DC Studios Chief Says Movie Industry Is 'Dying,' Claims Disney 'Killed' Marvel With Output Mandates (rollingstone.com)
- Reference: 0178082383
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/06/18/0245223/dc-studios-chief-says-movie-industry-is-dying-claims-disney-killed-marvel-with-output-mandates
- Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/superman-director-james-gunn-dc-studios-interview-1235356450/
Gunn dismissed common explanations for Hollywood's struggles like [2]declining theater attendance or improved home viewing experiences, telling Rolling Stone that "the number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay." The filmmaker has implemented a strict rule at DC Studios requiring finished scripts before production starts, recently scrapping a project because its screenplay wasn't ready.
The director, who previously helmed three "Guardians of the Galaxy" films for Marvel, said Disney's corporate directive to increase output destroyed the studio's creative process. "They were under a corporate mandate, yeah. That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it killed them," Gunn said, referring to Marvel's mandated production quotas for movies and television shows. By contrast, Gunn said DC Studios operates without numerical mandates. "We don't have the mandate to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality," he explained.
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/superman-director-james-gunn-dc-studios-interview-1235356450/
[2] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/1856208/netflix-ceo-says-movie-theaters-are-dead
Marvel (Score:2)
This makes sense. I used to really like the marvel movies and looked forward to them but the last one I saw didn't have anything particularly interesting and the characters had lost all their individual personality. But I can't say anything I have seen since the pandemic in the theatres was particularly note-worthy. Of course I like regular adult movies, not cheap horror or cartoons or movies that were once cartoons so that limits my selection to around 10% of movies released. Maybe The Lord of the Ring
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When I saw the poster for the new Fantastic Four movie, I thought it was generated by AI or by a fan in his basement. Then I saw the trailer... oh boy... this looks horrible... About all Marvel movies have bad CGI, bad acting, and dull and shallow scenario.
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Deadpool & Wolverine was pretty great, and that's Marvel.
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The exception that proves the rule.
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> Deadpool & Wolverine was pretty great, and that's Marvel.
That's legacy Fox, with the Marvel label slapped on. The original Deadpool would never have gotten made inside of Disney proper.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters...race and gender swapping, and more interested in promotion of "the message" rather than true to the cannon story telling.
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Because none of that stuff ever existed in Hollywood before conservatives starting crying about woke stuff, right?
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> Because none of that stuff ever existed in Hollywood before conservatives starting crying about woke stuff, right?
Not to the extreme extent we're seeing these days...no.
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Guess you never watched Dog Day Afternoon or Midnight Cowboy. To Kill A Mockingbird is even pretty woke in 2025.
Like people crying about new Star Trek being "woke". Were you even watching the same show? Star Trek is a socialist utopia where money isn't needed and the federation is all about inclusivity and peaceful means. It featured the first interracial kiss on tv and according to Shatner he intentionally flubbed all the other takes so the network was forced to use the scene. Characters have changed gende
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> Star Trek is a socialist utopia where money isn't needed and the federation is all about inclusivity and peaceful means.
Yes. It's also a universe where everything fits together and the focus is on the matter at hands. It's a universe filled with professionals, where protagonists respect each other, even when they don't agree with each other. Hell, even enemies respect each other, most of the time.
The new Star Trek flix and TV Series are anything but.
It's the difference between "how the natural order of things should be" and "how some insecure dude or dudette thinks things should be".
Star Trek: TNG felt natural, something we
Re: Marvel (Score:2)
The 1959 classic Some Like It Hot was all about gender bending and was "woke" af.
Re:Marvel (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm less worried about certain of these cartoon characters not having a dick anymore than I am about nothing remotely interesting, or sometimes even intelligible, happening to them over the course of two-and-a-half hours.
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> I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters.
Probably not, since Deadpool is pansexual, and frankly acts rather gay.
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So you preferred David Hasselhoff's version of Nick Fury to Sam Jackson's? The best actor for a roll should get it, regardless of their race/gender/etc. Hiring someone based on their race is a "DEI hire" right? I thought you MAGA shits were against that?
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And it's got nothing to do with the lack of fresh new ideas with pretty much everything being a sequel, prequel, remake or reboot.
