lasted a couple episodes on "The Flash", but it blew up years of continuity. When Barry had to choose between his happiness and the happiness and safety of those around him, it meant something because we care about those around him too.

 

[Brandon Conway]

The problem I have is that they've done nothing to invest us in the silver screen Barry Allen's status quo. We only got a single glimpse of his home life in BvS and we probably won't get a whole ton more in Justice League. So if we don't have know or care about the before, why will we care about the altered after?

Did you have any earlier movies to get invested in Marty McFly's status quo?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

When Back To The Future came out, it was new and fresh. I didn't have to choose whether to give my time-traveling-comedic-adventure dollars to BTTF or half a dozen similar movies coming out weeks apart from each other.

Little different with the superhero genre these days.

This also puts aside the idea that the first BTTF was a little one off made during a time when people were more receptive to original ideas. Meanwhile, Flash is scheduled to come out after films about D.C. heroes that are among the most beloved comic book heroes of all time, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It feels like the studio wants me to care as much about Flash as I do about Batman, without them having done any of the heavy lifting. Add to that the casting and they have a big hill to climb. Maybe I'm alone in disliking Ezra Miller but a franchise with him as the lead is a really tough sell for me.

 

[Alf S]

When Back To The Future came out, it was new and fresh. I didn't have to choose whether to give my time-traveling-comedic-adventure dollars to BTTF or half a dozen similar movies coming out weeks apart from each other.

Little different with the superhero genre these days.

This also puts aside the idea that the first BTTF was a little one off made during a time when people were more receptive to original ideas. Meanwhile, Flash is scheduled to come out after films about D.C. heroes that are among the most beloved comic book heroes of all time, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It feels like the studio wants me to care as much about Flash as I do about Batman, without them having done any of the heavy lifting. Add to that the casting and they have a big hill to climb. Maybe I'm alone in disliking Ezra Miller but a franchise with him as the lead is a really tough sell for me.

Same could be said of Marvel's Ant Man. He pretty much came out of nowhere and he scored pretty much big time with audiences.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Two things:

-Ant-Man did reasonably well but was the lowest grossing movie Marvel had had in a while.

-More importantly, Ant-Man was a true origin story for Paul Rudd'a character. What they're doing with Flash is like making the fifth movie first and hoping people will care without building their emotional investment. Kinda like they did with BvS.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Again, there's nothing inherent in the Flashpoint story that requires it to be a "culmination of the character" or "fifth movie". N-O-T-H-I-N-G. It's a story that could serve very well in discovering the character of Barry Allen / Flash for new audiences.

 

[Sam Favate]

In addition to the TV show already doing Flashpoint, there was also an animated movie of the storyline (which was over-the-top in its depiction of violence and really degraded DC's heroes by making them ruthless murderers - IMO of course). That animated movie soured me on the entire storyline.

In any case, this is the third time to the well for the same story. Enough already.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Did you have any earlier movies to get invested in Marty McFly's status quo?

Back to the Future didn't ask the audience to invest in Marty McFly's status quo. In fact, his status quo pretty much sucked: his father was an underpaid and abused doormat and his mother was an alcoholic. The tension wasn't "Will Marty be able to put things back the way they were?" The tension was "Will Marty be able to get his parents back together before he's erased from existence?" When he does make it back to 1985, it's clear that his intervention has actually changed quite a number of things, mostly for the better.

Given how bleak and dour the DC Cinematic Universe has been up to this point, maybe we should be rooting for the same thing with Flashpoint.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

Barry Allen returns to the altered present, only to catch different-looking Batman and Superman coming inside from a round off tennis. Then Batman smacks Superman on the ass and The Flash falls over.

 

[TonyD]

Barry Allen returns to the altered present, only to catch different-looking Batman and Superman coming inside from a round off tennis. Then Batman smacks Superman on the ass and The Flash falls over.

"No sir. I don't like it."

 

[Brandon Conway]

Back to the Future didn't ask the audience to invest in Marty McFly's status quo.

Exactly my point.

The tension wasn't "Will Marty be able to put things back the way they were?". The tension was "Will Marty be able to get his parents back together before he's erased from existence?"

And a Flashpoint movie would be "Will Barry be able to fix the present alternate reality he created when he changed the past?", so it's more BTTF 2 in that way, but it's not exactly a super complex plotting device.

It's not something so complicated that it can't be set up in a first act if the very same film.

 

[Sam Favate]

More on reshoots:

Justice League Too Dark For Warner Bros., Studio Trying To Lighten It With Reshoots

http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/justice-league-reshoots-focused-fixing-cyborg-tone/


IGN article:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08...the-cyborg-character-was-part-of-the-reshoots

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Ugh... Sam, I'm sorry, I don't mean to pick on you, but I dislike links like these. This doesn't appear to be a legitimate site of journalism. Rather, it seems that they've ripped off quotes from an IGN article and put a whole punch of pop-up ads and other advertising in there to try to profit off of someone else's work. They don't even have the courtesy to link to the article that they're ripping off.