By George Robbins
DC FanDome was a huge event for the DC brand as a whole because it allowed them the opportunity to show people all of their upcoming projects. These upcoming projects that were announced are meant to give people a reason to get hyped about all of the films and other works currently being produced. A number of different announcements were made that made it possible for DC to draw more attention to themselves and this was the point of the Con. This convention was the first one of its kind and due to the unique circumstances this year, it was held entirely online. This gave people all over the opportunity to see what DC was working on, and the free admission allowed their news to spread to the masses.
Plenty of different projects were announced that people have been looking forward to seeing something for. Now that some of those projects have had details released, we now know what we should be looking forward to as time goes on. Although a couple of those projects are still a ways off, they all look a lot better than we originally expected them to. Although many of those projects are still in the middle of development, they are already looking great and are doing a lot to get people excited for their releases in the long term. Among those projects was one of the bigger surprises, ‘The Batman,’ which ended up looking a lot better than people expected it to just like all of the other projects being worked on.
‘The Batman’ is an upcoming film that will not really be a part of the DC Extended Universe, or DCEU. The movie will be a standalone story that will show the titular Caped Crusader at an early point in his career as The Dark Knight. Director Matt Reeves admitted that the film was not an original take on the character and that the film takes inspiration from a comic story. The film will not take place during Bruce Wayne’s first year as the titular Bat, but it will take place at a point very early on in the grand scheme of things. Without Batman around, the city was becoming a place ruled by crime and, early on, he hadn’t really inspired the fear in people that he has later which keeps more crime from happening.
In his second year stint as the Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is trying to stop the plague of crime and corruption that has run rampant throughout Gotham City. The primary murderous antagonist in the film will be The Riddler who is being portrayed by Paul Dano. While previous versions of Gotham were portrayed in various ways based upon cities in the United States, Reeves admitted that this version of Gotham will be a more original take on the film. He has said that the city will, “feel like an American city you’d never been to.” This gives us a pretty good idea as to how much he wants it to be different from previous incarnations and it gives us a chance to see a brand new take on the classic cityscape.
By George Robbins
This past weekend was a big weekend for DC fans everywhere because it was the first ever installment of DC FanDome. For those unaware of what that is, it is essentially a Comic-Con style convention that focused on DC intellectual properties. Due to the current global pandemic, the event could not be held in person so they made it an online only event that anybody would be able to join in on. Everything from panels to the selling of merchandise took place online to allow people the opportunity to get in on the action available to them. The end result of the previous weekend was that it ended up being an overall success.
New and upcoming projects were shown off at length and it gave everybody some things to look forward to over the next couple of years at least. There is plenty going on with DC right now and it means that there is a lot of opportunity for the DC franchise to become better than it was before. Some of the movies that they have made over the past few years just haven’t really done that well compared to how well they expected them to do. Everything we were shown, though, makes it seem like we are in for a lot of interesting projects over the coming years. One project that people weren’t really expecting to hear anything about was a film that is being made for the ‘Static Shock’ character.
The ‘Static Shock‘ comic book series was originally created by Milestone Comics which was a part of Milestone Media. The company was founded by a group of African-Americans artists which included Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle in 1993. What they wanted to do was address the under-representation of racial minorities in superhero franchises and they succeeded with one series, ‘Static Shock.’ All of their comics were published and distributed by DC but the one that drew the most attention was the one featuring the titular character. The character of Static Shock became so popular that it even ended up becoming an animated kids show that was very popular during its time.
During DC FanDome this past weekend, there was a surprise panel where prolific filmmaker Reginald Hudlin revealed that there is a live-action ‘Static Shock’ movie in development. Back when the animated series was popular, there were plans for an animated movie that ended up being ultimately scrapped, but it seems like this may be a serious attempt to make the movie in the modern day. Hudlin revealed that while the movie is in development, it is still in the very early stages with no actors actually tied to the movie yet. With this aside though, it would be nice to eventually see this movie come to fruition given the significant impact the original series had on people growing up. Hopefully, more news about the movie will be coming in the near future.
By George Robbins
This past weekend was a huge weekend for DC fans everywhere as it allowed fans to get information on any upcoming DC projects. There are a decent number of upcoming projects that were talked about at length this past weekend and we now know more about each one of them. The details for everything that was shown off were scarce before the convention, so every bit of detail we could get was good. This is why many DC fans are content with the information they received over the previous weekend and are now so more than ever excited about upcoming projects. Learning all of this from wherever people were at made it easy for the information to spread very quickly.
One of the more prevalent movies to be shown during the event was the Snyder Cut of the ‘Justice League‘ movie. It was decided a couple of months ago that this version of the film would become available some time early next year on HBO Max. It was decided that it would be released after many fans petitioned for years because they believed that the version of the movie they got to see in theaters was not the one they should have ended up with. Thus, Snyder decided to work on his version of the film with a budget given by Warner Bros. to make the version complete. What was just revealed about the cut is that it will be more adult oriented and it will be longer than the original film.
In fact, it will be so much longer than the original film, that it will be split up on HBO Max into four one-hour long episodes that will be put up on the service. What some fans may not have wanted to hear recently though is that the new version of the film will not be considered canon moving forward, so whatever happens in the film is self-contained. We will not see this version having any long-lasting effects on the DCEU moving forward and this may end up being disappointing for many fans. That aside, everything we have heard so far about the movie has been relatively good news. This means that we have a lot to look forward to in the beginning of next year when the Snyder Cut actually releases to the public.
By George Robbins
DC FanDome has come and gone and it was pretty much a success which isn’t really too much of a surprise given the fact that DC put a lot of effort into it. The convention, like every other Comic-Con this year, was forced to be held online but they had it easier than they might have if this wasn’t the convention’s first year. This gave them the upper hand because it allowed them to get everything set up without having to cancel any previously made plans. With everyone allowed free admission to the event like every other Con this year, they allowed more people to see everything for better promotion. Everyone knows that with better promotion, comes better chances at selling a product, especially for movies.
