Yeah, I always thought it was R because it is about a bunch of bad people doing edgy things, and because of Deadpool. But no.
What, it is not even worth an M/MA? These are the worst, most violent and deranged crooks of the DC-verse!
This is probably true:
Oh boy! Here comes the blame game!
[quote]
Though the studio believed there was enough time to get the movie done, a source with ties to the project says it was a sprint from the start. “[Ayer] wrote the script in like, six weeks, and they just went,” he says, arguing that the whole process would have benefited if Ayer, 48, had been given more time to work. But another source closely involved with the film says once it was dated, pushing back the release was not an option: “It’s not just that you’ve told the public the movie is coming, you’ve made huge deals around the world with huge branding partners, with merchandise partners. It’s a really big deal to move a tentpole date.”[/quote]
[quote]
A source with knowledge of events says Warners executives, nervous from the start, grew more anxious after they were blindsided and deeply rattled by the tepid response to BvS. “Kevin was really pissed about damage to the brand,” says one executive close to the studio. A key concern for Warners executives was that Suicide Squad didn’t deliver on the fun, edgy tone promised in the strong teaser trailer for the film. So while Ayer pursued his original vision, Warners set about working on a different cut, with an assist from Trailer Park, the company that had made the teaser.
By the time the film was done, multiple editors had been brought into the process, though only John Gilroy is credited. (A source says he left by the end of the process and that the final editor was Michael Tronick.) “When you have big tentpoles and time pressure, you pull in resources from every which way you can,” says this source. “You can’t do it the way it used to be, with one editor and one assistant editor.”
In May, Ayer’s more somber version and a lighter, studio-favored version were tested with audiences in Northern California. “If there are multiple opinions that aren’t in sync, you go down multiple tracks — two tracks at least,” says an insider. “That was the case here for a period of time, always trying to get to a place where you have consensus.”[/quote]
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a movie being re-cut by the trailer company.
Wow, thanks for the link. That’s just nuts. “You know that 2 minute trailer you did? That was great. Can you make the whole movie seem that way, even though we don’t really have the footage to make that work?”
That Hollywood Reporter article is damning.
Maybe… just maybe, the reason Guardians of the Galaxy was so good, was that you let the creators do their work. James Gunn and his co-writer Nicole Perlman got to be free from most of the Marvel-verse trappings (due to the lack of any A-level Marvel characters). And it was the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight. (and possibly the first Avengers)
Jesus, let the people you pay to do the work, do the work.
Nobody has ever made a critically successful film, or work of art, (That is what film is) that the studio took and said, we need to recut the entire film to be more like a teaser trailer.
I was excited to see this, but I think I will have to wait for HBO Go on this one.
From the Hollywood Reporter article:
Sometimes it works (Colin Trevorrow on Jurassic World), and sometimes it doesn’t (James Bobin on Alice Through the Looking Glass).
Jurassic World is the best-case scenario here. Jesus. The hell with summer blockbusters, and the hell with idiotic roadmaps made years in advance.
Honestly, I think Marvel is probably the best counterpoint to this argument. There’s clearly something about how Marvel does things that ensures a certain level of bustproof quality. Letting the individual directors have completely free reign would almost certainly result in more variance—probably some stronger movies and probably some real stinkers. Whatever Marvel’s doing is creating more of a consistent standard, despite using a diverse range of directors with varying degrees of tentpole movie experience.
Hang on, you lost me at “Guardians of the Galaxy was so good”. GotG was good? I thought it was the weakest of all MCU movies. Well, maybe just a little better than Thor 2, but that’s still damning it with faint praise. They even got Amy Pond I still can’t find anyone in that movie that I like.
There IS a well oiled machine with Marvel Studios. Not all of their movies are good, but they produced so many in the last few years it just doesn’t matter. Even the bad ones made enough money to at least break even, and the good ones (like the Avengers, CA, Iron Man) make gazillion dollars. While for DC, they bet big on one or two, when those barely made enough profit, that hurts, and affected the whole DC universe pipeline.
Marvel having a diversified portfolio is a classic risk management strategy, and it DOES work. And now they are poised to introduce even more diversification to the MCU like Doctor Sherlock and Black Panther. From what I can see the gap between DC universe and MCU will only grow unless Marvel scores a few own goals in a row.
Guardians of the Galaxy was good.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but where have you been for the last two years that you can jump into a conversation and act surprised that the rest of the world liked GotG?
