The Flash movie has been delayed until 2021.

Ok that's a possible cancellation postponement. Lets say it's 100% they are never going to make GoTG3 how many times has MCU delayed a movie? 2 times Antman and now Gotg3. in what will be 21 films if Cap Marvel and Avengers 4 is on time. And you should be happy about GotG 3 being cancelled. Without it James Gunn is free to make SS2.


How many times as WB movies been postponed since The Dark Knight Rises. How many directors did it take to get James Wan to finally make Aquaman? How many directors and how many times did Flash get push back? How long will Rock's Black Adam be delayed? Are they still making it? Is Birds of Prey still being made? That originally was going to be a Harley Quinn movie wasn't it? Suicide Squad 2 looks they found a director. Is LOBO sitll in develepment. How many Joker movies are being made just the one or the the other that WB said will be made with Leto.


My point is WB has annouced a shit ton of properties in the last 5 years and they have double back, pulled some of produciton put some back on. If nerds have a hard time keeping track what that must do to normal people.

One. James Wan is the only director the movie has ever had. 

I was no fan of Miller's Barry Allen, but at this point, I'm actually starting to pity him. No one deserves to have their chance at the big times ruined because of one bad outing that was all the studio's fault, anyway.

No, there was never any official announcement by WB of any Joker & Harley movie or solo Harley movie. Only Birds of Prey was announced and a script written and a Director hired and leads casted and a release date announced. Anything else not coming from an official announcement by WB is just rumor.



WB didn't make any wild statements or give any press releases. There was only a bunch of unsubstantiated and false rumors. WB doesn't control people making false rumors, such as the false rumor a few months before Wonder Woman was released that it was "a complete mess".

Most of those rumors were made up by MCU fans trying to derail any DC movie. WB doesn't control those people so if those people want to be assholes and make up false rumors, that's not WB's fault and WB doesn't control that.

But
back to DC. They did announce a slate of 10 films in a specific order
and it's kind of a bummer it didn't work out for people to be seeing a
Flash movie this year and a Justice League 2 next year. But they are
mostly on schedule with everything else they announced in 2014. They've just added a lot of other stuff too.

Tristan's Journal I am trying not to fall into any fallacy traps, but sometimes I have a blind eye when it comes to my own logic. Keep me honest. Your's and Politicdal's posts along with mine got me thinking about perception vs reality. I'm being serious here and this is going to be long.  I can't speak for politicidal , but for me all the reports of WB course correcting and the supposed turmoil has effected how I perceive not only the Universe but individual movies coming out as well. I don't know the validity of any of these statements but I have seen each online. 

• saying MoS 2 is still a thing and then letting it fade
• green lighting a Cyborg movie and lettingfade
• annoucing that Green Lantern Corps is being made as a buddy cop movie and let it fade
• reports that flash is in trouble losing and adding directors
  
• DC still on board with a movie with Jared Leto Joker along with a non-DCEU joker movie confusing the public
• actors  saying they are making movies and years later they are still working on a script (Dewayne Johnson/Black Adam 2014 announced by tweet  years later still on script stage)
• The Batman was going to be written, directed, and starring Ben, then just starring now Matt Reeves is saying conflicting things about the production.
• The reports that Henry Cavill is out then he posted that weird video, now we don't know?
• If Cavill is out does that mean Ben is out too?
• Margot  saying last December she has been working on getting a solo Harley Quinn movie for 2 years, then they announce Birds of Prey, and two writers say they turned in a Joker and Harley movie the same month that Birds of Prey got a release date. Are we getting 2 movies are was that merged into one.

There are other things I've read but these are the ones that came of the top of my head. All of this got me thinking, is this like the chicken and the egg. The more negative press we read, the more you buy into the negative press,  the more we by into the negative press the more negative press is reported as negative press sells more, the more negative press is reported/sells the more negative press we read...ad nauseam.


In the end, I think it's a Perception is a Reality type situation. WB/DC have made changes recently that hopefully will iron out the wrinkles. I want DC to succeed not only because I like DC, but the whole "a high tide raises all boats." DCEU/XMU/MCU/Sony/Universal gets a win then all comic book movies gets a win. It's just since Man of Steel there has been this Perceived Sloppiness (rightly or wrongly) with WB/DC/DCEU. Also to go along with that perception they have to deal with the critical failure of all the DCEU movies except Wonder Woman. If perception is reality then the reality is the DCEU is a failure. (I'm not saying the DCEU is a failure I'm saying it's perceived a failure) I have made fun of the bias against the DCEU and the positive bias for the MCU. Hell, I think I did it today. I do it because I think it’s funny that people believe in a vast conspiracy when Occam's Razor suggests people just kind of dig the MCU. If the conspiracy is true then:

• Why would Disney not buy reviews on all their movies. 
• What happened With Iron Fist and The Inhumans, 
• Why would a critic risk the one thing his career is based on his word? 
• Why would Disney risk breaking the law and spoiling their reputation for one movies reviews?
  