Fuck off-The only thing that matters is story (Score:2)
> I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters...race and gender swapping, and more interested in promotion of "the message" rather than true to the cannon story telling.
If the story was good, you'd LOVE anything with race/gender swapped. Make Deadpool a trans afrolatina with high functioning autism and just as funny and make the story even better, you'd embrace it. This whole "canon" discussion is pure bullshit. All that matters is if it's entertaining. Any race/gender swapping failed because you were bored.
Miles Morales was a much better spiderman than Andrew Garfield's Spiderman. Most prefer the Spiderverse spiderman because it was simply a better story.
Most p
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Lord of the Rings was an abomination, the result of pandering to an illiterate audience.
I would watch Harry Potter's cast read a telephone book aloud, so it was hard to go wrong.
There is a lot of good work being done today, even by Disney (Andor).
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Yea...
Except for Black Widow and Love & Thunder I just haven't been able to conjure or sustain much interest in Marvel post-Endgame. That seems to be the consensus of most of my friends who also like the genre. I don't know if we all underestimated just how much Chris Evans and RDJ were the "heart" of the franchise, or if the story just felt done after Endgame, or if there's just no way the bar set by Endgame will be topped anytime soon. But Marvel seems to be in "And oh, a bunch of this miscellaneou
eh (Score:2)
"So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality"
Let us know when you start.
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Ouch.
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Your mistake is thinking the opinion was reasonable.
Re:Nah (Score:4, Funny)
I love the smell of projection in the morning.
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Found the one who doesn't realise taunting others about their masculinity is announcing their own pathetic insecurities.
Re: Nah (Score:2)
Is your comment not doing the same thing?
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, we get it. Everything is about the culture war. Thanks for reminding us all about this because the rest of us love hearing about it all the fucking time .
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You are right, which is ironically why we don't want to see blatant pandering in our movies, and is related to why Hollywood is failing.
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I'm always baffled by conservative claims of the omnipresence of social messaging in todays media.
A bad movie is a bad movie whether it has social messaging in it or not and we're getting plenty of turds nowadays that have nothing to do with messaging.
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Even a good movie with decent writing can still have pandering that, if not ruining the movie, at least breaks you out of the immersion. The best example I can think of is Avengers Endgame, where, in the middle of the big finale, all the female heroes had to get together for a [1]girl-power moment [quora.com]. I saw that movie in the theatre, and discussing it afterwards even the women in our group said they rolled their eyes at that. It was just so difficult to maintain your "suspension of disbelief" when they do stuf
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-didn-t-people-like-the-all-female-scene-in-Avengers-Endgame
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There have been entire movies dedicated to "girl power" for decades. It's only ever a problem if it's poorly done.
Re: Nah (Score:2)
I love how the "girl power" moment broke suspension of disbelief instead of the other 99% of the movie, which is pretty much all fantastical impossibility.
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It was more the ham-fisted way they did it. It felt awkward and forced. It didn't feel organic, it felt like the writers were checking a box given to them by some executive who said they needed a 'girl power' scene. And I say that as someone who really doesn't care about most of the stuff the "OMG WOKE!!!! RREEEEEEEE" crowd whines about.
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> I saw that movie in the theatre, and discussing it afterwards even the women in our group said they rolled their eyes at that. It was just so difficult to maintain your "suspension of disbelief" when they do stuff like that.
Comic book movies, suspension of disbelief. Right. But that moment was too much. How on earth did you ever cope with Charlie's Angels or Wonder Woman?
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Yes, even the best film is hard to watch when it gets too preachy, or when the political message is a cheap, out of place afterthought mandated by some corporate bigwig who knows next to nothing about story writing and breaks the suspension of disbelief.
Waterworld does a much better job of hiding the political message (climate change) in a sci-fi action movie. I hope we will see more like that as the world descends into authoritarianism and misses climate goals. Then the ride down will be at least a little
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They are hyper sensitive to it now, because of years of conservative politicians trying to convince them that they are under attack and in need of saving from the do-gooders, the Cultural Marxists, the woke blob, or whatever it's called this year.
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Boy are they hypersensitive about it!
What you've said are my thoughts on it as well. I miss the days of people just calling a bad movie bad.