Agreed. Clearly Marvel does not let their directors go hog wild with their own style. There’s minor differences - Guardians’ soundtrack versus anything else in the MCU, for example - but throughout the MCU there’s a certain consistency in style that’s unmistakably not springing forth unbidden from the directors. We know this because we’ve seen movies from most of these directors when they were on their own and they are nothing alike. Shane Black’s style of direction is not the same as Kenneth Branagh’s when they’re just doing their own projects, but their MCU movies conform to that MCU “house style”.
The downside, of course, is that by having directors follow their guidelines, the MCU stuff is always going to feel a little less stylistically risky. Perhaps Doctor Strange will buck that a bit with its trippy visuals, but outside of the effects I’ll wager that Scott Derrickson’s movie isn’t going to feel like his horror films.
Marvel definitely has a better way of working with directors - having them work within certain constraints without completely micromanaging them. Marvel also took more time to build the MCU whereas the DCU was rather rushed in response to the success of the MCU, and it’s showing. Last but not least, Warner put Zack Snyder in charge of crafting the initial DCU. Zack Snyder clearly is no Kevin Feige.
I am a troll.
I was turned into a troll by a wisp.
Save me by giving me a hug.
And now I will proceed to my troll routine:
“DC needs to find his own vooooooooiceeeeeeeeeee”
Well, I live on another planet too because GotG sucked…and every Pratt movie since has followed the same stupid model. I fear for Mag 7.
For this film, my biggest fear is it will be a Will Smith film, as opposed to a film with the supervillian characters. Like Pratt, Smith always plays himself, and demands screen time. Be great to see him play in an ensemble.
Well, again, Wholly’s point (and, before him–originally–Jon’s) is that GotG received near-universal acclaim, and that perhaps that was due in part to the freedoms granted its director. There’s absolutely room to disagree individually with that view, but from the perspective of “Suicide Squad feels like WB wanted to do their own version of GotG without understanding any of the reasons why GotG was ‘good’,” we’re speaking from the baseline of “generally considered good,” individual (fantastically wrong, mind you) opinion aside.
[quote=“WhollySchmidt, post:271, topic:75994”]
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but where have you been for the last two years that you can jump into a conversation and act surprised that the rest of the world liked GotG?[/quote]
[quote=“mok, post:275, topic:75994”]
Well, I live on another planet too because GotG sucked[/quote]
The point was just that the world liked the movie, not that everyone who dislikes it is an alien!
EDIT: Or what Armando said…
I don’t think so. Every Marvel movie since GotG was “meh” to me. (Deadpool as an exception) because they all are starting to feel very formulaic and heavily tested. Ironman 1 was great, Avengers too, but it feels like I can sense that these movies are being manufactured more than created by the love of an individual auteur. They lack style. Something about these movies just fall flat for me.
I understand THR is speaking in terms of Box Office revenue, but as a fan of films I couldn’t give a flying fuck how much these movies are making. I want a good movie, and Marvel’s factory has been dulling all of the edges and bubble wrapping these things lately.
Suicide Squad, like GotG, or Deadpool, is the perfect property to leave the process out of it.
Excited to see a director’s cut of Suicide Squad.
But I thought different directors DID add their own touches to their MCU movies. Shane Black brought a lot of 80s-90s action movie wise cracking to Tony Stark, and it fits perfectly. That dynamic/dysfunctional duo of Stark and the kid in IM3 is clearly Shane Black at his best. Branagh brought Shakespearean gravitas to Thor. When it works, when the director’s touch enhanced the existing characters, then it is a joy to watch.
I agree, but I would just put the shark jumping point a bit earlier. IM3, Winter Soldier and Civil War are good, but Thor 2, Avengers 2, GotG and Ant-man (assembly line production if there ever is one) kind of sucked. The assembly line is a bit of hit and miss, but as far as profit is concerned, they all made money, so it will continue in its current direction. It will only dramatically change when the assembly line stop making money.
Alas I probably won’t judge Suicide Squad until I’ve actually seen it (probably a rental). BvS IMO wasn’t as bad as some people say (cue Tom mocking WHYDIDYOUSAYTHATNAME).
I said there a minor differences between the movies. That’s entirely due to the different directors. I don’t think that contradicts the idea that they’re all working within the confines of the MCU house style. We know what happens when a director tries to go too far outside of that restriction thanks to Edgar Wright and Ant-Man. The fact that Peyton Reed was able to step in at such a late date and direct a movie that still fit in the MCU style speaks volumes about the strength of the studio’s vision.