James Gunn and Peter Safran will now lead the DC Movie and TV studios

So one thing I loved about DVD/Blue Rays was the commentary. Do any streaming services offer this? I haven’t noticed it even listed for digital purchases either.

A few of the recent Disney+ Marvel movies have a commentary listed under Extras, but I don’t know how to search for those extras in general. I guess you have to look on a case by case basis.

Ooooh. Thanks. I’ll check that.

And the same will be true of most of the other Marvel directors, all smiles and good will. Because that’s what the deal is when you work for Marvel: you will nod and smile and say it all went great. But you will get a ton of notes, and be asked for a ton of revisions. And if your movie goes too long, or you want to go to an R rating, or you want your character to say something that would make retailers not want to carry the merch, or you want to take the character in a direction unrelated to what the plan is for them 5 years out, you will be politely but firmly told to change it. And you will. That’s regardless of whether you’re someone directing their first big budget movie, like Gunn with GotG1, or someone who’s directed a zillion, like Raimi or Joe Johnston. Because you’re a pro who understands what they signed up for. That’s why the mouse hired you in the first place.

Sadly it’s very rare with digital versions of stuff.

Sorry, but I don’t buy it. You can’t take evidence that proves one thing, and claim that it proves the exact opposite. So when MCU directors say that Marvel is great to work with, you’re saying that proves that Marvel exerts total control and keeps them from speaking out against Marvel? Or maybe the directors are actually happy with their experiences at Marvel, as evidenced by their continuing relationship with them.

And of course, its provably false that Marvel forces directors to “say it all went great.” Directors who quit or were fired, like Patty Jenkins or Edgar Wright or Scott Derrickson, have all talked to some extent about their conflicts with Marvel, with varying degrees of discretion on both sides. But even directors who actually completed movies with Marvel, like Alan Taylor or Joss Whedon, have still talked openly about the problems they had and where studio interference affected their movies. Joss Whedon even talks about his conflicts with Marvel Studios on the Blu-ray commentary! That commentary track would not exist if Marvel really had this draconian hold over what directors can say publicly.

Where is your evidence for any of this?? In most cases, Marvel directors have talked openly about how Marvel let them make the movie they wanted.

Joss Whedon has spoken publicly about where Marvel wanted to make him choose between two scenes…but again, the movie as filmed was 2 hours and 21 minutes long. Infinity War is 2 1/2 hours, and Endgame is over three hours! It doesn’t seem like movie length is an issues. And as with a lot of movies, the expected rating is agreed upon in advance. Of course directors aren’t given freedom to make an R movie in a PG-13 franchise.

As for the content, what exactly do you think characters aren’t allowed to say? Yondu is shown in a bedroom with robotic prostitutes. Starlord jokes about the bodily fluids all over the walls of his spaceship. Loki calls Black Widow a medieval euphemism for “c***”, and Tony Stark makes a joke about rape, not to mention the various double entendres he is known for. The toy division of Marvel has no influence on the movie division, and in fact Kevin Feige has been given more control over other areas of the company.

Here’s an article talking with Anthony Russo about this exact topic:

So no, it doesn’t sound like Marvel has a five-year plan that the directors are required to follow. There was no overarching plan to have Thanos be the villain of Infinity War; Whedon just thought it would be a cool Easter egg at the end of Avengers, and then future writers started thinking about where the movies could go based on that. And sure, there are some specific counterexamples—Gunn wanted Thanos to be the villain of Guardians of the Galaxy, but they didn’t want to bring the character in yet—but generally it’s the movies that drive future plans, not the other way around.

I don’t think someone saying good things about the people employing them means the opposite of what they’re saying, I just don’t think we usually have the insight to know who means it and who doesn’t. It’s not that it proves the opposite, it’s that it’s not really useful as proof of what they’re claiming either.

It isn’t an issue because it’s agreed on in advance, like the rating. Movie length is usually specified in the contract between the director and the studio - it’ll say that the movie will be no less than a minimum of X minutes, no longer than a maximum of Y. Now that can change during production, i.e. that item in the contract can be renegotiated. And whether that maximum is two hours or three hours will vary depending on how the studio sees the movie’s prospects - is this movie regular fare, or a Big Event? But the length is specified in advance because it’s a business decision relevant to a lot of parties. Both theatrical exhibitors and tv networks want something that will fit nicely into predetermined slots and allow a predictable number of shows in a given number of hours.

