https://www.cbr.com/dceu-what-went-wrong-unsalvageable/
Zack Snyder kicked off the DCEU franchise with Man of Steel and returned to save it with his Justice League, but was it already too late by then?
I've never been a Snyder hater. There are some of his films I really like. But speaking as a big DC fan Snyder made some unbelievably dumb decisions. Yes, there was impatience on the part of WB for their own shared universe, interference from studio execs, but some of his choices were mystifying to say the least. As for his 'big three',
Cavill: Looked the part but was wooden as a plank
Affleck: Could have been fantastic. He played it superbly. In himself he looked great and he looked awesome in the BvS armoured suit; but in the main suit he looked ridiculously bloated, and fat in the face (when he was neither). The suits really let him down; other than the BvS armour he never had a good one.
Gadot: Skinnier than Wonder Woman is normally but she did put on some size, and she really scored in exuding that kindness, as well as an attitude that says 'I'm gonna kick your ass now. I'm sorry I have to, but this is gonna hurt!' She also looked great in the action. For me his best casting choice.
Cavill was abit wooden as you say, but he def looked like Superman from the 1986 John Byrne 'Man of Steel' reboot (and abit like a curly haired Christopher Reeve) one thing I never understand (and other supermen are guilty of this too bar Reeve) is how they (and the director) make virtually no effort to differentiate Superman and Clark. with Reeve it legit felt like two entirely different people, they didn't even look alike! (different hairstyle, massive specs, slumped posture, total nerd personality, higher voice), whereas Cavill, George Reeves, and Dean Cain, the new TV guy (and even Routh abit, even tho he was supposed to be playing Reeve's superman) they literally put on a pair of designed specs don't bother to change hairstyle or even the personality 😄 (I wonder how the new guy will do under Gunn, my guess is they'll go with Reeve)
Affleck did OK coming in after Bale, and looked probably the most 'Bruce Wayne' from the DC comics of all the big screen Batmen, but he was really let down by the film and as you say the suit wasn't great (fatman?), and his personal troubles (drinking, troubled married to Elecktra) along with the reaction of the DCEU films seemed to cause him to lose interest and his solo film (that he intended to direct) fell apart and got retooled into The Batman. Was abit surprised to see him return for The Flash after all that
Gadot was good in the role (looked like WW from the more modern comics) and became the highlight of BVS, and obviously her movie became like an Avengers level event picture. think she looked her best in JL as shed but on abit of extra weight by then . but its a shame she got let down by that film (and then the spectacular fail of WW84), from how she thought she was going to do WW3 it sounds like Gunn was reluctant to let her go.. (maybe he plans to keep her on somehow, unlike Cavill who he couldn't get rid of fast enough!)
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Sadly there was no repairing the DCEU, it would be insane to keep the same people and keep expecting different results from them each time.
shareI think what went wrong was The AVENGERS(2012) and after that, it was all downhill for the DCU.. Moviegoers simply find MARVEL characters more down to earth while DC characters are simply too serious and too much doom and gloom.. When dealing with DCU characters, you essentially dealing with Gods, excluding BATMAN
shareExploring the Failure of the DCEU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_vJ1v_7mPA
In this video, we discuss the downfall of the DCEU. With the start of the DCU on the way it got me thinking about what the DCEU did over the years. Where did they go wrong? What lead us to where we are now? Why is the DC brand basically dead? Well were gonna find out why the DCEU failed.share
When comic movies ignore source material they are doomed.
Superman was played well.
Batman was horrible via Afflect and the director.
Batman is a dead serious calculating Sherlock Holmes Ninja. Also, he doesn't murder people. But, in the movie he was jokey, murdered people, and didn't have the demeanor of the animated/comic character.
Lex Luthor is a cold and jealous super genius, not goofy and insane. The actor played Luthor like Joker, which was just bizarre.
Flash is another genius who is a super fast thinker and witty. The actor played him like an awkward Woody Allen type, which makes no sense.
Doomsday is a creation from Krypton not a medical experiment done on General Zod. So, what fans expected from Doomsday was ignored and replaced with a story no one loved.
Epic stories exist about Darkseid, who predates Thanos, and so the goal would be to immediately lead in with his character as the villain. One good story I recall was that Darkseid was flooding Earth with advanced weapons to undermine there Earth, but whatever.
Darkseid and his planet were discussed much in the film but the main characters encounter the technology from the planet like "motherboxes" and what average person knows what that is?
So, we had a film with MANY violations of known character AND it was decided to gloss over what Darkseid and his world was but feature a side character of Darkseid as the main villain. I'm a huge comic fan, of older ones, and had no clue who the villain with the horns was and still forget his name.
So, the movie was another case of a director making up their own version of characters that are nearly a hundred years old and that people love. It's like a cook at McDonalds deciding to make goat burgers because he thinks people will like them.
They lost the chance to make epic movies. Meanwhile, the animated DC films are epic and respect the source material, which I find extremely bizarre.
I'm waiting for the new films to be "funny" ruining it more