Vanity Fair did a very interesting interview the other day with Batman V Superman and Justice League writer Chris Terrio, and now things don’t look good for Warner Bros. Pictures.
We’ve been writing about what’s going on inside of WarnerMedia for quite some time now, and to cut many articles short, the whole thing’s a mess.
A few weeks back we were seeing a number of ‘hit pieces’ come out against Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Variety published an interview with WarnerMedia Studios’ CEO Ann Sarnoff in which she said that the SnyderVerse was ending with Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
She also added that the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad was not going to be released.
And then, in an effort to pour fuel onto an already blazing fire, she basically branded all fans of the SnyderVerse as toxic.
Nice one, Ann.
The tides against Warner Bros. Pictures are turning
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Read more: Restoring The SnyderVerse: Zack Snyder’s Fight To Get Justice League Released In China
Honestly, you couldn’t come up with this stuff if you tried.
There was then an article in Deadline in which they twisted Samba TV’s viewership numbers for Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
They made it look like the film performed poorly on HBO Max, which just isn’t the case.
They’ve also recently published the most ludicrous graph I’ve ever seen in which they tried to convince us that Snyder’s movie didn’t really add to the time people spent on HBO Max in the US.
You can check out this incredibly asinine graph in the tweet below.
https://twitter.com/YrOnlyHope/status/1379808187679977474
However, the tides are turning as we’ve seen Kim Masters publish her interview with Ray Fisher in The Hollywood Reporter.
We’ve now also had Chris Terrio’s interview with Vanity Fair, and both articles are terrible for Warner Bros. Pictures.
They both demonstrate that Warner Bros. is not in touch.
It’s still an old-school movie studio that is hellbent on doing things the old way, even in the 21st century.
It likes to give the impression that it’s a studio that puts filmmakers first.
However, recent events have shown that this is not even close to the truth.
Warner Bros. Pictures still does thing the old-school way
Credit: HBO Max
Read more: The Real Reason WB Won’t Release David Ayer’s Suicide Squad
Warners is a studio that puts investors and executives first.
They put old white guys most probably in their 60s and 70s first.
Chris Terrio made this abundantly clear in his interview.
Here are some quotes from that interview that stood out to me:
Right before the time of Batman/Superman, I was asked to attend an event in New York where the cast and filmmakers were paraded in front of a room of investors at the Time Warner Center, I guess to convince them that their money was in good hands.
Terrio then went on to add:
These guys were in charge because they controlled the money at the very top of the pyramid. They were making big decisions—not the film executives we’re talking about, but Wall Street guys. One guy, who I can only describe as the man who Central Casting sends you when you’re trying to cast Douchebag #1, pulled me aside and started telling me how to write Batman.
Chris Terrio’s interview should mark the end of a crappy era for Warner Bros.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Read more: The Flash Film Chaos: Crisis Inside Warner Bros.
The other part of the interview that really jumped out to me was when Terrio spoke of how Warners vandalized his Justice League script.
The 2017 theatrical cut was an act of vandalism. Zack may be too much of a gentleman to say that, but I’m not.
He also opened up about how his involvement in Justice League ended after the Snyders left the project.
That’s right. I would only hear occasional reports about the reshoot. I didn’t realize how much of the film was going to be changed—or vandalized, in my opinion. It became clear as I spoke to various actors that it was a wholesale dismantling of what had been there before. I did not hear from anyone who said it was a pleasant experience.
Bear in mind that Chris Terrio is an Oscar-winning writer. He won his Oscar for his incredible Argo script.
He knows how to write a good script.
You can’t tell me that some investor knows how to write Batman better than Terrio does?
You can’t tell me that some old white dude who knows nothing of the real world knows how to write a decent script, period.
Warner Bros. Pictures needs to take a long and hard look at itself
Credit: HBO Max
Read more: Why Franchises Need Filmmakers Who Don’t Give A Shit
These two articles in The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair are an embarrassment for Warner Bros. Pictures.
They make them look like complete and utter incompetent morons who wouldn’t know a good film if it slapped them in the face.
It’s a miracle that there have even been half-decent films made in the DCEU, let alone the likes of Wonder Woman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Those two films, in my opinion, are the best films they’ve made under the DC Comics banner, along with Todd Phillips’ Joker movie.
The irony is that Warner Bros. Pictures didn’t actually want Zack Snyder’s Justice League nor Phillips’ Joker to be released!
This is the studio that brought in Joss Whedon to make Josstice League – one of the worst and most expensive comic book movies ever made.
This is a studio that saw David Ayer’s Suicide Squad and then got the company that made the film’s bloody trailer to re-edit the movie into the mess that it ended up being.
And, this is the studio that deliberately gave Todd Phillips a budget of $55 million thinking he’d turn around and say that he couldn’t possibly make the movie for that little money.
Instead, he went off with that money and made an Oscar-winning movie.
That was not down to the executives at Warner Bros. Pictures.
This was down to the talent, imagination and perseverance of the likes of Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix and everyone else involved in the making of that movie.
The incompetence at Warners is mind-boggling
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Read more: Zack Snyder Confirms He’s Working On A New Justice League Trailer
The sheer incompetence of the higher-ups at Warners is mind-boggling.
Honestly, the whole lot of them, even the ones in charge today, should be fired and replaced.
Yep, let’s name names: Toby Emmerich, Carolyn Blackwood, Robert Blair, Richard Brener, Andrew Cripps, Bill Draper, Jeff Goldstein, Jeff Nagler, Courtenay Valenti, Jim Wuthrich, and of course, Ann Sarnoff and Walter Hamada.
Notice how many old white dudes are on that list.
These are many of the key executives at Warner Bros. and they are currently the ones presiding over this whole mess.
Most of them should go and be replaced by people who have a clear vision and who really do put filmmakers and storytellers first.
Their incompetence has led to them losing one of the best filmmakers of all time in Christopher Nolan.
It looks very much like he won’t be making films exclusively for Warners any more after they opted to release all their 2021 blockbusters on HBO Max at the same time as in cinemas without informing the filmmakers, actors nor the companies financing many of these films.
Legendary Pictures almost took Warner Bros. Pictures to court over that awful decision.
So, tell me, does Warner Bros. bleed?
It sure looks like there’s blood in the water.
What do you make of all of this?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
You can also contact me directly via Twitter @EJLauder. My DMs are as always, open.
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God help us, why can’t they just learn from their mistakes. #RestoretheSnyderverse
Warner Bros. are the custodians of some amazing franchises, but unfortunately they couldn’t make a cake if all you had to do is press a button, let alone a movie.