… All kinds of things. Even within a PG-13 rating, you can still have a script that offends swathes of society, or that just positions a valuable franchise character in a way that the IP holder (i.e. Disney) doesn’t want. Every IP holder defines the allowed boundaries for their IP for the people hired to use their property … which is what these movie directors are, even James Gunn or Sam Raimi. Laying down those boundaries is literally the IP holder’s job. Disney is, and always has been, well-known in Hollywood for being a stickler about this (while WB has made a point about more loosey-goosey, allowing directors more freedom.) Of course, Disney’s attitude is well-known enough that people in the biz are aware that pitching (say) a comics-accurate adaptation of The Ultimates wouldn’t fly with Disney, no matter how much money The Boys is making. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy: people who work for Disney don’t complain that the mouse doesn’t allow them full creative freedom, because they already knew full well what the gig is going in.

Marvel does, of course, make plans. If for some reason we had to, we could deduce this from the movies themselves - from the way Nick Fury introduces the Avengers Initiative in Iron Man, four years before The Avengers movie, from the way Captain Marvel shows up at the end of Ms. Marvel to set up The Marvels, from how WandaVision sets up Wanda for Dr. Strange 2, from how Hawkeye (of all people) shows up in Thor in a scene that adds literally nothing to the story other than to tell us that Hawkeye exists in this universe, etc. etc. etc.

But we don’t have to deduce it from the movies. That’s because every so often Kevin Feige puts on his cap, walks out in front of an audience of fans and investors, puts up a timeline filled with information about the movies they plan to make, and says, “This is our plan.” So, for example, we know that on Friday, May 2nd, 2025, Marvel plans to release a movie called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, directed by Daniel Destin Cretton. This is going to be an installment in a long running planned storyline involving Kang, which we know because he was introduced in 2021 in Loki and is in the trailers for Quantumania.

Now, will Avengers: The Kang Dynasty actually release on May 2nd 2025, and will it actually be directed by Daniel Destin Cretton? It’s impossible to be certain. Just a few months after announcing Avengers: Secret Wars for fall 2025, for example, Disney pushed it ahead by six months. Issues with the development of the Blade movie caused all sorts of things to shift, as no doubt did the soft box office for The Eternals. Plans change all the time.

A script for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty probably hasn’t been finished, and they probably don’t even know for sure exactly which characters are going to be in it yet. Plans are often incomplete and contingent. Often they have to be torn up and redone. But the key thing is, an incomplete, contingent, and frequently rewritten plan is a very different thing from having no plan at all. (Which you can see clearly when comparing relatively more-planned Marvel to some other, less planned franchises …)

If Gunn said how much free rein he was given at Marvel (and even more at DC), and Feige talks about how much he values directors like Gunn, and the DVD extras and commentaries show how much control he had over the process and how he got to do what he wanted.… I mean, at some point you have to take people at their word, and not assume it’s some elaborately crafted plan where everyone pretends that they work well together but actually they’re all seething as they continue their multi-picture deal where Gunn is executive producer on multiple movies. If you want to assume that people are lying, then it’s not even worth discussing the topic at all.

You brought all of this up to say that Marvel doesn’t give its directors free rein over how they can make their movies. If both parties agree on a range of running times in advance, then no one is being stifled. You’re acting like directors don’t understand the realities of the moviemaking business, when I think all of these things are perfectly standard. (And Avengers: Endgame violated every rule of “fitting nicely into predetermined slots and having a predictable number of shows”, so clearly Marvel isn’t draconian about these things.)

If they understand the boundaries going in, then they are being allowed full creative freedom. It’s not like Gunn wants to make Marvel characters say things that will offend large swathes of society; he wants complete creative freedom within that sandbox, and he’s gotten it.

Your argument was that directors would be forced to change their movie if it violates the five-year plan; I’m saying that the directors have the freedom to make the movies the way they want, because (as Anthony Russo pointed out) the five-year plan is based on the movies, not the other way around.