One of the more enigmatic films that was shown off at the convention that people have been waiting to hear about was ‘The Batman.’ This upcoming DC film focuses on the titular hero as he deals with countless new threats and no one knew what this would really be about. People figured that the movie is adapted from one of the comic book stories, but for the longest time there was no word as to just what story was being adapted. From what we had heard from the actors and from the director, the movie would have villains in it such as the Penguin, the Riddler, and Catwoman. After this past weekend we now have a better idea as to what it was adapted from.
Director Matt Reeves admitted that the story does actually have inspiration from a comic book story about the character. Based upon what we had already learned about the film, we figured that it had to be early in the character’s career as the Caped Crusader. It turns out that it actually is early on in his career, but it isn’t a story that was adapted from the ‘Year One’ story by comic writer Frank Miller. Reeves instead named Darwyn Cooke’s ‘Batman: Ego and Other Tails’ as being a big influence on the film and it has influenced just what kind of story will unfold. Early in his career, Batman was fighting crime to stop things from happening to people like they did with his parents, but his trauma is still there. Thus we will likely see this crop up as ‘The Batman’ faces the Riddler.
By George Robbins
Over this past weekend, the DC FanDome online event happened for the first time and it gave fans a lot to look forward to. A lot of DC Extended Universe, or DCEU, films are going to be coming out in the near future and this event is essentially the equivalent to any Comic-Con. It’s an event that gives directors and actors a platform where fans can ask questions in regards to just about anything. So over the past weekend, one of the big releases that ended up being talked about the most was the upcoming standalone film, ‘The Batman.’ This movie has been on people’s minds a lot as of late because it features a lot of characters that people know from the Batman comics.
What some people may not know, but I have mentioned already, is the fact that this movie will be a standalone film. This separates the movie from any other part of the DCEU because it means nothing in the film will necessarily carry over into the DCEU at any point. With this in mind, there is still a lot of hard work going into the creation of this film. As of late, they have had to continue filming while no longer being on vacation because the pandemic has made it more difficult to do so. Not to mention that the actors for the film have all said that they wanted to get back to work and the director is still planning on having the film ready by next year. This just shows how seriously they take getting this film done on time.
Director Matt Reeves answered a lot of questions this past weekend in regards to the upcoming film and it gave us a lot to think about moving forward. One of the more interesting things that Reeves made mention of was the fact that he didn’t at all mind Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman. Many did not like that iteration, but that is mainly due to the plots of the movies he was in. He didn’t really have a long stint as the Caped Crusader and that made even more people not like his portrayal. However, as an older and more grizzled Batman, he did a good job at portraying the character in a dignified but ultimately jaded way. This is something that a lot of people can understand from his portrayal, but that iteration will be tainted by the movies he played in.
By George Robbins
This past weekend was a big weekend for DC fans and overall, a big weekend for comic book fans in general. DC FanDome took place for the first time ever and it was considered a success given the amount of information fans ended up receiving over the weekend. Many different DC properties received the limelight and it gave fans a chance to find out just what would be coming up for the DCEU in the not too distant future. Among the titles that had information given on them was ‘The Suicide Squad’ which is James Gunn’s “spiritual reboot” to the first ‘Suicide Squad‘ movie. Gunn revealed during the online only event just how much work was put into the new film and some other info was discovered as well.
The original ‘Suicide Squad’ movie has been receiving a lot of attention as of late because director David Ayer has been very vocal about the changes that were made to it. According to Ayer, the studio made them do reshoots for the movie that Ayer and the general public believe ruined the film. They were trying to compete with the recently released ‘Deadpool’ and by adding in a more comedic tone to the movie, they ruined the overall tone of the film. This was sparked for conversation after it was revealed that Zack Snyder would be releasing a director’s cut for ‘Justice League’ that would premiere next year. Due to this Ayer made himself very vocal to try and get fans to side with him so he could do the same thing.
Although there has been no word on Ayer getting the opportunity to put his director’s cut together, Gunn made many more details about his film known. For one thing, we already know from a previous message on social media that the reason for why the name of the new film is ‘The Suicide Squad’ is because he made a joke about the title and an executive said that it would be a good title. DC scooped up Gunn after he was momentarily let go by Disney before he could start working on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. He has since put together an ensemble cast of sorts, but other than Idris Elba and John Cena, no one knew who was in the film or what parts the two actors would play. This past weekend we found out just who would be in the film and what roles they would play.
- Idris Elba as Bloodsport
- John Cena as Peacemaker
- David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man
- Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2
- Steve Agee as King Shark
- Nathan Fillion as TDK
- Mayling Ng as Mongal
- Flula Borg as Javelin
- Sean Gunn as Weasel
- Michael Rooker as Savant
- Pete Davidson as Blackguard
- Peter Capaldi as The Thinker
- Alice Braga as Sol Soria
- Storm Reid as Tyla, Bloodsport’s daughter
- Juan Diego Botto as General Luna
- Joaquín Cosío as Major General Suarez
This ensemble cast was more than we ever would have expected to see and it shows off character that most people wouldn’t even really know much about. The cast was shown off during this past weekend and we now have a way of putting faces to names and characters as a whole. Many people have been worried that the movie would end up being just as much of a disappointment as ‘Suicide Squad’ was. Gunn has already said over social media that he is going to be releasing his own version of the film to theaters and that there was no studio interference. With the list of actors now known and Gunn saying that he is launching his own, unhampered version of the film, we can be a bit more hopeful for the release of the film in August of 2021.
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