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Hollywood has been woke and pandering throughout all of its existence. The problem has nothing to do with woke, it's got to do with bad writing and bad acting. The problem has got to do with dumb audiences who know they don't like something but can't articulate why and therefore just default to "OMG WOKE" as a result. There's many problems with films. The worst take of them is woke pandering, the intelligent among us can actually articulate the real problems in the script / acting / production.
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If it were that simple and all about everything being too woke then we should clearly see many new "non woke" movies appearing and generating massive success?
Looking forward to the box office smash featuring James Woods, Kevin Sorbo, the chick from the Mandalorian, Rob Schneider, ummm.. hold on there's more. Melissa Joan Hart, and oh yes Scott Baio!
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... OMG. Great idea for a MCU movie: avengers & co as congressmen and senators try to pass a bill.
Iron Man can filibuster as long as it takes!* while Tony sleeps in the suit and Jarvis speaks for him.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the modern formula where the only point of the story is to string together fan references and memes in a shotgun approach to go viral on social media. Its no wonder these movies are trash. They have to make them super long to get as many viral moments as possible, and the stories are bad because they take a back seat to 30 second memes. Woke bullshit has a chance to go viral, so it gets put in. Its not to push an agenda, its to go viral. Same reason they strip mine your beloved franchises for memeable moments.
Can't say he's wrong. (Score:1)
Because he isn't. But it's not like DC movies are any better. When was the last time there was a DC movie that wasn't worse than a "meh" Marvel movie? The first Wonder Woman movie, or the last Christian Bale Batman movie?
It isn't "dying"... go make new stuff... (Score:4, Interesting)
The movie industry isn't dying. People are just tired of the same old, washed up, grim, IP over and over again. Bring back the 80s with new, fantasy IP that isn't connected to some existing universe or is a spin-off. Bring back stuff that doesn't have the same Hollywood ending. Create IP that can have one standalone movie and not need sequels or reboots.
For DC, enough with the darker and grittier aspects. Do something campy as an alternate timeline, bring back a less lethal, but annoying Joker, perhaps a Joker who is chaotic neutral rather than an elemental force of chaotic evil. We could use a 2 minute, 30 minute bomb disposal scene again.
These are grim times. Time for the movie industry to realize that, and bring back more comedies. Naked Gun is a step in the right direction. Perhaps a Star Wars: Lower Decks?
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> Dark is less predictable.
It's really not.
> I thought for sure tom cruise's character would die. He didn't. Totally ruined the movie for me. It felt like such a waste of time.
lol sounds like "unpredictable" isn't what you are looking for.
Time for some introspection, see who you really are. Which isn't someone seeking unpredictability.
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When the movie is too boring to even suck, the audience will entertain itself.
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> What is killing movie theaters is the audience.
That is one good reason. Another good reason is that the sound system is WAY too loud. The last time I went to the theater/cinema, I wished I had brought my ear plugs. The sound was far into hearing-damage territory.
The real solution is cheaper movies (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many issues with the movie industry at the moment...but I think that many of them can be addressed simply by making cheaper movies.
If a studio commits to spending half a billion dollars on a movie, they're going to enforce extremely rigid parameters. If Gunn wants to get half-billion dollar budgets, he's going to have to deal with the fact that he won't be the director - the Board of Directors will be.
The more practical approach is to pursue less expensive movies - $10M-$50M is a much better ground to work with, because the suits won't be as rigid on their direction. More creativity can flourish because there won't be as much pressure to be a paint-by-numbers film. There won't be expectations of making a billion dollars; if five $20M movies get made and one makes $200M and the other four only break even, the studio covered their costs and still doubled their money.
So, yeah, apparently James is discovering that big piles of money come with rules. News at 11.
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Apparently Andor cost $625 million for two seasons, and it's excellent. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies were around $250 million each to make, and are generally regarded as some of the best Marvel movies.
While the corporate bean counters can ruin movies, to really succeed they just need to get good creative people and trust them.
I'm still amazed that Andor was made. A lot of it was clearly based on current events, including the situation in Gaza and the first Trump presidency, and the second season is ba
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I hate to break this for you, but Hollywood has always been woke (your terms). Andy Griffith is even woke because he didn't want to carry a gun.
