The sequel to 2019’s Shazam, Shazam: Fury of the Gods just dropped yesterday. While, the trailer looks pretty freakin’ good, it’s got me thinking all sorts of thoughts surrounding superheroe movies in general. Mainly, can they still make stand alone superhero films?
2008 introduced the world to both The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man to the big screen. Unbeknownst to me, it was the start of a massive build up to–not just the team-up movie Avengers–but an all out multi-universal brawl between Thanos and, you know, everyone else. It was amazing. It was epic. But is it now mandatory? What Marvel did from 2008 carrying on into today, is make individual superhero films that are linked. By starting the trend of the end credit scene or scenes, they were dropping little bread crumbs for nerdy fans like me to pick up. We’d eat the bread crumb and then run to the internet to speculate what it all meant. We all know now, that it was leading up to Infinity War and Endgame. And scene.
It’s a moment I still can’t get over. In the very early days, Marvel still didn’t have a good footing. But, by the time Captain America: Winter Soldier released, I think they had hit their stride. The world was primed for Infinity War and Endgame, and we were ready.
During this time, DC was trying to find their way. But, as I’ve written about several times on this blog, without a Kevin Feige captaining the ship they were sort of lost at sea. They made movies, they released movies, but they were dropping the ball when it came to creating a DC connected universe. Things just weren’t vibing. Meanwhile, Marvel moved forward, like a freight train. DC felt like the person who missed the train and was running beside it to catch up.
While Disney and Marvel Studios have their flaws, they’re angels compared to the hot mess that is Warner Brothers Discovery. WBD, having had a very public dumpster fire of a year last year is still in triage. Last year WBD announced they had finally found their ship captains, James Gunn and Peter Safran. The only thing is, these captains feel like the best idea is to poke holes in the hull and sink the whole damn thing. The idea is there’s a better ship on the horizon and they’ll captain that one.
As a result, they deleted the Batgirl movie. We’ve seen Henry Cavill announced his return as Superman. Then announce the opposite. Dwayne Johnson, star, producer, and advocate of Black Adam, has had public disagreements with WBD on where to take the DCEU next. WBD announced they won’t be going forward with another Gal Gadot lead Wonder Woman 3. And just this week they announced the cancellation of both Doom Patrol and Titans on HBOmax. Meanwhile, we’ve got two or three DC superhero movies waiting to drop sometime this year.
Some people think the obvious question is should we care? If all of these DC superhero films aren’t leading up to an Endgame-like finale, what’s the point? But I’m wondering why is has to?
What Marvel did from 2008 to 2019 is create something unique. Something I’ve never seen done before with movies. Which is make an epic interconnected series of movies, all taking place in the same universe. Why is it that we now expect that to happen with all superhero films? Even Marvel Studios’ Werewolf By Night is supposed to fit inside the MCU somehow. But why? Why does it have to? And why should it? When Matt Reeves’ The Batman came out, I applauded the fact that we got a stand alone Batman film outside the current DC “universe.” And it worked! The Batman was one of the more successful DC films out there. Not to mention Joker that was released in 2019. It’s another example of a movie, based in superhero comics, that can do well on its own.
And yet…
And yet I hear buzzing from fans whether or not it’s connected, or going to be connected, to X, Y, or Z film, or universe, etc. Since this is all Marvel’s idea, I’ll let them off the hook. But-outside of Marvel-I say let’s just make superhero movies just for the fun of it. Give me Black Adam. And give me Aquaman. And give me The Flash. But don’t worry about about them being…connected. Maybe that’s just too complicated. Instead of running to catch up to the Marvel train that took off hours before you even showed up to the train station–how’s about we just board a different train huh? And guess what? This train doesn’t have to be dragging any other cars behind it. It’ll be a solo train. Just full steam ahead.
I know I’m all over the place with my metaphors here but what I’m saying is this: how about you just focus on making a great movie. Period. It doesn’t have to connect to anything or lead up to a 10 year long finale. Just make a great movie. Done. Sometimes I feel that we-the fans-have forgotten that you can just make a great superhero movie and leave the theater…satisfied. Sure they’ll probably make a sequel but it doesn’t have to fit into a greater universe like the piece of some puzzle. You can enjoy it for what it is.
Don’t think I’m ignoring the elephant in the room. The fact that a huge expansive DC universe could eventually make WBD tons and tons of money. Of course that’s the reason they’re still pursuing this idea. Though Marvel’s already done it, and done it well. Warner Brothers Discovery is still trying to figure out how to earn that golden paycheck. It may be very Jerry McGuire of me right now but, my advice? Just make great superhero movies. Focus on the smaller stories. Make superhero films fun again! Leave the politics of movie and money making at home. Just give me good characters, great writing, mind blowing action sequences (and jokes, please don’t forget the jokes), and leave the rest of the universe(s) out of it.