There are other things wrong with the conspiracy theory, but it's late and I am tired. If you admit to the possibility of a general bias then in some people’s minds that is tantamount to admitting that Disney buys reviews. Seriously though, I am willing to concede that the MCU may get a break from reviews because the critics have like their work in the past. I can also see the point that the fact the movies are connected that could help play into people’s opinion on individual movies. Basically, they liked a lot of the movies in the past and they will like the new movies because they are connected to the old ones. That connection and comparing the movies to the earlier movies can be a double edge sword. Just as I don't want to give credence to conspiracy fanatics, conspiracy fanatics don't ever see the down side of connected movies. If you are constantly competing with your past movies then expectations are going to be higher and higher. If a movie doesn't make as much money as its predecessor then it looks like you are slipping. Same goes with critical reviews. The only problem with this and the MCU is there has only been one direct sequel that has made less money that's Age of Ultron compared to Avengers. Even with it making less money it still crossed a billion. 1 out of 19 is way too small a sample size to infer anything. If you look at the critics as a whole the worst the MCU gets is it was average with 2 exceptions. Iron Fist 1 and The Inhumans are the only examples of the critics as a whole not liking a MCU property. Again it’s not enough to know if those 2 failures hurt the brand as a whole. Season 2 of Iron fist was a marked as an improvement in critics' minds from season 1, but what are the ramifications other than it's cancellation.  I don't know.


I know WB can't stop writers publishing negative stories about production woes. I also believe when they do write those articles they punch up the story. Nobody wants to read an article that says "Everyone loved going to work. The actors were always on time, and catering was done by Guy Fetti on set" Negative articles gets the most hits. Which in turn makes reports/bloggers look for more dirt. It's a vicious cycle.



This cycle feeds the loop with the critical failure in the audience mind too.. If the public perceives that the production had problems when the audience sees a bad critical reaction to the movie then it bolsters that initial perception. Perception is Reality.. To the average Joe if something was long , arduous. and a pain in the dick to do, there mind wouldn't automatically go to "well this turned out well. " It's one thing to perceive a situation as challenging and then overcoming that challenge which feels good. It's something completely different if the perception of a situation is hellish, everything is in flux, and no one wants to be there.  In that situation the person seeing that harsh enviornment is justified to think  "Of course critics hated the finished product the cast and crew hated working on it."  When the public has that reaction then Perception is reality. Even if the product is good, it takes twice as much publicity to squash a negative story or change someone’s negative judgment of the product.



Right now I don't think WB/DC is in a very good place. And I don't think their announcements, both officially or unofficially through the actors, writers, and directors is helping much. The public doesn't care if the news is genuine or not. If they hear there are 4 Joker movies in production they will believe it. It doesn't matter if it's true. It sounds like it's true from past reports on other movies they've made.. There is a perception that I think is partially true, that WB has tried to conform to expectation of the market since Man of Steel’s release. With every subsequent movie WB has tried more and more to go where the public wants them to go. To me it seems like they care about this more than making a good movie first. Worry about the public’s expectations after. Man of Steel was decisive when it came to audience and critics. Snider tried to answer some of the critical and audience concerns about the destruction in MoS. Instead of making it better his course corrections made the problem worse. The report about how Snider would like to see Batman Raped in prison or calling killing Jimmy Olsen fun didn't help. Reports that Jared Leto was being a douche bag on set hurt the perceived reputation The fact they got the company that made the second well liked trailer to edit Suicide Squad proved to some that DC didn't have a clue what they are doing. And this is from the company that made Batman Begins and the Dark Knight just 10 years ago.



I honestly don't know if WB can let the DCEU reputation grow organically by making good well loved movies. I think WW helped but then Justice League came out to poor box office and critical derision. In WB eyes and that of the general audience what does that math look like? Wonder Woman got critical praise and made bank. Then 5 months later Justice League comes out to critical and financial failure. (We can only guess at the money side of things, but most would call JL at best financially disappointing at worst a financial failure. ) I'm not saying this math is true but on the face of it that math looks like if you add Batman, Superman, Cyborg, and the Flash to a Wonder Woman movie it will make less money. In other words the good will earned by Wonder Woman didn't help Justice League.



I don't know if Aquaman is well liked and makes money if that translates to people seeing Shazaam. I think WW1984 has a good chance of being loved and making bank, but I don't know if it will make as much money as the first one. WW1984 might be hurt with the comparison to the first movie. If the critics come back with "it's good but not great compared to WW" and it opens a little slow then that could be enough to cause real damage overall numbers. That will in turn feed the cycle. WW1984 won't be competing with other comic book movies it's going to be competing with WW critical and financial success. Much in the same way that Black Panther 2 will only be competing against Black Panther. And I don't know if either WW 1984 or Black Panther 2 can pull off higher box office and critical praise. Part of what drove WW and BP box office is they tapped directly into the specific Zeitgeist of the moment. Now that the moment has been expressed twice, I don’t think either movie can recapture it again.

What do you think? 

The DCU is a dead man walking.

No Superman, no Batman and nowhere to go. They are waiting for Aquaman, WW and Shazam to finish their theatrical runs before dropping the truth pill on their delusional fanbase.