Stop milking the superhero movies (Score:5, Insightful)
They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.
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Oh, you have a power? I have power + 1! Oh yeah?! I have power + 5! Oh yeah?!! Turns out, I have power + infinity!
This is basically every super hero movie I have ever seen.
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You also forget the classic: "Oh, I have that superpower, but I'm also an angsty teenager that needs to impress his girlfriend". Or the eternal: "I retired because I think superhero powers are unethical, but now the Universe needs me to un-retire".
I'd love to see a movie set in the Sanderson's Reckoners universe. It's a universe where the super-heroes (called "epics") are actively evil.
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You forgot to resolve all conflict with time travel at the endgame.
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My favourite superheroes, such as Batman and Black Widow, have no superpowers, so there are at least a few exceptions to that. But yeah, that is generally the problem with the genre.
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You can do the same thing in SF with :"technobabble gizmo + 1", or in fantasy with magic systems, or war movies with secret weapons. How you resolve the action is just a macguffin, what actually matters is how deep and interesting are your characters and do you have an interesting story to tell. If those things are true, the plot can be as goofy as you want and people will still connect to it.
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> They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.
Superhero movies make up a tiny minority of releases, and are definitely not the worst of what Disney is pushing. Good superhero movies still make decent money and are still entertaining. What you can do about this is: go watch something else. There were a handful of superhero movies released in 2024, out of 569 total movies in the USA alone. There's something out there for you if you want to go look.
Re:Stop milking the superhero movies (Score:4, Interesting)
There are still interesting stories to tell. Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were both pretty good, and I'm hopeful that his new Superman movie is similarly interesting.
The issue is the saturation of the market with crap superhero stuff, with second rate characters and a focus on introducing new ones and setting up the next movie, rather than telling a complete and interesting story.
I like how Gun leans into the comic book silliness in his works. They aren't parodies, but they do acknowledge how silly it all is. Peacemaker, the character, is basically a satire of US foreign policy, and that's something that we have only really scratched the surface of. I do wonder how far he could take it, like could he do a Bananaman movie where the whole basis of the character and villains is parody, or is there a limit to it? Certainly the movies that have set out to be funny, like Shazam, have been fairly uninspiring.
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> There are still interesting stories to tell. Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were both pretty good
Eh. Still pretty stereotypical, even with a freaking secret Nazi base.
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> They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.
I agree. It was amazing when they first started coming out. Now I'm tired of it. I'm tired of time travel stories too.
Here's the thing though: the beauty of free markets is Disney is free to try one approach, DC is free to try another. We'll see in the end which one works out better. I don't really care which approach they use as long as great content eventually shows up on my screen. I personally can't keep up with all the Star Wars and Marvel content Disney is cranking out so I'd be pretty happy if they s
Maybe the Industry is Dying? (Score:2)
Maybe the movie industry is dying because it became obsessed with feasting on its own rot. Case in point, if you think Disney/Marvel played a significant role in killing the movie industry, the industry itself could be blamed for allowing one studio to control that much of the industry.
That said, maybe the movie industry needs to die. And maybe, just maybe, some of those really good indie films that get produced year after year but barely get any recognition can start being recognized for being as good as t
The "content" industry will adapt. (Score:4, Informative)
When westerns fell out of favour in the late '70s and early '80s, the content industry was able to adapt across radio, TV and full lenght film.
and westerns were MUCH MORE prevalent than superhero has been.
do not worry, the content industry will adapt once more...
The problem is... (Score:2)
... endless superhero movies.
It's also a lack of creativity with remakes, reboots, "franchises" and other endless retelling of old stories.
Theaters are dinosaurs that deserve to die. They were once necessary because of the tech of the time, but today there is nothing pleasant about the theater experience
"What evil lurks in the hearts of Scrum?" (Score:5, Funny)
TIRED: "Shoot what? We don't even have a script!"
WIRED: "Show biz has embraced agile!"
Re:"What evil lurks in the hearts of Scrum?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Movie goers are the alpha testers.
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I think we call that "early access release" these days. That's not even much of a joke. Just look at Alien Romulus, a great movie in many respects, but one that objectively had a post release change in VFX for the streaming / DVD release based on reviews from the theatrical release.