Continuing coverage of DC Studios’ announcement of their new film and TV series slate today, the new studio chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran spoken more about what’s important for their unified cinematic universe going forward.
Key to the whole thing? Good scripts, and more importantly having them in place and ready before filming even begins. Speaking at a press event on the Warner Bros. studio lot last night, Gunn and Safran who say they won’t greenlight a movie until it is ready.
Gunn goes on to say the modern studio habit of scheduling a tentpole film before a creative team is in place has to stop. He adds that even films with front-loaded release dates will be pushed down the calendar if the script is not ready prior to production.
That is why only one film announced on this slate has a release date, “Superman: Legacy,” which Gunn himself is writing. Otherwise, the films like the new Supergirl and Batman & Robin along with the TV series like the “Green Lantern” detective series and the “Wonder Woman” prequel series, are and will remain undated until their scripts are solid:
“People have become beholden to [release] dates, to getting movies made no matter what. I’m a writer at my heart, and we’re not going to be making movies before the screenplay is finished. I’ve seen it happen again and again – it’s a mess. It’s the primary reason for the deterioration in quality of films today, versus 20-30 years ago.
The degradation of the writer in Hollywood has been a terrible story. Its gotten much worse since I first moved here 23 years ago. Writers have been completely left out of the loop in favor of actors and directors, and making the writer more prominent and more important in this process is really important to us.”
Gunn goes on to say that ‘superhero fatigue’ that you hear about these days comes largely down to a lack of care given to the writing process:
“They make these movies where they don’t have third acts written, and then they start writing them during [production], you know, making them up as they’re going along. And then you’re watching a bunch of people punch each other, and there’s no flow even to the action.”
The solution is to diversify the kinds of stories they’re telling at DC Studios, with Gunn taking a very mild swipe at both Marvel Studios and old DC in the process and their penchant for messy third acts with large VFX battles:
“You can’t be telling the same ‘good guy, bad guy, giant thing in the sky, good guys win’ story again. You need to tell stories that are more morally complex. You need to tell stories that don’t just pretend to be different genres, but actually are different genres.”
That stretches to how the stories are told and what determines whether a project is a film, TV series or something else. It also impacts the tone, allowing the franchise to stretch into darker or more adult territory if it’s called for. Gunn says:
“Storytelling is 100% king. So if it’s a story that can be told in a three-act structure, but if it’s more complicated, like the ‘Lanterns’ story is, or more complicated like the ‘Waller’ thing, or is more kind of an independent TV vibe like ‘Booster Gold’ in a way, then that’s more suited for television. So it has to do with tone. It has to do with storytelling.
We’re gonna give every story what it deserves. I mean, some things we know. ‘Superman’ is definitely something we would like to be PG-13. I’m sure that it is. Other things like the ‘Waller’ TV show is a little bit more mature. We have other things that are a little more tame towards young women or kids that are still within this world, but kind of feeds everything back into the Supermans and the Braves and the Bolds.”
He’s also making it very clear his own sensibilities and tastes will not overrule that of the individual filmmaker, allowing for a diversity of voices:
“It’s not the Gunn-verse. What makes it so fun is to see is to see stories that are completely different as the individual expression of the writers and the director that are making those projects … and not about me superimposing something on top of that.”
Gunn adds that while he knows the potential writer’s strike will slow things down, they’re not taking it slow: “we’re doing a lot of it upfront, but it’s not because of the writer’s strike, but because we want to start getting this stuff out there for the fans.”