And yes, of course Marvel makes plans for future movies! (But even Kevin Feige admits that when they put in the Samuel L. Jackson cameo, they were being very optimistic and had no definite plans in place for The Avengers. They didn’t even know if Iron Man would succeed!) What I’m disputing is that those plans restrict directors from making the movies they want, as you previously argued.

I didn’t say that Marvel doesn’t have a five-year plan; I said that Marvel doesn’t have a five-year plan that the directors are required to follow. They don’t know for sure which characters will be in The Kang Dynasty, because it depends on the individual story decisions of all the writers and directors between now and then. The plan is based on what the directors choose; the directors aren’t restricted based on the plan.

The Criterion Channel frequently featured commentary tracks and interviews.

Why not Snyder and his murderverse?

QT weighs in!

“You have to be a hired hand to do those things,” Tarantino said of Marvel movies. “I’m not a hired hand. I’m not looking for a job.”

In “Cinema Speculation,” Tarantino writes that today’s filmmakers “can’t wait for the day” superhero movies fall out of favor in the same way 1960s directors rejoiced when popularity for studio musicals waned. The director told the L.A. Times that such comments are “snarky little asides out of the corner of my mouth.”

“Of course, I liked ‘Star Wars.’ What’s not to like?” Tarantino said. “But I remember — and this is not a ‘but’ in a negative way, but in a good way. The movie completely carried me along and I was just rocking and rolling with these characters….When the lights came on, I felt like a million dollars. And I looked around and had this moment of recognition, thinking, ‘Wow! What a time at the movies!’”

“Now, that’s not necessarily my favorite exact type of film,” Tarantino continued. “At the end of the day, I’m more of a ‘Close Encounters [of the Third Kind]’ guy, just the bigger idea and Spielberg setting out to make an epic for regular people, not just cinephiles. Few films had the kind of climax that ‘Close Encounters’ had. It blew audiences away.”

Lots to unpack in here.

  • WW3 is dead, at least the version Patty Jenkins wrote.
  • Black Adam may not get a sequel. Reportedly, Dwayne Johnson is clashing with Gunn and Safran.
  • Cavill’s Superman cameo in Flash may not actually make the cut.
  • Momoa as Aquaman may be finished after Lost City, in favor of Momoa as Lobo.
  • Matt Reeves Batman movies are a go for now.

Probably for the best.

This is a terrific idea.

Excellent!

People be saying Henry Cavil might not get any more Superman, and while this would suck, I hear 007 has an opening.

Sorry, there’s only one actor I want for that role.

I guess he could sit at home and play games too.

Does Momoa not want to do Aquaman any more? Because otherwise, this sounds insane … though very typical of the DC movieverse.

Junior Executive: Good news! We’ve taken a familiar lower-tier character who used to only be the butt of jokes and made him into a hit franchise, a rare bright spot in our otherwise bleak last decade of superhero movies. We’ve effectively beaten Marvel to the punch - the general movie-going public now thinks of Aquaman as the underwater superhero, and Namor as the imitation. And everyone just loves Momoa as the character.

Senior Executive: Excellent. Now, on to the next stage. I want you to …

Junior Executive: Make a third Aquaman movie?

Senior Executive: No! Stop making Aquaman movies altogether. Have Momoa play Lobo instead.

Junior Executive: But … Aquaman is doing just fine. The general movie-going public has no idea who Lobo is.

Senior Executive: (a manic gleam in his eye) Exactly!

Bizarro World Scientist: (turning away from telescope pointed at Earth) Bizarro spy am doing terrible job as senior executive. He should get promotion!

It sounds like its more that Gunn and Safran have a plan that includes sweeping out any vestiges of the Snyderverse.

I can’t believe it.

I’ve been neutral on the DC output. The Batman is pretty incredible. Probably my favorite adaptation of the character in film. Never saw any of the Snyder films. No interest. I’m no comic book pursuit but muted-tone, dire Superman isn’t what I personally found compelling about that character. Aquaman was fun, if forgettable. Wonder Woman was whatever but 1984 absolutely stunk. Joker was fine too; Felt like an imitation of better films, however. I liked Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad.

DC needs a cohesive vision but it doesn’t need to be one major shared universe. I hope Gunn and Safran realize this. You can find a lane within films that doesn’t just copy Marvel or hard tilt to some darker, edgier interpretations. There’s a balance to be found somewhere between it all.